[This article is also available in Hindi, Italian and Arabic.]

From the original faithfreedom.org site. Available here https://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina40612.htm [Ali Sina’s collection of articles from the original blog can be read here http://faithfreedom.org/Author/Sina.htm while those of other authors can be read here http://faithfreedom.org/ancient_Articles.php ]

By Ali Sina

Cults generally have limited influence. So, how could Islam have succeeded in becoming the world’s second largest religion? How could so many people, among them, countless intelligent people, fall so completely for it? To answer this question we must examine the power of lies.  Who knows more about lies than a master of lies? One of the great masters of lies and the uses of deception was Josef Goebbel, Hitler’s minister for propaganda. He once said: “If you tell a big enough lie, frequently enough, it becomes the truth.” 

Before getting into the discussion of how a lie can become a major world religion let us consider a few logical fallacies that surround this subject.

Argumentum ad antiquitatem:  This fallacy asserts that a belief must be true if it has survived a long time, or because “that’s the way it’s always been.” This fallacy is a favorite argument of Muslim apologists. In Arabic it is called Taqrir.  The fallacy states that Islam has lasted for 1400 years and therefore it must be true.

There have been many theses that were upheld for thousands of years that were eventually debunked. One such theory was geocentricity. Up until Galileo, the majority, if not all of mankind believed that the Earth is the center of the Cosmos. This belief was as old as mankind. The Sun, the Moon and the entire firmament were believed to revolve around the Earth. Few challenged this thesis. Yet despite its long-held track record and antiquity, geocentricism proved to be false.

Argumentum ad numerum: Another logical fallacy that Muslims cling to is the claim that since a great portion of humanity believes in Islam it must be true. They argue: “How can so many people be wrong?”

Argumentum ad numerum asserts that the more people support or believe in a proposition, the greater is the likelihood that it is true.

Just as something true does not become untrue if no one believes in it, something that is not true does not become true if many people believe in it. Truth cannot be staked on the consensus of the majority. Facts exist independent of beliefs. We cannot decide on truth by running an opinion poll. The Earth was never flat, even when everyone believed so.

Argumentum ad populum: This is a variation of argumentum ad numerum. Argumentum ad populum asserts that something is true because it is appealing to a lot of people. You commit this fallacy when you try to win the legitimacy for an assertion by claiming it is liked by a large group of people. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language. For example:  “Islam has existed for over 1400 years and has had more than 1 billion followers. Islam has had a great impact on people’s lives. It has given the world Algebra and many sciences. The streets of Baghdad were illumined when Europe was engulfed in Dark Ages. Islam is the fastest growing religion. Are you implying that all these people are mistaken fools?”

So, why has Islam succeeded? Paradoxically, Islam has succeeded because it is a big lie. Adolf Hitler, in his Mein Kampf (1925), wrote: “The broad mass of a nation will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one”. If anyone should have known the power of the big lie and that the bigger the lie the more believable it sounds, it was Hitler. Another good statement is that of George Orwell, author of Politics and the English Language. He wrote: “Political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”[1] 

Why big lies are so convincing? The logic behind it is that an average normal person generally does not dare to tell a big lie. He fears that it would not be believed and that he would be derided. And, since everyone has heard or has said a few white lies, most people generally recognize them when they hear one. The big lies are so outlandish that they often startle the listener. Most people are not equipped to process them adequately. When the lie is colossal, the average person is left to wonder how anyone can have the audacity, the impudence to say such a thing. You are left with the difficult decision between two extremes: The person, who is saying this, must be either insane, a charlatan or he must be telling the truth. Now, what if for any reason, such as your reverence for this person, his charisma, or your commitment to him, you can’t bear the thought of repudiating him and accept that maybe he’s insane, a quack? Then you force yourself to believe in whatever he tells you even if what he says makes no sense at all. 

The big lie offsets the scale of our commonsense. This is like loading a scale that is made to weigh kilos with tons. It stops showing the correct weight. The indicator may even stop at zero. Hence, Hitler was right. The big lie is often believed better than a small one.

