This is Who made our minds?, my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024).
Next Thursday: ‘The seal of the prophets’
EVERY YEAR during Ramadan, traditionally a month of spiritual retreat, the young Muhammad would climb Jabal al-Nour, a mountain outside Mecca, and pray in the Cave of Hira.
On the tenth day of Ramadan in 610 CE, a strange power or presence, accompanied (according to several accounts) by the clanging of bells, entered the cave as Muhammad slept.
This invisible power seized Muhammad’s body and tried to shake him awake.
Fearing that a jinn, or demon, was trying to possess him, Muhammad leapt up to defend himself.
Jinns were thought to have the power to enter and animate human life. Neither good nor evil, they were said to possess the minds of the finest poets and soothsayers …