Psychoanalysis of the Prophet Muhammad

“egocentric-adj. (ˌē-gō-ˈsen-trik also ˌe-) 1. concerned with the individual rather than          society 2. taking the ego as the starting point in philosophy 3. limited in outlook or concern to one's own activity or needs” (Merriam-Webster, 2011)

How does one create a religion? What makes a man believe that he has divine sight? And how does one interpret the voices he hears as the voice of god? It is impossible to ignore the similarities in the words of the god of Muhammad, and symptoms of one suffering from some type of psychosis. It seems strange that the rationale behind the actions of the most holy seem to be exactly that of one suffering from insecurities caused by abandonment. Jealousy, insecurity, inability to accept responsibility, and an intense need for power and control to compensate for the former are signs of emotional trauma, and the same traits of the god Allah as described in the Qur’an. The fear can create an egotistical personality caused by an overcompensation of trying to be significant enough that desertion cannot happen again.

In 610 A.D. a man woke from a dream in a state of fear and ran home to take shelter, the man was so startled that he took cover under a blanket and hid. Comforted by his wife, the man emerged and explained to her the dream that had him in such a condition. He told her that he was approached by the angel Gabriel and told to read. The uneducated man declared that he could not read, the angel demanded again that he read the word of god, and again the man claimed he could not read. The third time the angel embraced the man and said “Recite in the name of your lord who created! He created man from that which clings! Recite; and thy lord is most bountiful, He who has taught by pen, taught man what he knew not.”  Reassuring her husband, she convinced him that he was not delusional, that he must be a prophet and to demonstrate that she believed that he had seen a messenger of god, she became his first follower, thus began the movement that became a religion. The man was Abu al-Qasim Muhammad Ibn Abd Allah Ibn Abd al-Muttalib Ibn Hashim, more commonly known as Muhammad. The name Muhammad means, Highly Praised, which is exactly what he would become with a current following of over one billion loyal members of the Islamic faith (PBS, 2002).

            The life of Muhammad was a difficult existence, to say the least. Born in Mecca in the year 570 A.D., an only child whose father had died before his birth, Muhammad was raised by only his mother, Aminah, who had sent him to live with a wet nurse, Halima, for the first years of his life.  At the age of six, the future prophet traveled with his mother to the sight of his father’s grave. Sometime on their return to home, Aminah became sick and passed away on the road between Medina and Mecca. Muhammad would go on to live with his paternal grandfather, Abdul al-Muttalib, who just happened to be the most respected elder in the holy city. When Muhammad was eight, al-Muttalib died, leaving the divine child orphaned again (PBS, 2002).

            Living now with his uncle, Abu Talib, Muhammad would become a shepherd in order to pay his way. Later in his adolescence, the young man would travel with his uncle’s trading caravan. As a traveler and a trader, Muhammad would earn respect from other dealers, earning the nickname El Amim, meaning “one you can trust”. His reputation as an honest trader earned him employment from a wealthy widow named Kadija bint Khawalayd. Eventually Kadija would propose marriage to Muhammad, and though she was almost fifteen years his senior, they would wed. He would go on to father six children with Kadija, two sons, both of whom would die as infants, and four daughters. It was only after the death of Kadija that Muhammad would become a polygamist, and take on twelve wives (PBS, 2002).

            During the life of Muhammad, the city of Mecca was recognized as the holiest of cities, there were many different religions, gods, customs, and traditions. Mecca was originally the home of the son of Abraham, Ishmial, from whom the term Islam is derived. Muhammad would find solitude in the mountains surrounding Mecca and this is where he would go to pray, meditate, and discuss religion with others. This is also where the mullah would receive his first revelation delivered by the arch-angel Gabriel. For the next twenty three years, he would continue to communicate with Allah, via Gabriel. Though the oracle’s revelation instructed him to read, Muhammad would continue to be illiterate and would use scribes to write the communiqué he would receive, the writings would go on to be called the Qur’an.

            Arabia, at the time of Muhammad, was a continual conflict between tribes; always a struggle, even he himself became a warrior, and the leader of the army that would eventually retake Mecca. After retaking the holy city, all the idols and statues of the other religions were destroyed, and the Kabaa would be under the one true god of Ishmial. After the conquest of Mecca, he would go on to unite the entire Arabian peninsula under the Islamic banner. He would also continue to spread the messages of god that he would receive from the angel during meditations.

            Understanding the psyche of the prophet allows us to get better insight into the logic of the Qur’an. Why is god so malicious? Why would a loving god order so much destruction? Most Muslims claim that violence isn’t part of their culture or history, but if you look at the history of the Middle Eastern world, it has been a volatile epicenter of violence and death, the Sunni fighting Shiites, Palestinians fighting Jews and an occasional Christian crusade. The Qur’an clearly states “Fight ye those who have not faith in God, nor in the hereafter and (who) forbid not what God and His Prophet have forbidden.” (Mutahhari, 1985) So, for centuries they (Muslims) have followed this command, using this as their justification. This type of statement clearly comes from someone suffering from some type of anger or control issues.

