Shakespeare gave Othello an epileptic seizure linking him to Muhammad’s falling sickness

Evidence

The Moor’s ordeal parodies the physical collapse that accompanies an episode of divine possession—he kneels with Iago, falls down, and then undergoes a seizure like those experienced by other “prophesying” victims of “the falling sickness,” a malady associated with both sacred and Satanic inspiration. Othello’s epilepsy recalls that of the ur-Moor, Muhammad. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 321

Categorization

• XREF: Reinforces the reader’s monster-figure thread: the Prophet’s physical affliction becomes a marker of monstrosity inherited by literary Moors.