History of Jihad #1: Muh the epileptic

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History of Jihad #1
The psychological make-up of Pre-Islamic Arab society was determined by the geographical environment.
Arab society in the peninsula is blessed with an harsh environment. Where agriculture is non-existent, and life is at a subsistence level in a barren desert environment with extremes in climate that is varies from warm to extremely hot. This has shaped the temperament of the people who are hot tempered, violent and hyper-sensitive in their sense of honor. With life an on-going struggle against the forces of nature that comprises desert storms, a bleak and monotonous environment, devoid of natural vegetation, except in the oases, the mental make-up of people is shaped by the dictum Kill or be killed. This has been the psyche of the Bedouin Arabs who inhabited the Arabian peninsula.

The people who came from the same stock, who lived further north in
Mesopotamia had a different geographic and climatic environment. They developed advanced riparian civilizations on the banks of the Farath (Euphrates) and Tigra (Tigris). The Babylonian and Assyrian civilizations of Hamm-ur-rabi and Nabu-chad-nazar, were developed by the same Semitic people who lived in peninsular Arabia. So the temperament of a same ethnic people (the Arabs) could be entirely different, depending on the environment in which they resided.
Mohammed comes on the scene to lead a people made bitter by the natural environment We are concerned here with the Bedouin Arabs who resided in the Arabian Peninsula. Here our ancestors developed civilization, but only on the coastal fringes, specially in the Southern regions that is today Yemen, and limited settled civilization around the bigger oases. Till the 7th century, we did not make any impact on global civilization, till we were united by a charismatic leader - Mohammed (yimach shmo ve-zichro - may his name and memory be
obliterated). The story of Mohammed is that of a superlative genius who was born in 570 C.E. A genius that combined in himself the role of a military strategist, a psychologist, motivator and commander of men. With a harsh childhood in which he lost his parents, he grew to manhood earlier in life than most kids of his age. But the hardships that accompanied his growth from childhood to adolescence made him an epileptic. His epileptic fits were to play a pivotal role in his later life an create an hallucination that some god was talking to him There is an occurrence in Mohammed’s life that is eloquent on this issue of his mental illness. Once Mohammed and his foster brother were playing when Halima, his nurse was nursing him in the desert. Suddenly, the foster brother came running to Halima and said that Mohammed was sick. When they went out, they found a young Mohammed behind the bushes with his clothes turned up. It's possible that he was sexually assaulted; however, much later a legend was created partially by Mohammed himself that two angels in grey robe came and one
split his chest open and took out the heart and removed a dark clot and then when they weighed him the whole universe weighed less than Mohammed! The possibility that he was sexually assaulted (sodomized) in his childhood seems to have made him a bitter person and could have accentuated his mental illness, but in spite of this he showed uncanny ability to manipulate and get the results he wanted. I think his mental illness could be a mild form of paranoid schizophrenia and may be some other as-yet-undiscovered mental illness. During
his 'revelations' he groaned like a she-camel having a baby (which by the way is not a pleasant sound). He had directed his followers to cover him up with a blanket whenever he suffered from the epileptic fits and that's why he carried a black blanket with him all the time. This narration is the kernel of historical truth that has come down through ages of Arab folklore that grew around him.

In his early life the hardships that were bestowed on him by circumstances coupled with the misfortune of being an epileptic, made him a fiercely determined man. And he nurtured within himself a burning desire to be a leader of men. His caravan journeys that began early in his life gave him an insight into the psychological make-up of the society he lived in. His personal misfortune in this kind of a harsh environment, had made him bitter since childhood. But this personal misfortune, was set off against his being born in the clan that ruled Mecca a pilgrimage town, where all the Arab tribes came once a year
in a ritual called Hajj that centered around an object of worship called the Kaaba (literally a cube). The Kaaba is actually a meteorite which fascinated the ancient tribals who were awe-struck by its flaming rush from the skies to land at Mecca. Since that day a legend grew around it that is reflected in the various versions of the Books of the Semitic peoples that is known as the Old Testament of the Bible, New Testament of the Bible and the Quran. But which is basically the same book, with modifications made over a period of time, but its many adherents. Mohammed being a member of the Quraish clan which was
in charge of the Kaaba, belonged to a privileged clan. But he did not hold a position of distinction within the clan.

How leadership was thrust on Mohammed , igniting his innate desire to be a leader of men The turning event of his life was in the year 610 C.E. when during a dispute within his clan about who would be in charge of the annual repairs to the Kaaba. The clan members decided that the person who at that time walks into the Kabba first would be in charge of the repairs. And it so happened that Mohammed walked in unknowingly into the Kaaba, and was thus thrust into an exalted
position of being in charge of repairs to the Kaaba. Till that point in time, Mohammed was any other Arab, any other Bedouin, any other Quraish. From then onwards, his stature changed in the eyes of his compatriots. And most importantly, it changed in his own eyes. He began considering that he had to fulfill a mission, an extraordinary mission. His delusion was nurtured by his being a epileptic and he hallucinated that he was in direct communication with god. He began to rationalize his ideas about his personal grandeur by telling people that god had chosen him as his messenger. His claims were met with
ridicule.