According to a Harvard Health Publication some of the symptoms of Paranoid Schizophrenia are: Presence of delusions, whereas disorganization and emotional flatness are not prominent. The delusions may not even be paranoid in content; instead, they may have non-paranoid themes, such as religious delusions or “delusions of grandeur”. (Harvard Health Publications, 2006) Could a prophet of god simply be suffering from such an illness? If you look at Schizophrenia alone, some of the positive symptoms are; Hallucinations (disordered perceptions) that may involve any of the five senses including sight, Delusions and distorted thoughts (Harvard Health Publication, 2006).

Every relationship the courier of god had in his early life ended tragically. The death of a father he never knew, his mother mid-journey to visit his father’s grave, perhaps the most influential man in his life was his grandfather that he lost only two years after his mother, two sons, and the love of his life. Could this psychological trauma have had some permanent effect? A study by Jim van Os at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands concluded saying that childhood trauma can cause psychosis later in life, and in particular may bring out or exacerbate symptoms in a subset of susceptible people. (Spauwen, 2006)

The intimate and convenient relationship that Muhammad shared with his angel, addressed issues of daily life such as, urinating, defecating, menstruating, what kind of water to drink, slaughtering animals, taxation, dress codes, loaning money, borrowing money, interest rates, rent, and mortgage, all the things that should be addressed at the human level and not the divine. Muhammad would speak with his elders and conveniently return with their answers after his meditations. Everyday life, every thought, every motion, and every action one can do is addressed within the Qur’an. One of these testimonies of god even says that it is acceptable to beat your wife should she spend too much money. A Muslim man in Buffalo, N.Y. beheaded his wife and argued that it was within his right according to Sharia law. (Elliot, 2009) Could the insecurities of a jealous, paranoid, delusional psychotic been passed down from generation to generation for the past 1400 years, and been responsible for the murder of a woman in Buffalo?

The effects of Muhammad’s revelations on today’s world are seen every day in the news.  The over throw of the Shah of Iran for an Islamic Republic, a political system rooted entirely in Islamic law and the Qur’an. The Shah lost the support of the people because of his aspirations of modernizing and secularization of Iran. (CNN, 2010) Clerical leaders initiated the government takeover, and once complete, the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the unattested leader of a nation. Today’s Iran is still controlled by the Shia sect of Islam. The year following the coup de grace of the Shah’s reign, the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran set its eyes on liberating their suppressed Shia brothers being controlled by the Sunni minority of Iraq. (GlobalSecurity, 2011) At the end of this bitter conflict, almost one million people were either killed or wounded, and virtually no issues were resolved (GlobalSecurities, 2011). The difference between this war and most was that both sides were fighting for the same reason, all in the name of Allah.

Even now, with the all out Jihad against the United States, the will of Muhammad’s self serving prophecies are still being carried out. The September 11 attacks, Milan railway attack, USS Cole, and on and on, Allah is proving impossible to satisfy. The world is bracing for the next attack, and it’s not a matter of if, it’s when. When will the next slaughter of innocent victims take place? When will the Jihad show its dreadful face again? Now that the communication lines to god have been severed with the death of the last prophet in 632 (PBS, 2002), should Allah change his mind, we’ll never know.

In the Qur’an, there is a little known chronicle, a story that most Imams refuse to talk about. The story was brought to light with the 1988 publishing of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (Rushdie, 1988) Though the story itself just hints at and humanizes the qualities of the angel Gabriel, one of the last acts of the same Ayatollah who tried to emancipate the Shia population of Iraq was to issue a fatwa against the writer, and understandably so, because the actual story of the Satanic Verses allows doubt in the prophet himself. A fatwa is a call for the death of someone in the name of Allah, from the religion of peace.

The story of the Satanic Verses goes like this; during the initial creation of the Islamic religion, the people of Mecca refused to accept this new faith and even persecuted the righteous man. The tensions between the Muslims and the pagans of the sacred city were constantly boiling over and would escalate into violence. In an effort to ease the tensions between the people of the city, and the newly formed sect, Muhammad accepted three other deities as equals to Allah. The peers of the “one true god” also happened to be female. Surah 53 verses 19-20 says, “Have ye thought upon al-Lat and al-Uzza and Manat, the third, the other?” And in the original text this verse was followed by another known as the Satanic Verses, “These are the exalted cranes (intermediaries), whose intercession is to be hoped for.” The three cranes referred to were the goddesses that Muhammad accepted as equals to Allah. And the Muslims and the pagans prostrated. (Guiallaume, 1989) Of course the prophet went back on his word, and even claimed that Satan himself had fooled him into thinking that the words were those of Gabriel, hence the term The Satanic Verses.

So, how does one create a religion? Fear, ignorance, and insanity. Keep the masses ignorant, ignorant enough that they will not question the Imams; all religions show trepidation towards education. Fear, keep them scared enough that they will only whisper doubts and not cause alarm amongst the ranks, intimidate the people into committing to your belief,  and a leader that is insane enough to believe that he has direct access to the top divinity, whether it’s through a mediator or not.