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Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #201| Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 9 Feb 2021 › Segment 7 of 37

Were some of the great imams autistic?

imaam prayer leader shafi shafei shafiite shafi'i school muftis shirq mushrik mushrikin polytheism

Were some great religious figures autistic?

QuestionLive chat · questioner not identifiedAnswered 9 Feb 2021Monday Nights with Mufti Abu Layth Segment 7 of 37 in the recording2021-02-09-S07

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This segment47:04 to 49:37 · 2 min 33 sGeneral teaching

The answer in brief

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Mufti Abu Layth says he feels Imam Ahmad and Imam al-Shafi'i were autistic, and suspects Ibn Taymiyya had bipolar or a psychotic disorder.

In more detail

A chat question suggests that many religious figures were autistic. Mufti Abu Layth agrees, saying he feels Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Imam al-Shafi'i were autistic: highly intelligent but not always reading social cues, which can do damage when such people become leaders who are emulated. Mufti says he does not get the impression Ibn Taymiyya was autistic, but thinks he may have suffered from bipolar disorder or some psychotic disorder.

Question as read aloud · questioner not identified
Don't you think a lot of religious figures were autistic?

Position stated

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Mufti Abu Layth says he feels people like Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Imam al-Shafi'i were autistic.

In his words

“they definitely were i feel that uh people like imam ahmed ibn hambal imam shafi'i i feel they were autistic people”

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Transcript

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abu safura savage what is going on what have i missed many times yeah i've covered that in my discussion on ibn rush i should have they are autistic side but don't you think a lot of religious figures were autistic they definitely were i feel that uh people like imam ahmed ibn hambal imam shafi'i i feel they were autistic people i mean that doesn't mean many autistic people

are geniuses but uh so many key professors and you know people like that are autistic but they're incredibly intelligent and super clever but they're not uh you know they don't um sometimes get social cues on the same level and the worst thing could be i suppose it's not a worse thing but i mean the the i have to reword that it's not the worst thing but the the the kind of damage that it could cause some damage in the sense when they become then leaders because they are then emulated but what

you don't understand is that they probably didn't understand certain social interactions so um yeah but i mean people like uh i i don't i don't know if ibna tamiya was autistic i i don't get that impression he was autistic but i get the impression he suffered from maybe bipolar or um or some kind of um you know yeah i think bipolar but definitely if not some psychotic disorder

uh maybe some form of schizophrenia or something but yeah it's because it's definite that's what i would think with ibn mia are you scared of peer success [Laughter] are you talking to me why would i be scared of beer sake so yes sacha angels in disguise i don't know what that even means ah mufti what

caste are you castism ethnicity a cha cha cha we are jut jata molaj art that's how that's how it is people that's how it is i don't why don't you we hija khadi on shirk has yasir khadi done something on shirk

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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 2021-02-09-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/7/ (accessed 1 November 2026)

APA 7

Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, February 9). Were some of the great imams autistic? [Video, segment 2021-02-09-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/7/

Chicago author-date

Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Were some of the great imams autistic?" Video, segment 2021-02-09-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded February 9, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/7/

BibTeX

@misc{abulayth-2021-02-09-S07,
  author = {Mufti Abu Layth},
  title = {{Were some of the great imams autistic?}},
  year = {2021},
  month = {2},
  date = {2021-02-09},
  howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/7/}},
  url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/l4n4wd2jjps/s/7/},
  organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive},
  urldate = {2026-11-01},
  note = {Segment 2021-02-09-S07, auto-transcribed, may contain errors}
}

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