When Muhammad recounted his tale of ascending to the seventh heaven, Abu Bakr was at first taken aback. He did not know what to make of this. This sounded utterly mad. He had two choices. He had to either admit that his friend, whom he respected so much and by following him he had endured ridicule, was a crackpot and leave him or force himself to believe in his fantastical tales and whatever else he might say. There was no middle ground for him.

Ibn Ishaq says when Muhammad made his vision known, “Many Muslims gave up their faiths. Some people went to Abu Bakr and said, ‘What do you think of your friend? He alleges that he went to Jerusalem last night and prayed there, and came back to Mecca!’  He replied that they were lying about the apostle, but they said that he was in the mosque at that very moment, telling people about it. Abu Bakr said, ‘If he says so, then it is true. And what is so surprising in that? He tells me that communication from Allâh, from heaven to earth, come to him in an hour of a day or night, and I believe him. That is more extraordinary than that at which you boggle!’”[2]

The logic is flawless. Basically what Abu Bakr was saying is that once you give up your rational faculty and believe in an absurdity, you might as well believe in anything. Once you let yourself to be fooled, then you should be prepared to be fooled ad infinitum because there is no end to foolishness. How many people would let a 54 year old man sleep with their 9 year old daughter?  This requires extreme foolishness. This much foolishness is only possible through blind faith.

We must also remember that Abu Bakr, by then had spent most of his wealth for Muhammad and his cause. This man had a lot at stake. At this stage, he had no other choice but to go along with whatever his friend told him. Admitting that he had been conned was too painful a thought to bear. How could he explain this to his wife? What could he say to the wise men of Mecca who had laughed at him and told him he is a fool? The doors of going back for Abu Bakr were shut. All he could do was to dig in deeper and blindly follow Muhammad to wherever he took him. He had to silence his conscience and believe in anything his prophet fancied. When you put your entire faith on someone and sacrifice so much for him, you give up your independence and become putty in his hand. This is what cult leaders want from their devotees. Only this kind of devotion satiates their narcissistic craving.  

Abu Bakr had a hard time believing in Muhammad’s tale of ascension to heaven and yet in the end he had no choice but to believe because renouncing him meant admitting that he has been a fool and that was a painful experience. Denouncing the person, whom you have come to accept as the messenger of God and believe in, is not an easy task. It is indeed a heroic decision, one well beyond the range of any feeble-minded believer. The more you have given up your freedom, and the more you have sacrificed for this person and his cause, the more difficult it is to leave him. How would you face your friends and tell them you have been duped? How would you come to terms with your own conscience for all the years and money you have wasted on him?

What the average and normal person does not understand is that the fabricators of the big lies are not an average and normal but psychopaths. However, it is not easy to spot them. The narcissists often look not just smart, but geniuses. They are charming, delightful, amiable, intelligent and charismatic. Psychopathology has nothing to do with intelligence. What the psychopath narcissist lacks is conscience. It is the combination of a superior intellect and lack of conscience that makes him extremely dangerous. Hitler is a worthy example. A low witted psychopath that holds you at gunpoint to rob you is far less dangerous than the smart psychopath that seduces millions of people with grandiose talks and empty promises.

Hitler, Stalin and many other history’s despotic leaders were also insane. Yet few suspected their insanity. Those who did could not whisper it to others. The superior wisdom of the despotic leader is the invisible cloak of the emperor. Everyone sees it and praises it. Those who are not in the immediate circle, become convinced by the conviction of others. Thus the big lie is perpetuated and no criticism of it is tolerated.  

Use of Violence  

Apart from being utterly convinced, the psychopath liar is ready to use violence to defend his lies. Appealing to force in order to support a claim is another logical fallacy that has often been successfully applied by dictators. This fallacy is called Argumentum ad baculum. It happens when someone resorts to force, or the threat of force, to push others to accept a conclusion. 

Muhammad attributed his victories to divine assistance. The truth is that he won because he played dirty. He did not win because God was on his side but rather because he was cunning, ruthless and bent on winning by any means, even through deceit and treachery. You do not need God to be on your side to kill unarmed villagers taken by surprise.

