Byzantine polemic reduced Muhammad’s revelation to epilepsy seconded by a heretical monk

Evidence

Theophanes describes Muhammad’s marriage to Khadîja and his travels in Palestine where he sought out the writings of Jews and Christians. Muhammad had an epileptic seizure, and at this Khadîja became distressed; he soothed her by telling her: “I keep seeing a vision of a certain angel called Gabriel, and being unable to bear his sight, I faint and fall down.” Khadîja sought the advice of “a certain monk living there, a friend of hers (who had been exiled for his depraved doctrine)”; this heretical monk seems to be based on the Muslim legends of Waraqa and Bahira. The monk told Khadîja that Muhammad was indeed a prophet to whom the angel Gabriel came in visions. With such beginnings, his “heresy” soon was spread by force. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 407

Categorization

• XREF: The epilepsy thesis is the direct ancestor of the modern pathologizing of Muhammad and of Orientalist readings of revelation as fraud or illness.
• DEFINE: Recounts the Bahira/Waraqa legends that Christian polemic repurposed into heretical-monk tutoring.