by Sujit Das
A Narcissist’s magical thinking is so strange that if this “someone” cannot sustain his “chosen specialness”, he may look for support from another object. But the very concept of his “chosen specialness” will never change. For Muhammad, Allah was merely an “instrument” whose only purpose was to certify Muhammad. If Allah had failed to pump up Muhammad’s ego, Muhammad would have dumped Allah in a dustbin and picked up another God to uphold his prophetic position. This is narcissistic immunity. Muhammad had the immunity but God did not. Hence God changes, but Muhammad’s “sinlessness” would not change at any cost. He would never take the responsibility of the harm inflicted on others by the results of his own decisions, opinions, beliefs, deeds and misdeeds, and, actions and inactions. He was above reproach and punishment.
In this situation Allah is helpless. In the hands of a malignant Narcissist, God is miserable. If Allah fails to prove Muhammad ma’soum, and does not take away Muhammad’s moral responsibility to any of his misconduct; Allah’s usefulness will cease immediately. Therefore, whenever Muhammad commits any crime, Allah is in a hurry to send a timely revelation to exempt him from taking any responsibility. This strange Allah-Muhammad relationship was noticed by Aisha, the child bride of Muhammad. She accused (Bukhari: 6.60.311; Muslim: 8.3453, 3454) Muhammad that whenever he desired something, magically a suitable verse was revealed. In other words, Muhammad commands Allah. Allah’s survival solely depends on his approval. If Allah does not approve Muhammad by a suitable revelation, he will dismiss Allah immediately from His heavenly position and find another suitable God. Muhammad demanded “sinlessness” from Allah, and Allah granted it to protect Himself from the fury of His Narcissist messenger. Let us analyze some “witness” verses from the Qur’an.
We have sent thee (Muhammad) as a messenger unto mankind and Allah is sufficient as Witness . (Q: 4.79)
… and he (Muhammad) called Allah to witness as to that which is in his heart (Q: 2.204)
Enough is Allah for a witness between us and you: we certainly knew nothing of your worship of us . (Q: 10.29)
But Allah bears witness by what He has revealed to you that He has revealed it with His knowledge, and the angels bear witness (also); and Allah is sufficient as a witness . (Q: 4.166)
Allah (Himself) bears witness that there is no god but He … (Q: 3.18)
Say (O Muhammad): What thing is of most weight in testimony? Say: Allah is Witness between me and you. And this Qur’an hath been inspired in me … (Q: 6.19)
He (Muhammad) said: I call Allah to witness , (Q: 11.54)
The Unbelievers say: ‘No messenger art thou.” Say: “Enough for a witness between me and you is Allah, and such as have knowledge of the Book .’ (Q: 13.43)
Say: Allah sufficeth for a witness between me and you. Lo! He is Knower, Seer of His slaves . (Q: 17.96)
Say: Allah is sufficient as a witness between me and you . (Q: 29.52)
… and enough is Allah for a Witness . (Q: 48.28)
In all the above verses, Allah was working hard to convince the nonbelievers that Muhammad was not a fake. Or, should we say that it was Muhammad, who was desperate to prove and uphold his prophetic status by citing Allah as a witness? Otherwise, there is absolutely no meaningful substance in the above quotes.
Malignant narcissism is such a deadly, evil and painful disease that it not only destroys the Narcissist, but infects and forever changes those people who are in touch with him by paralyzing their thinking capability. Muslims reason out this way – since Muhammad never felt guilty for his inhuman acts, therefore he was immaculate from sin. Since Muhammad was sinless, therefore all his cruel acts were godly. With this distortion of reality, Muslims came within the grip of Muhammad’s narcissism and absorbed by his way of thinking. As a result, the sinless Muhammad himself became the object of worship to his followers along with Allah.
3.7: Malignant Narcissists, Muhammad and Vampires – A Comparison
Psychoanalysts often compare malignant Narcissists to vampires which makes much sense when breaking down the characteristics of the disorder. It also helps the students and novices to understand the destructive mindset of a malignant Narcissist in a better way. I have borrowed the analogy from the psychoanalysts and detailed it further by including Muhammad in the same comparison.