Argumentum ad baculum can be defined as “might is right.”  This threat could be direct like: 

• Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. 9:5  
• I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them  8:12,

Or indirect such as:

• And as for those who disbelieve and reject Our Signs, they are the people of Hell 5:11
• For him [the disbeliever] there is disgrace in this life, and on the Day of Judgment We shall make him taste the Penalty of burning (Fire).  22:9,
• (As for) those who disbelieve in Our communications, We shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned, We will change them for other skins, that they may taste the chastisement; surely Allâh is Mighty, Wise. (Q. 4:56)

The threat gives the big lie a dramatic sense of urgency. The impact is so intense that one can’t remain indifferent. “How can one be so certain that God would punish those who disbelieve in him?” or “How can one kill so many people for mere fact that they disbelieve in him?” You wonder and become more prone to believe, than if there were no such threats. Argumentum ad baculum works. Extreme violence is extremely convincing. The North Koreans literally worship the mad Kim Jung II. This certainty comes to them through extreme violence and zero tolerance of dissent. When your life depends on believing, you will believe in anything.  

When the followers of Shoko Asahara, the Japanese leader of the cult Aum Shinrikyo, were ordered to release Sarin gas in the subways of Tokyo and murder many innocent people, they did not question the abhorrence of this order. They silenced their conscience and accepted it as the sign of the greater wisdom of their guru. They were faced with two choices. They had to, either accept that he is insane, that they have been fooled and admit that all their sacrifices have been in vain or convince themselves that this man’s wisdom is so great that they can’t fathom its depth and therefore should not question him. These people had given up everything to be with Asahara. They had broken all the bridges with their previous lives. They had nothing left to fall back on and nowhere to go if they decided to leave him. Since questioning Asahara or dissenting would not have been tolerated, they had no choice but to believe that whatever he said was right. They dismissed any doubt and forced themselves to have faith.

Dr. Ikuo Hayashi was a renowned doctor who had become one of Asahara’s zealous followers. He was one of the five persons who were ordered to plant the toxic Sarin gas in the subways of Tokyo. Hayashi was a trained physician and had taken the Hippocratic oath to save lives. At one point, before puncturing the packages containing the deadly liquid, he looked at the woman sitting in front of him and for a moment had misgivings. He knew that he was about to cause that woman’s death. But he immediately silenced his conscience convincing himself that Asahara knew best, and that it would not be right for him to question his master’s wisdom.

Normal people would never want to kill others for no reason. Here is this man who has convinced you that he holds the key to hell and paradise. Your eternal destiny is in his hands. You trust him completely and believe in whatever he tells you to the extent that you even fear doubting him. He has made you believe that if you doubt him you would go to hell. You have two choices: denounce him completely as a mad man or do what he says without questioning. “What if he is telling the truth?” you think to yourself. “By disobeying him, I would be punished for eternity. Can I take that chance? Just look at how many people have accepted him. Many of them are smart. Can all these people be wrong?” You whisper to yourself these thoughts and silence your conscience. Then there is the question of where to go? This cult is all you have. So you silence your conscience and submit your intelligence and do whatever you are told. Your obedience is rewarded. Your fellow cultists cheer you and praise your faith, devotion and sacrifices. This makes you feel better even though your actions were originally against your conscience. Gradually you come to see evil as good and murder appears to be divine.

So when your guru tells you that by killing people you will go to heaven, you believe. When he tells you that you must sacrifice your own life, you happily do it. When he tells you to hand over your possessions to him or give him your wife or your under-aged daughter to have sex with, you do not hesitate to please him. You have submitted your will and intelligence to him. There is no point for you to think or question anything, only to obey. You strive hard to be obedient. You vie with other fellow cultists try to outdo them in service and sacrifice. You are told, and you have ended up believing that the bigger your sacrifice, the greater will be your reward. You see it as your privilege to serve this man, to sacrifice your possessions and your life for him and for his cause, and to fulfill his wishes.

