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Recordings › Jinn Possessions: Myth and Reality in Islam by Sh. Akram Nadwi & Mufti Abu Layth · 20 Sep 2017 › Segment 15 of 25

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People I know have seen jinn possession; does that not prove it?

hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith muftis iman imaan eemaan eeman djinn jin jinnat jinni koran quraan al-quran

'But my uncle experienced it': why only our experiences count, and reason switched off for one's own faith

LessonRecorded 20 Sep 2017Debunking Myths On: Jinns, Magic, the Evil Eye, and SuperstitionsSegment 15 of 25 in the recording2017-09-20-S15

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This segment1:15:34 to 1:19:28 · 3 min 54 sGeneral teaching

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Anecdotal experience is no proof: Muslims dismiss other faiths' miracle claims by reason while refusing to reason about their own, and possession afflicts only those who believe in it. A brain study found the prefrontal cortex shutting down during people's own religious experiences.

In more detail

Mufti Abu Layth says that when told possession does not exist, most people do not cite a hadith but an anecdote, an uncle, an aunt or a friend who witnessed it, and asks why only our experiences count. We dismiss other faiths' experiences out of hand: he cites Satya Sai Baba, who claimed miracles before millions of attesting followers, whom no Muslim would entertain for a second; we reason against the Trinity by saying three cannot equal one, and call Hindu mythology absurd, not because Allah says so but because it makes no sense, yet when the same kind of claim comes Islamicised, reason shuts down and 'I experienced it' ends the matter. He notes, as the guest had said, that possession seems to afflict only those who believe in it, never atheists or non-Muslims. He reports a study in which people's brain activity was measured during their own religious ceremonies and sermons: researchers expected to find positive neurotransmitters released but instead found activity in the prefrontal cortex, the seat of rational thought, shutting down, so that people block their own reasoning when it comes to their own faith.

Position stated

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Mufti Abu Layth says Muslims accept anecdotal experiences of possession while dismissing other faiths' miracle claims by reason, that possession seems to afflict only those who believe in it, and that people switch off their reasoning for their own faith.

In his words

“the question is why only our experiences why not everybody's experiences why not other faiths”

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Transcript

machine1:15:34 to 1:19:28 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
1:15:26

and plotting people actually buy into the idea as well so I'm not saying people some many of these Iraqis may be very sincere in what they do they've just bought into the idea that's all experiences is an interesting one why is it that we only take our experiences you heard just a few minutes ago that these gene problems only seem to affect those people who believe in them you don't see atheists you don't see mega atheists you don't see non-muslims getting afflicted now and why only our experiences if we're gonna say yeah because a lot of people when you tell them these things

1:16:06

don't exist I'll tell you the first thing they'll say they won't say yeah but it's some may say now that oh because of this hadith or that because they've learned that but most people would say ah no no no my uncle his nephew or his new eyes witnessed or I know somebody who this happened to or my auntie or my mother people will use expert anecdotal experiences to say oh but so-and-so they experience this the question is why only our experiences why not everybody's experiences why not other faiths why do we discount

1:16:45

immediately things like reincarnation I I've quoted before on several occasions why do we discount miracles of of the Hindu Saddles and what why immediately even though they could have millions of followers and I've caught an example of who was very famous in his time Satya Sai Baba saying that he had demonstrated in front of apparently millions of people miracles and he had millions attesting to his miracles yet you wouldn't for a second entertain it like if I told you that even for a second

1:17:24

you won't entertain him you won't even think for a few seconds you know maybe he is doing all of this you'll just dismiss it immediately and and the interesting thing is you'll start to reason against it you start to use reason even though when I present let's say I present cases of demonic possessions you'll never resort to reason but to discount and discredit other religions immediately the voice of reason is called up like when you say oh but this is dumb in say oh but it's absurd in Christianity to say 3 equals 1 they don't say well you say well why is

1:18:04

absurd oh because Allah says in the Quran no they say because look logic it doesn't make sense they say it's absurd to say oh the the Hindu mythology this is absurd why not because Allah says because it's absurd they say it doesn't make any sense when you present the same thing from what has been is Lama sized they shut down no no no it doesn't matter I've experienced now what's interesting there has been a psychological study on certain people when they're going through religious experiences and they're listening to their preachers and they're listening to like the attending church or they're

1:18:43

attending things and people have checked it and they've measured kind of brain neural activity and they thought what they were going you can find these kind of the results of this online they thought they were going to find a lot of certain neurotransmitters being released and positive feelings and all this year like you know they the preachers going on and but what they actually found was the the the prefrontal cortex which is involved in a lot of our thinking and rational thing actually activity and it shuts down when we're going through our own religious stuff when we're engaging in our religious kind of ceremonies neural

1:19:23

activity in the prefrontal cortex seems to shut down which is interesting so people block themselves from reasoning when it comes to their own faith that's just I thought well and I'll you see when I said here that we don't see gene possessions happening with Kafar or with atheists or something people might say oh but how do you not know that the mental illnesses are not gene possessions you see this is like I want to give you an allegory a kind of a story paradigm of of a child who doesn't

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Cite this segment

Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2017-09-20-S15, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/7z8yu8kr83y/s/15/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2017, September 20). People I know have seen jinn possession; does that not prove it? [Video, segment 2017-09-20-S15, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/7z8yu8kr83y/s/15/
Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2017. "People I know have seen jinn possession; does that not prove it?" Video, segment 2017-09-20-S15, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded September 20, 2017. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/7z8yu8kr83y/s/15/
BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2017-09-20-S15,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{People I know have seen jinn possession; does that not prove it?}},
  year = {2017},
  month = {9},
  date = {2017-09-20},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/7z8yu8kr83y/s/15/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/7z8yu8kr83y/s/15/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2017-09-20-S15, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}
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