Recordings › Jinn: Myth and Reality in Islam by Mufti Abu Layth · 15 Apr 2018 › Segment 8 of 17
How do we know mental illness is not really jinn possession?
muftis dalil daleel adillah adilla proof iman imaan eemaan eeman djinn jin jinnat jinni sihr sihar jadu jadoo kala jadu sorcery amanah amana amaanah amanat deen al-din ad-deen ad-dinThe jinn as an explanation for everything: the cyborg paradigm and Basil Mitchell's partisan and stranger
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This segment28:46 to 34:00 · 5 min 14 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth answers that an explanation which fits everything, like a child told that cyborgs cause all events, is not thereby true; the jinn have become the Muslim catch-all. Such belief is what Basil Mitchell's parable of the partisan describes, a faith no evidence can shake.
In more detail
To those who ask how he knows mental illnesses are not possession, Mufti Abu Layth offers an allegory: a child asks its mother why things happen and, lacking answers, she tells it that cyborgs, human-like artificial intelligences, are responsible for everything. Trusting her, the child can now explain anything it does not understand, from earthquakes to politics, with the cyborg conspiracy. One explanation that fits everything is not thereby true, and he says the jinn are the Muslim version: someone rejects the message because the jinn influenced him, mental illness is the jinn, magic is the jinn, a belief so plastic it stretches over anything. He then recounts Basil Mitchell's parable of the partisan and the stranger from the philosophy of religion: a stranger convinces a resistance fighter that he is the movement's secret leader and warns that he will be seen acting for the other side as part of a greater plan. Once the partisan has bought in, nothing the stranger says or does can shake him, even a confession that it was all a lie. This, Mufti says, is non-propositional faith, where evidence and reason no longer matter because everything, including science, is read as Shaytan's trick or part of the test, so there is no way to win and it is game over for anyone who tries to reason.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth holds that using the jinn to explain anything unexplained is like a child's all-purpose conspiracy, an unfalsifiable non-propositional faith such as Basil Mitchell's partisan holds, which no evidence or reasoning can touch.
“if you've just got one version to answer everything then yes you can do that but it doesn't make it true”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine28:46 to 34:00 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
attending things and people have checked 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 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 in it shuts down when we're going through our own religious stuff when we're engaging in our all religious kind of ceremonies neural
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 sit 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
understand the world and asks its mother asks you know their mother why is this happening why is that being what is happening and the mother doesn't have the answers so the mother says well what are these is mother comes up with a a cyborg invasion paradigm where the son mother says what it is is these cyborgs these kind of like human-like artificial intelligence as actually is responsible for everything that's the mother's answer so the mother says that this is what's making so why is this happening oh because artificial intelligence and these cyborgs have done this and they've
done this and oh they've convinced this person to do this so this becomes the conspiracy now the child because it trusts the mother takes on this paradigm the child can use this to answer anything that it can't understand in the world so when you say oh but why is it earthquake oh but this was a conspiracy which really the cyborgs and oh but why is you know Donald Trump doing this really Donald Trump has been convinced by the cyborgs who've done it oh electronic stuff is like if you've just got one version to answer everything
then yes you can do that but it doesn't make it true like Muslims have got this aunt like their version of this cyborg paradigm is gin anything OSHA's the gentleman over he doesn't accept it because he's already been influenced by the gin oh but oh this person had a mental of that was the gin oh this happened this this is magic oh well that was the gin okay so it's just this you have one plastic the plasticity because it stretches you can just fit this on anything this is in religious in philosophy of religion you study this this example by by somebody
known as basil Mitchell known as the parable of the partisan and the stranger and he says that this is what faith people do the partisan is this person who is part of a movement a revolution and there's a struggle going on but he meets this stranger one day who he doesn't know the stranger somehow wins his trust and tells him that he is actually the leader of this revolution that he's a part of because this is obviously picturing back in the days when you never had social media and stuff so he says it convinces him I am actually the leader of this so imagine
it's me and I now bump into into you and you're a strong you believe in this and I tell you I am the actual leader of this and stay strong I want you to stay strong on this hang in there but then I tell you that by the way you will see me on their side and acting to the contrary to what the cause stands for but this is all part of the greater plan so no matter what you see me say in public do not fall for it I am with you and it's for the cause now you see once you buy into that it doesn't matter what I say or do in the real world you will
rationalize it I could now stand there and tell you oh by the way this whole thing was a lie oh the cause was just something I made up to make money but you'll be like ha ha ha he's acting's good good good he's really in character and I'll be like no no it really is nonsense nonsense you see now it doesn't matter what I say you've bought in to this parable that's it you're locked in so buzz Michell gives this example about this is how religion works with a lot of people so it's interesting and they call that
by the way non propositional faith we you're not you don't care whether evidence or reason or anything contradicts what you believe you just don't care because in your mind oh it's all part of the bigger pitch oh it's meant to trick me aha science oh this is the Shaitaan tricking me this is part of the test like I'm not supposed to buy into it because if I bought into it that's part of the test so you see then it becomes like there's no way to win now it's game over like for anybody who tries so so it's important to keep these things in mind why is this so important to tackle this
Paragraphs overlapping 28:46 to 34:00. Full text on the recording page.
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 2018-04-15-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/8/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, April 15). How do we know mental illness is not really jinn possession? [Video, segment 2018-04-15-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/8/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "How do we know mental illness is not really jinn possession?" Video, segment 2018-04-15-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded April 15, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/8/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-04-15-S08, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{How do we know mental illness is not really jinn possession?}}, year = {2018}, month = {4}, date = {2018-04-15}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/8/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/lexzvtf9yga/s/8/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-04-15-S08, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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