Omeir was a 16 years old lad who accompanied Muhammad in one of his battles. Muhammad spoke so glowingly of martyrdom that this boy was kindled with zealotry. Throwing away a handful of dates, which he was eating, he exclaimed “Is it these that hold me back from Paradise ? Verily, I will taste no more of them, until I meet my Lord!” With such words, he drew his sword, and casting himself upon enemy’s ranks, soon obtained the fate he coveted.

Once you become a believer you dismiss the thought that your beloved prophet may be lying. Psychopaths don’t have a conscience. They can lie and they are capable of killing millions of people without any compunction. They feel entitled to do so. Hitler was convinced that he was doing the work of God. Indeed, one of his most revealing statements makes this quite clear. In his book Mein Kampf, he wrote:                                                                           

Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.[3]  

Ayatollah Montazeri, the man who was supposed to succeed Khomeini, until he fell from grace and because of his disagreements with him, in his memoir writes, that when Khomeini ordered the massacre of more than 3000 dissident boys and girls, he objected. Khomeini responded that he would respond to God for that and that Montazeri should keep his mouth shut and not interfere.

The narcissist psychopaths are charismatic leaders. They have grandiose ideas and great appeal. They may appear to be pillars of strength and born leaders. It is not just you; many other “smart” people have also recognized their “greatness.” How can all these people be wrong? You marvel at the absurdities that he utters and instead of using reason to dismiss them outright, you strive to find some esoteric and hidden meanings in them that might offer some justification. The more stupid the utterances, the more miraculous and divine they begin to sound to you.

Hitler attracted the support of many Germans merely by making them feel food with his big lies. He was a spellbinding speaker. When he spoke, he became louder and louder, as he vented his rage at the perceived enemies of Germany . He aroused the patriotism of Germans. His belief, that the bigger the lie the more believable it might become, proved true. Millions of Germans believed in his lies. They loved him and were moved to tears by his fiery speeches.

Ibn Sa’d reports a hadith that reveals more similarities between Muhammad and Hitler: “During the sermons, the eyes of the Prophet would turn red as he would raise his voice and spoke angrily as if he was the commander of an army warning his men ‘the resurrection and I are like these two fingers’ (referring to his index and middle finger). He would say ‘the best of guidance is the guidance of Muhammad and the worst thing is innovation and any innovation will result in perdition’.”[4]

In the same place Ibn Sa’d says: “During his sermons, the Prophet used to wield a stick.”  (Perhaps to symbolize his dominance!)  

The art of manipulating others so brazenly is not an ability that you or I can learn, or easily master. Our biggest “handicap” is our conscience. Such ability comes naturally to psychopathic narcissists who have no conscience. Men like Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin and Muhammad were bereft of conscience.

Therefore there are four answers to the question “Why Islam succeeded”:

1. Islam is the biggest lie.
2. Muhammad was a ruthless tyrant.
3. Islam is extremely intolerant of opposing ideas.
4. Islam is an instrument of power.  

Why Did Everyone Praise Muhammad?   

A question that boggles Muslims is why, if Muhammad was so evil, did his companions praise him so much? Why no one spoke opprobriously of him, even after his death?

The answer is that in a society that is based on a personality cult, speaking your mind is not always safe. Telling the truth could bring you ostracism or worse, it could cost you your life. People who may think differently know enough to keep their mouths shut and their head on their shoulders. Abdullah Ibn Abi Sarh, who was writing down the Quran for Muhammad and who realized there were no revelations and that Muhammad was making the Qur’an up, had to escape Medina and only in the safety of Mecca he revealed what he had found. However, when Muhammad conquered Mecca , he immediately sought Abi Sarh and ordered his execution. Abi Sarh was saved thanks to the intercession of Uthman who happened to be his foster brother.

