Understanding Muhammad; a PSYCHObiography

”Ali Sina’s book review”

By Sujit Das  

Title: Understanding Muhammad a Psychobiography (Paperback: 280 pages)
Author: Dr. Ali Sina
Date of publication: 1^st May 2008, Second edition; Publisher: Felibri.com

While criticizing Islam, non-Muslims and ex-Muslims often tend to focus on the negative impacts of Islam; such as Islamic terrorism, fundamentalism, immense hate to non-Muslims etc, but in this book, the author, Dr. Ali Sina had gone far beyond. The central argument of this book is not about the dark side of Islam but the psychobiography of its founder, Prophet Muhammad.

Undoubtedly, Muhammad was a great leader. He fought many offensive battles, tortured, looted and killed innocent people and raped their women, assassinated his critics, ordered mass murder, addicted to pedophilia and reduced thousands of others into slavery in the name of God. His conduct was ungodly. But he also successfully twisted the sense of morality of his followers, distorted their sense of ‘Humanness’ and linked “doing good” and “a service to God” to all ungodly things. Briefly, he had given a sacred aura to crime and terrorism. Today what Bin Laden and his ideological brothers are doing is nothing more than what their Prophet had done centuries ago. It is too silly to believe this man a messenger of God.

Muslims often say, “We love death more than you love life“. Presently nine out of ten ongoing conflicts worldwide involve Muslims. The author asserted [page 5] that Muslims are (as a group) 36 times more likely to resort to violence for conflict resolution than the rest of Humanity. Muslim’s this type of behavior is not normal. Truly author affirmed, “To understand Muslims, one must understand their prophet“. Unless we diagnose the cause of this problem like doctors and scientists, we cannot come to a solution.

This book is divided into seven well-planned chapters through which the author has analyzed Muhammad very skillfully and, with strength of evidence and force of reason proved that Islam is a dangerous cult, a cancer to Human civilization and a false belief system undeserving of existence. For probing deep into the strange mindset and psychological make-up of Muhammad, author has used several authentic Islamic sources; like, Bukhari and Muslim Hadith (oral traditions) and of course the Qur’an itself, and compared his findings with the modern development on psychotic and physical health studies. The author concluded that Muhammad was suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and “…these two conditions of personality and brain explain the entire phenomenon known as Muhammad” [page 6].

If the personality of a person is too rigid to the point that he is unable to change it in reaction to changing circumstances, we call it a personality disorder. A personality disorder is the ultimate misidentification. The individual mistakes his habits for his identity. Narcissism is a personality disorder that, as author quoted from the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’, “revolve around a pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and sense of entitlement.” [Page 60]

According to Dr. Sam Vaknin; a Narcissist is an actor enacting a melodrama, yet forced to remain behind the scenes. The scenes take the centre stage, instead. He is a denier of reality. He feeds off other people, who hurl back at him an image that he projects to them. This is their sole function in this world: to reflect, to admire, to applaud, to detest - in a word, to assure him that he exists. Otherwise, they have no right to tax his time, energy of emotions - so he feels. Narcissists are perceived to be sick, prone to illusions and delusions especially self delusions and, therefore, lacking in judgment [Vaknin; "Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited", pp. 9, 19, 23].

Dr. Vaknin also mentioned that Narcissists are PATHOLOGICAL LIARS. This means that either they are unaware of their lies or feel completely justified and at ease in lying to others. Later they are bound to believe their own lies. Their very essence is a huge, contrived lie: the false self, the high-flying fantasies and the idealized objects. [ibid, p. 24]

Muhammad knew that a direct self-promotion would be seen as repulsive and hence would be rejected. So he invented his God, the Allah. In Islam, Allah took the centre stage and Muhammad remained ‘only’ a messenger of Allah. But at the same time Muhammad demanded absolute obedience by cunningly calling his followers to obey ‘Allah and his messenger’. But since nobody could see or hear Allah, naturally all the obedience was to Muhammad. It was not God who needed Muhammad, but it was Muhammad who needed a God to serve him and certify him as a messenger.

Throughout his prophetic carrier, Muhammad never brought anything good to others but only death and destruction. He encouraged human sacrifice to his cause, ie, martyrdom. The Paradise is assured for the martyrs. But only belief in Allah is not enough to gain entry in the Paradise unless Muslims believe in the prophethood of Muhammad. So the religion of Muhammad survived at the cost of the ‘liberal human values’ of his followers. Unfortunately today more than a billion people still put their trust in Muhammad.