His epileptic fits now began play a pivotal role making him hallucinate that he was in communion with some god. But his innate ambition to be a leader of men, had been fuelled by his being chosen to undertake repairs to the Kaaba and which he partly consciously and partly subconsciously amplified by his epileptic. fits during which he
imagined that god had commanded him to preach the worship of the one true god. His self delusion was evident in the first sentence that he preached "La ilah ilallah, Mohammed ur Rasulallah" "There is no god, but allah and Mohammed is his Prophet." He had cleverly removed any competition to his personal god, which he borrowed from the main god of the Quraish - Allah whose images was one of the many that was being worshipped at the Kaaba. But in this first statement, Mohammed also placed himself on a pedestal, that was unique. He was the prophet of god and th last prophet at that. he brooked no competition. This kind
of a flagrant egoism, earned him many detractors. And when he started preaching that all gods other than Allah were false gods, the Meccans panicked. Since the existence of these many gods brought people to Mecca on pilgrimage and earned the Meccans good money. The aristocracy of the Quraish tribe, saw a grave threat to their own position as intercessors between the lay Arabs and the gods in the Kaaba, since with Mohammed 's proclamation, it was he who was
to be recognized as a prophet. The Meccan Quraish aristocracy, looked upon this as a direct threat to their position and they piloted to eliminate Mohammed . But the cunning chap that he was, he gave them the slip and escaped. But the fact that he had to escape from his would be assassins in the dead of the night makes one wonder why Allah did not strike dead his assassins, rather than having him flee from Mecca!

The Hegira (flight to Medina) and his raids - Ghazawats on Meccan caravans. This led to the second seminal event in Mohammed life, his escape (called migration or Hejira in Arabic) to Yathrib (later renamed Medina by Mohammed ) where lived the rivals of the Meccans. This took place in 622 C.E. ( which marks the beginning of the Hejira or Hijri era of the Muslims). The people of Yathrib welcomed Mohammed , in whom they saw an opportunity tio break the monopoly of the Meccans. This made them sympathetic to his message of worshipping
one god, who sole prophet he claimed to be. His following from the people of Yathrib, was thus a political ploy of Yathrib, against Mecca, to add grist to the mill of an already existent rivalry. There was no lofty reason for which Mohmmamed got his first converts in Medina (Yathrib). Immediately on getting a following among a people who looked upon Mecca as a rival, Mohammed organized them to take his first revenge on the Meccans, and he started regularly raiding the caravans of the Meccans that passed by Medina. He organized 64 such
raids from 622 to 630, of which he personally led 27 raids. These raids were called Ghazawats or Razzias.

Mohammed cruelty and guile made themselves evident at the Battle of Badr (2 A.H., 624 C.E.) - the first battle he fought . The Meccans finally got fed up of Mohammed 's antics and attacked him in
Medina. This led to the first major battle in Mohammed 's life - the battle of Badr. In this battle, he realized that the far stronger Meccan army could only be defeated by guile. he ordered all the water springs outside Medina, to be sanded-up, so that the attacking Meccans would be without any sustenance. Now this would have been a legitimate tactic in war, but coming from a messenger of god to contrive to starve peiople of his own clan of water ion order to defeat, betrayed Mohammed 's ruthless mentality which showed that he was far from anything saintly. The Meccans decided to outwit Mohammed and attack
Medina during a cloudburst, to obviate the need for water. The heavily armored Meccan got trapped in the slushy sands outside Medina and their cavalry was thrown in disarray with horses falling over each other in tottal disorder unable to meet the infantry charges of the Mohammed 's army. Mohammed had instructed his followers not to take prisoners and all the Meccans who fell off their horses were instantly beheaded. The carnage that followed led to a complete
rout of the Meccans and the victory of a bandit whose followers were to carry forward this legacy across continents, slaughtering millions of people (Strike of the heads of the non-believers is the mentality Mohammed drilled into his followers. And this commandment found its way into the Quran (whose word is followed by the Zarqawi and Al Qaeda thugs even today). The defeat at Badr stunned the Meccans into disbelief and there was despondency and mourning amongst the populace. They foresaw worse things to come. Lust for booty and slaves, spurred the followers of Mohammed. Mohammed spurred his followers with lust for booty and sex slaves. The captured womenfolk were distributed by Mohammed amongst his followers and so was
the booty distributed. Thus his followers had greed to motivate them, while the Quraish were fighting a defensive war to protect their caravans from Mohammed 's predatory raids. Mophammed also drilled into his followers the fantasy that if they died, they would reach heavan (Jann'at) where they would be served upon by 72 virgins (Houris) and pearly eyed boys. The motivation of the Quraish was to defend their business, as is that of the Americans today to defend the Western way of life. In this struggle, Mohammed with his dangling the
carrots of booty and slaves along with the fantasy of landing in heaven for those who dies, was able to ensure that his gangsters (the first Muslims) became insanely paranoid in battle. They had everything to gain, and nothing to lose. While the Quraish were businessmen, fighting to get rid of a menace to their way of life. This difference in the motivation levels led to the defeat of the Quraish and to successive defeats of the many non-Muslim armies that opposed the Muslims. _Americans would do well to remember this. Today as they fight the war on Islam (Terrorism)_ (http://www.military.com/) .
Lessons about the Muslim psyche that the Battle of Badr tell us
Badr was the first battle where the gangsters which that Madman of Mecca had gathered around him, showed feats of desperate foolhardiness, that paid off and stunned the opposing forces. This was to repeat itself many a time through the course of Muslim history, thus building a false fantasy that allah was aiding the Muslims. What was aiding them was thir lust and greed. Mohammed had worked his followers into a frenzy and as a hungry man knows no law, these
gangsters, rapists, murders would stoop to any level to defeat an enemy. The world has not yet learn this fountainhead of Muslim psychology, so cleverly built by the founding father of terrorism - Mohammed -ibn-Abadallah.
_http://www.historyofjihad.org/_ (http://www.historyofjihad.org/)