Where critics are silenced, sycophants and bootlickers will try to endear themselves by eulogizing the leader with flattery and exaggerated adulation. After Muhammad’s death, the sycophants continued fawning over him, praising him to the skies, even attributing miracles to him, thinking that this would add to their prestige and make them look pious. There are many miracles attributed to Muhammad even though he confessed in the Qur’an that he could not perform any.[5]

Fourteen hundred years later, millions of Muslims behave in the same way they used to at the time of Muhammad in Medina . Those who dissent are afraid to talk, and if they do, they are silenced swiftly, while the lackey fawners are honored for extolling the Prophet and his “virtues”. How can truth triumph in such a repressive atmosphere so fraught with hypocrisy and sycophancy?

There are several stories about Muhammad ordering the assassination of those who criticized him and about Omar, as Muhammad’s right hand man, who was ever ready to draw his sword and threaten to slit the throat of anyone who dared to question his master’s authority. Muhammad encouraged sycophantism and punished independent thinking and criticism.

People trapped in such an oppressive atmosphere, eventually come to believe in the superhuman qualities of the leader and their faith in them becomes genuine and real.

Recently a team of eye surgeons went to North Korea to help people with cataracts. Thousands of young and old lined up and after they recovered their sights, the doctors were stupefied to see that the first thing these people did was to go to the large portrait of their dictator Kim Jung II hanging on the wall to prostrate and thank him – not the doctors who help them, but the tyrant that had kept them blind for so many years.  

Muhammad’s mission flourished partly because he had appeared in a time and place where he was amongst an ignorant, superstitious, largely chauvinistic people. The qualities that he needed to bolster his marauding religion were already present in his early followers. Chauvinism, bigotry, haughtiness, arrogance, megalomania, stupidity, boastfulness, greed, lust for sex, disdain for life and other ignoble character traits that are the hallmarks of Islam, were already present as the materia prima in Arabia, where Muhammad launched his prophetic enterprise. These attributes were later imposed on other nations who fell prey to Islam. Those who already had these base attributes found in Islam a common ground to regroup and a “divine” validation for their deviant, criminal behavior. 

---

[1] Politics and the English Language 1946 http://www.resort.com/~prime8/Orwell/patee.html

[2] Sira Ibn Ishaq:P 183

[3] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ralph Mannheim, ed., New York : Mariner Books, 1999, p. 65.

[4] Ibn Sa’d Tabaqat, page 362

[5] The unbelievers repeated asked Muhammad to bring a miracle so they can believe (Quran 17: 90) and Muhammad kept telling them “Glory to my Lord! Am I aught but a man,- a messenger?” (Qur’an 17: 93)

A Few Influential Psychopaths

To understand the phenomenon of Muhammad we have to study modern cults and peer into the minds of their leaders. Cases abound. I only give a few examples:  

Jim Jones convinced normal decent people that he is the Messiah. He convinced them to leave their families and follow him to his “Medina” in the middle of the Jungles. He convinced the Government of New Guyana to give him 300 acres of land for free. He convinced his men to carry guns and kill anyone who dissented. These men shot and killed a senator and his guards and then he convinced his followers to drink a cyanide potion and 911 of them willingly did what he told them and died.  

How do you explain this magnetism on his part and this much loyalty and faith of those who believed in him?    

David Koresh gathered his followers in Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas. They were with him every moment of the day. They armed themselves because he told them so. They allowed their teenage daughters to sleep with him, much like Abu Bakr allowed Muhammad to sleep with his underage daughter. They shot and killed four ATF agents and booby trapped the compound and blew it causing their own deaths and the deaths of all their families rather than surrender. If that is not loyalty what it is? 90 people died in that incident.    

Order of the Solar Temple: This apocalyptic cult claimed 74 victims in three bizarre mass suicide rituals. Most of the members of the sect were highly educated and well-to-do individuals, much more intelligent than Abu Bakr, Omar and the kid Ali who was more fond of killing than thinking. 

The two known leaders of the group were Luc Jouret, a Belgian homeopathic doctor, and Joseph di Mambro, a wealthy businessman. They were like Muhammad and Abu Bakr of this cult. They too believed in their insanity and they too committed suicide.

The cult gave great importance to the Sun. Their fiery ritual murder-suicides are meant to take members of the sect to a new world on the star “Sirius.” To assist with the trip, several of the victims, including some children, were shot in the head, asphyxiated with black plastic bags and/or poisoned.