The fictional vampires are like ghost-like entities. They are cursed creatures and considered to be damned with their fate (Etheredge, 2005, p. iv). Malignant narcissism is a harmful, evil and torturous disease and the Narcissists are equally damned with their fate. Muhammad was a cursed human like the vampires. He was a slave of his superego as if he was possessed by an evil spirit. This master of darkness brought death and destruction wherever he went; it was his destiny. Muslims are also cursed for fully submitting to and trusting in Muhammad.
The vampire did not choose his fate willingly. Similarly, a malignant Narcissist is the product of faulty parenting who has not received enough love and attention. Because of this; the emerging ‘self’ was devastated, which forced him to split his normal healthy personality into a real and a false self. Chroniclers have recorded Muhammad’s disrupted childhood which is also confirmed in the Qur’an.
The vampire uses people as tools and sources of supply to continue his existence. This is his constant, futile search for deliverance. A malignant Narcissist needs people to keep his false self upheld. Muhammad was helpless to his illness. Throughout he used others for his selfish needs. When the early Muslims fought, killed or got killed; it was Muhammad who benefited from their sacrifice.
Vampires are believed to be “soulless” with no conscience, a ruthless killer instinct, and a never-ending thirst for human blood (Zell-Ravenheart, 2004, p. 298). They are doomed to roam the earth and snatch souls from innocent victims. In real life we describe those who lack any kind of empathy, sympathy, mercy, and consideration for others as “soulless”. Malignant Narcissists behave in the same way. Their victims often say, they feel as if their soul has been raped or even robbed by the Narcissist. Muhammad was deprived of all the human qualities and lacked sensitivity or the capacity for deep feeling. He was heartless and cruel like those soulless vampires. If the goal in life is the spiritual enlightenment to unite the conscious mind with the soul, then undoubtedly Muhammad was a great loser.
Vampires wait for suitable moments to attack a human to drink blood. It is difficult to recognize a vampire at first glance. They look just like and pass for any other normal human being from time to time. Others cannot really recognize them unless they reveal themselves to them (Bart, 2002, p. 217). Any reasonably clever Narcissist can act with saintly niceness for his own manipulative purposes. When Muhammad’s divine mission was a complete failure at Mecca, luck favored him and he gained the trust of the inhabitants of Medina. Those foolish people failed to recognize Muhammad, gave him shelter, and allowed him to propagate his message at Medina. But, what Muhammad gave them in return?
A vampire cannot see his own image in the mirror because he is a spirit and not a physical being (Pucket et. al, 1981, p. 1123). Spirits do not cast a reflection. But when the spirit takes a physical form and sees his reflection, he becomes very pale with dark eyes and lips. Muhammad prohibited drawing his portrait because an image which may identify a certain period of his life is an “emotional handle”, which always scared him.
Some stories about vampires detail vampirism as being a curse, acquired from ancient evils that must be passed on to innocent victims in more “satanic” methods. Narcissism breeds narcissism. The parents of the Narcissist are often Narcissists themselves, and they seem to transfer their narcissism to their children (Twenge & Campbell, 2010, p. 219). Allah was such an ungodly God that Muhammad needed the two satanic methods – use of sword and deception to sell this failed God.
According to the folklore, a human becomes vampire when a vampire bites him and drinks his blood. Even then the victim is not a true vampire until he makes his first kill of an innocent human and tastes his blood (Maberry,
2008, p. 229). Hence; a vampire can only be created by another vampire, and it happens when they come in close proximity. Muhammad had treated his followers as an extension of his own personality. It is through them Muhammad wanted to settle “open accounts” with the enemy world. Vaknin (1999, p. 11) wrote that people who are in daily contact with the Narcissists are “infected” and “changed forever”. Narcissism is such a contagious disease that it spoils the lives of the victims even when their Narcissist leader is no more. Like the transformation into a vampire, slowly, the companions of Muhammad absorbed Muhammad’s way of thinking and became as deadly as their leader just like the unfolding of a dark Shakespearean tragedy. They were programmed to materialize the unfulfilled narcissistic dreams and fantasies of their Narcissist leader. In doing so, they all became Narcissist themselves. This is how the terror survived Muhammad’s death.
At the end; every vampire, every malignant Narcissist or every false Prophet is a loser. Destruction of the vampire comes when he is exposed to light. The false self of a Narcissist ceases to exist when his true self is brought to light. The myth of Muhammad’s prophethood, his cult Islam, and his God Allah would be eradicated when his deception would be exposed. That day is not far away.