Muhammad hoped that the Jews of Yathrib will receive him as their Prophet. But the Jews paid little attention to his calling which made him angry and he sought revenge. The Narcissist Prophet forced the Qainqua and Nadir tribe into exile and mass assassinated some 800 to 900 male members of the Quraiza tribe and reduced their children and women to slavery. Muhammad, like other typical Narcissists could not feel the pain of others. He was a predator and just did not know what it meant to be Human. A Narcissist has no time or energy for anything except the next Narcissistic fix, no matter what the price and who is trampled upon. [ibid, p. 39]

The narcissist Prophet lacked in judgment. The biggest mistake Muhammad made was to invent an ‘ungodly’ God. He was in such a delusion that he could not even differentiate between a God and a Demon.

A Byzantine historian, Theophanes (752-817) recorded that Muhammad suffered from epilepsy, which started when he was just five years old. Author’s findings from authentic Islamic sources confirm the opinion of the above historian. Amazingly, the Hadith collections have enough mention about Muhammad’s epileptic fits. Today with the help of science, we can confirm that Muhammad suffered from Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and the epileptic seizures were caused from the medial or lateral temporal lobe. The patients of TLE often sense a ‘presence’, hear sounds, see divine lights even see ‘Gods’. So when Muhammad claimed to have mystic experience, it was actually his diseased mind which was playing tricks to him. Hallucination is very common amongst people. The International Census of Waking Hallucinations recorded in 1984 that 10 to 25 percent of normal healthy people have experienced at least once in their lifetime a vivid hallucination [Carl Sagan; "The Demon Haunted World", page. 104]

Now since the sacred aura of the Prophet is gone and the big lie of Islam is fully exposed; the author very logically concluded, “Islam is like a house of cards, sustained by lies…It rests on nothing but lies” [Pages, iv, 260]. We should not forget that narcissists are pathological liars.

Today it is useless to be angry with a deluded person like Muhammad who died centuries ago. He not only suffered in his whole life, but founded such a dangerous cult which brought untold misery, death and destruction equally to Muslims and non-Muslims, for which history will never forgive him. It was Muhammad’s fate. He was gravely disturbed both physically and mentally. In fact he was also suffering from Acromegaly and most probably from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Bipolar Disorder and even from Schizophrenia.

Now, since the real face of Muhammad is exposed by strong evidence, and medical science has spoken out the truth, and because we cannot see any difference between Islam and other notorious cults; it is high time, our Muslim brothers should give way to logical thinking. The author lamented “Muslims are genuinely incapable of questioning Islam” [page 5]. Today Muslims must understand that there is better life beyond Islam and the infidels (particularly the Jews) are not really that bad so that they should be killed as the Qur’an said. Real God has nothing to do with Islam, Allah, Muhammad and Qur’an altogether. The author himself is coming from Muslim background and some of his relatives were even Ayatollahs.

Author concluded, “Islam is an epidemic of mental illness bequeathed from one man to his followers” [Page 254]. The mental sickness of Muhammad implanted to his followers has cost hundreds of million lives, “The wounds caused by Muhammad and his benighted followers have been bleeding for 1400 years. They are still bleeding and will continue to bleed endlessly, until Islam is eradicated.” [Page 255]

The author wrote this book mainly for the Muslims and had two aims in mind - to help Muslims see the truth and leave Islam en masse and to unmask the real face of Islam and warn the world of its threat.

The cover page is thoughtfully designed and it speaks in volume. It shows Muhammad’s first spiritual experience with Gabriel, which was actually a hallucination. The title perfectly explains the subject matter. If I simply say that the book is well written, it is an underestimation. All I can see is an overflow of systematic research and a tremendous force of logic backed up by strong evidence. Throughout the pages, the author had left marks of his exceptional clarity of thought and strong analytical capability. But he had done it without any pretended scholarship. The book is written in a very simple but extremely meaningful English. Author is thoroughly sincere, insightful, honest, straightforward and practical in expressing his views and had spoken his heart out. I strongly recommend this book to the readers. This book has fascinated me and will fascinate the casual readers, critics and scholars alike. It needs great courage to write a book like this. In fact I am waiting eagerly for author’s next project.

The printing and binding quality of this paperback edition and the paper used are reasonably above standard in comparison to cost. The typography does not strain the eyes of the readers. The overall style of the book as a product is quite user-friendly.

Sooner or later, this book is going to make history. Already the sale is impressive and the book is translated to other languages. For any logical-minded reader Islam will not be the same as before. I sincerely believe, one day the Muslims will care for this book more than they care for Qur’an. In the coming years, the book will liberate a large number of Muslims from the Islamic prison. This book is going to outlive Islam.

Source: http://www.faithfreedom.org/2009/06/04/book-review-understanding-muhammad-a-psychobiography/

IHS