Luc and Joseph wrote, in a letter delivered after their deaths that they were “leaving this earth to find a new dimension of truth and absolution, far from the hypocrisies of this world.” Doesn’t this sound eerily familiar to what Muhammad preached? Except that he did not advocate suicide; there was no gain in that for him. He ordered his followers to wage war for him, kill and get killed in the cause of his imaginary Allah. Loot innocent people and bring wealth and power for him. He was much more pragmatic than these cultists and far less willing to put at risk his own life.   

How can you explain the devotion of these people to their sick beliefs? Do you deny the conviction of their leaders to their cause?    

Heaven’s Gate:  On March 26, 1997, 39 members of “Heaven’s Gate” decided to “shed their containers” and get on a companion craft hiding in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet.

The Heaven Gaters died in three shifts over a three-day period after celebrating their last meal on earth. 15 cultists died the first day, 15 the second and the remaining nine the third day. As one set of cultist ingested the poison, a lethal dose of phenobarbital mixed in with pudding and/or applesauce and chased with a shot of vodka, they would lie down and another cultist would use a plastic bag to speed up the dying. A frighteningly anal-retentive mass suicide, the cultist would clean up after each round of killing. Before the last two killed themselves, they took out the trash leaving the rented mansion in perfect order. Wanting to be helpful even after dead, all bodies had some sort of identification. Strangely, though, they also had five-dollar bill and change in their pockets and small suitcases neatly tucked under the cots and beds. 

Also take a look at the story of John de Ruilter, the man whose followers believe to be greater than Jesus, allow him to have orgies with their daughters. One of his followers is a psychologist who swears in his thirty years of practice he has never come across such a “sane” man. 

We have thousands of cases such as these. The cult leaders are charismatic, they are persuasive and they are convinced of their own cause. They are not normal people, they are psychopaths. They are very different from ordinary people and that is why they stand out. They are often intelligent people, but their reality and fantasy are mixed up. They mystify others with their oomph, self assurance, single mindedness and unwavering resolution. That is because they can’t distinguish between what is real and what is imagined. They are the first to believe in their own lies. This conviction fools their close friends and relatives, making them believe that they must know something that others don’t. 

Muhammad was no different. He was a psychopath. I have described his psychological profile in another article, titled The Force Behind Muhammad. Hitler, Stalin, or other charismatic cult leaders were not stupid. They were highly intelligent but they were insane.

More insane than that is the fact that a billion people follow a psychopath and all of them base their belief on a few logical fallacies. Each one of them bases his faith on the credulity of others and all of them, like sheep follow each other. If all the sheep go one way then that must be the right way to go. “After all not a billion people could be mistaken.”  

The Sheep Mentality and Deindividuation

Muslims call themselves Ummah. This word is of the same root of Ummi. Ummi is how Muhammad referred to himself and it means unlettered, unschooled, uneducated.

Therefore Ummah means the community of the unlettered followers. In the case of Muhammad this implied that his knowledge was of a divine source. However that distinction does not apply to the Ummah. Hence Ummah, by definition means the ignorant mass of believers. 

The verse 3:20 reads: 

وَقُل لِّلَّذِينَ أُوْتُواْ الْكِتَابَ وَالأُمِّيِّينَ أَأَسْلَمْتُمْ

And say to the People of the Book and to those who are unlearned: (Ummiyeen) “Do ye (also) submit yourselves?” 

Here the word Ummiyeen الأُمِّيِّينَ which is the plural of Ummi is translated as:

Yusuf Ali: those who are unlearned:
Pickthal: those who read not
Shakir: the unlearned people

Let us take another verse (Imran 3:75): 

قَالُواْ لَيْسَ عَلَيْنَا فِي الأُمِّيِّينَ سَبِيلٌ

“They say, “there is no call on us (to keep faith) with these ignorant (Pagans).(Ummiyeen)“

Yusuf Ali translates this word in this verse as ignorant.
Pickthal translates it as Gentiles. 
And Shakir translates the word as unlearned people.