3.8: Correlating Muhammad’s Neurotic Disorder and Narcissistic Urge
Faith is the basic element of a person’s mental health. Theologically, faith is a gift of God, and it is entirely an individual choice to accept or reject it. But in the cold-eyed view of the trained psychiatrist, faith may also be a cover-up for deep inner anxiety and a strong narcissistic urge to power. This is the missing link between the neurotic disorder and the narcissistic delusion. Narcissism is all about achieving power at the cost of others, and if the Narcissist is also suffering from neurotic disorder, his hidden desires are often reflected in the symptoms of neurosis.
Freud, in his 1927 work The future of an illusion, regarded religion as “the universal neurosis”. Initially his views were widely accepted by the researchers, but later on, they strongly opposed him. Not all religions are based on neurosis; there is a well-defined dividing line between healthy faith and neurotic faith. Neurotic faith is based on fear and hate, while brotherhood and peaceful coexistence are regularly stimulated by the healthy faiths.
Muhammad had a strong urge to establish himself a Prophet. As opportunity came, unconsciously, he exploited his neurosis to create a situation for others to believe in his genuineness. Before we proceed further, let us analyze how he used to receive the revelations from Allah.
Revelation came to the Apostle of Allah and he was covered with a cloth, and Ya’la said: Would that I see revelation coming to the Apostle of Allah. He (Omar) said: Would it please you to see the Apostle of Allah receiving the revelations? ‘Omar lifted a corner of the cloth and I looked at him and he was emitting a sound of snorting. He (the narrator) said: I thought it was the sound of a camel . (Muslim: 7.2654).
Narrated Musa bin Abi Aisha; When Gabriel revealed the divine Inspiration in Allah’s Apostle, he moved his tongue and lips, and that state used to be very hard for him, and that movement indicated that revelation was taking place . (Bukhari: 6.60.451)
In no way do I suggest that Muhammad was consciously staging a drama by artificially producing those acts, and they were merely a device by which he secured sanction for his revelations. He genuinely believed that he was receiving messages from God in that bodily condition or trance. It was his subconscious which played a trick on him and hence while distinguishing between the thoughts of his own mind and the revelations, Muhammad did “personally” enter (in his mind) into the latter and allowed them to give shape to his own developing prophetic consciousness, or more precisely his sick narcissistic ambitions. Allah’s revelations found expression in Muhammad’s consciousness rather than in his ears. Contrary to popular Muslim belief, the revelations were inspirational, something like “suggested” rather direct verbal revelation rote in the ears of Muhammad. Qur’an confirms it.
It is no less than inspiration sent down to him. (Q: 53.4)
Therefore Muhammad’s own diseased mind shaped those revelations according to his subconscious wishes. Muhammad’s own narcissistic thoughts came down as revelations, and his dramatic actions while receiving the revelations were “adjusted” accordingly to balance each other. Jung (1933, p. 44) commented, “He [the patient] ‘arranges’ his symptoms and exploits [subconsciously] his neurosis to attain a fictitious importance.” For example, when Muhammad fell in love with Zaynab and a verse (33:37) was revealed to him from the sky legitimizing his marriage with her, he knew what he had in mind. Therefore, when he had produced any psychological symptom at the time of putative revelation, he was inducing that state in himself by exploiting his neurosis unconsciously. The tenor of the passage would already have been fabricated in his mind.
This is the reason Islam is a neurotic and narcissistic faith. It is narcissistic, because the revelations were “censored” by the “suggestions” of a Narcissist, and obviously it is neurotic because it is based on fear and hate, as McCloud (2004, p. 37) observes, there is “ an irrational intensity of belief” in the new doctrine. There are many symptoms, e.g., greater concern for form and theology than for ethical and moral principles, hatred of past beliefs and other’s beliefs, intolerance of deviation, and the desire for martyrdom to prove devotion – all the symptoms of an unhealthy faith the whole world is witnessing in Islam for last fourteen centuries. It originated from Muhammad’s neurosis and propelled by his abnormal narcissistic desires to achieve power at any cost. The followers of Muhammad, even since the birth of Islam, inherit his mental disorder simply by following his delusive faith.
3.9: The Intellectual Defeat of Muhammad
Muslims fraudulently claim that the Qur’anic Surahs stunned the early Arab intellectuals, but nothing could be further from the truth. Though the early Meccans were mostly illiterate and superstitious people ready to believe any sort of rubbish in the name of religion, there were many wise people amongst them who turned away from Muhammad knowing that he was deluded. We cannot blame them; they had seen many imposters like Muhammad. During those days, prophetic business was a thriving profitable industry in Arabia. Therefore, they ignored Muhammad as they ignored any other madman. The following verses confirm it.
The Hypocrites and those in whose hearts is a disease said: ‘Allah and His Messenger promised us nothing but delusion; they have promised only to deceive us’. (Q: 33.11).
Then they had turned away from him and said: One taught by others, a madman! (Q: 44.14).
They take you not except for mockery . (Q: 21.36).
They said: ‘Are we going to abandon our gods for the sake of a mad poet?’ (Q: 37.36)
And when they see you, they treat you only as a mockery . (Q: 25.41).
But they were kind to Muhammad and left him alone in his fantasy world, and allowed him to believe in whatever fables he wanted. They were even ready to pay for medical advice to cure his mental disease. Utbah ibn Rabi’ah, a distinguished leader of Arabia, convinced the Quraysh at one of their community meetings to delegate him to approach Muhammad. So on behalf of the Quraysh, he came to Muhammad to assist him with different alternatives. Haykal (1976, chapter 5) recorded Utbah’s words,
If you are unable to cure yourself of the visions that you have been seeing, we shall be happy to seek for you at our expense all the medical service possible until your health is perfectly restored .
As Muhammad’s lies were exposed, Islam was destined to vanish in its infancy. To console Muhammad, Allah assured him by the following Qur’anic revelations,
By the Favor of Allah, you are neither a soothsayer, nor mad . (Q: 52.29).
Allah shall pay them back their mockery, and He leaves them alone in their inordinacy, blindly wandering on . (Q: 2.15)
In a state of anger Muhammad started calling the nonbeliever by different names. According to Qur’an, the nonbelievers are,
1. Harm-doers (Q: 2.59; 2.95; 2.1
45; 2.150; 2.165; 2.193; 2.229; 2.246; 2.254; 2.258; 2.270; 3.57; 3.86; 3.94; 3.128; 3.140; 3.151; 4.74; 5.29; 5.45; 5.107; 6.21; 6.45; 6.58; 6.135; 7.41; 7.47; 7.148; 8.54; 9.23; 11.31, etc)
2. Hypocrites (Q: 4.61; 8.49; 9.64; 9.73; 29.11; 33.1; 48.6; 57.13; 59.11; 63.1; 66.9, etc.)
3. Liars (Q: 6.28; 7.66; 9.77; 11.93; 39.3; 40.24, etc)
4. Evildoers (Q: 2.12; 2.26; 2.99; 3.63; 5.47; 5.108; 7.102; 9.24; 10.17; 11.18;
14.22; 17.47; 18.53; 19.86; 24.4; 29.4; 34.42; 37.22; 39.24, etc)
Indecent language is normally the jargon of low-bred, discourteous people who are lacking in civility and good manners. Is it conceivable that a God would use such vulgar language to address human beings? The answer is that such vulgar words and obscene language was the cultural heritage of illiterate Muhammad brought up in a desert. People who are evil attack others instead of facing their own failures. A curse uttered by a person who desires to harm another person, but finds him or herself physically powerless to do so, appeals to a supernatural power to inflict such harm.
The Arabs were certainly not harm-doers, hypocrites, evildoers or liars. Instead, those were the traits of Muhammad’s own character. Let me analyze, what actually was going on in Muhammad’s mind when he called the nonbelievers with such offensive terms. The mind of a Narcissist is limited to one line of thought as if he is playing according to a script where he is playing the lead role and he has total control over the play. Obviously, this “script” is written to conform his narcissistic ideas, but when others force him to see “glimpses of reality” by going against his script and pointing out his inconsistencies and faults, he is faced with a terrifying possibility of losing his “control” over the script (Zayn & Dibble, 2007, p. 142). At this time, he projects the negative qualities of his character onto others as a defense mechanism. For example; if someone were to call the Narcissist on some remarks he had made, but was now denying; the Narcissist, instead of admitting his mistake, might say – “You are a habitual liar! You have always been a liar! Nothing you ever say is true. You have spent your entire life lying and I can never believe a word that comes out of your mouth”.