The noun “gentile” is generally applied to an individual who is ignorant of the Scriptures. In English the synonym for “gentile” is “pagan”.

Historically, the term gentile was used by the governing Romans for the non-Romans (foreigners); it was adopted by the Jews to denote the non-Jews; in turn the Christians used it for the Pagans. In the Qur’an the term al-Ummiyeen, is generally translated as “the Unlettered folks“. The verse 62:2 reads,

هُوَ الَّذِي بَعَثَ فِي الْأُمِّيِّينَ رَسُولًا مِّنْهُمْ

Yusuf Ali translates this thus: 
“It is He Who has sent amongst the Unlettered an apostle from among themselves,“

And in his commentary he writes: “The Unlettered: as applied to a people, it refers to the Arabs, in comparison with the People of the Book…“

Verse: 2:78 

وَمِنْهُمْ أُمِّيُّونَ لاَ يَعْلَمُونَ الْكِتَابَ

And there are among them illiterates, who know not the Book,

The root of Ummi is “Um” (mother). A literal translation of that into English would be “Natural”, although the two words have taken different meanings in time. Etymologically, Ummi is the natural state of being ignorant and unlearned, as when born by mother.  

So Ummah is the uneducated and unlettered mass of people who are ignorant of the scriptures and hence unable to find their way. The Ummah is in constant need of guidance. Imam, also from the same root, is one who leads the Ummah. This is basically the concept of sheep and shepherd. The entire community of Muslims is deemed to be sheep in need of shepherd.

The believer is supposed to do whatever other believers do and all of them are to blindly follow what the Imam tells them to do, and he in turn is supposed to instruct them with what Muhammad used to do.  

Right and wrong, good and bad are not appraised based on their own merits. Right is what Muhammad said or did and wrong is what he prohibited. In other words Muslims are not to judge Muhammad by norms of morality and commonsense but rather the standards of morality and commonsense are to be measured by Muhammad’s deeds and words.  

This attitude exonerates Muslims from thinking. By following a uniform behavioral and thinking pattern the individual finds safety and comfort in the group.

Conformity is encouraged and independent thought is severely punished. Disagreeing with the majority can bring immense pain and hardship to the independent thinker.

Muslims are kept in line by pleasure/pain stimuli. By conforming they get rewarded. Their sycophant-ism is prized and it helps them to be accepted and cling to their social status. On the other hand independence of thought has sever consequences.

On psychological level the believer is terrorized with the fear of hell and lured by the promise of paradise. This psychological pressure is intended to numb the rational faculty of the believer and discourage him from ever wandering his mind on things that may shake his faith in the big lie. 

This is another important factor that has helped Islam to survive for so many centuries. Muslims are discouraged and do not dare to think independently. Breaking that pattern and rebelling against the conformity is so painful that the thought of that sends shiver down the spine of the believer. By thinking differently the believer could lose his wife, his family, his friends, his job, his status, his respect, his property, his freedom and even his life.

The fear of the society and the fear of the afterlife are two main reasons Islam has endured so long. This lie has never been challenged and as long as it remains unperturbed, it will stay unscathed. The longevity of a lie is not a proof that it is true. Islam has survived because of the fear factor and not because it is true.  

Socially, Islam contributes to the deindividuation of the believer. Deindividuation is a technical term for sheep mentality. This is a psychological state where sheep mentality is aroused when individuals join crowds or large groups.

Deindividuation is characterized by diminished awareness of self and individuality. In Islam individuality is completely denied and the individual’s life is fused with Ummah. He is not only reduced to a virtual slave, he is actually called by that name. People, are called Ibaad, which literally means slaves.

Deindividuation reduces an individual’s self-restraint and normative regulation of behavior. It contributes to collective behavior of violent crowds, mindless hooligans, and the lynch mob. Such behavior is particularly noticeable when the Ummah gets into the mosque and is roused by red faced speeches of the imams and mullahs calling upon them to curse the Jews and the infidels for “oppressing” the Muslims.

The individual is not allowed to question why. What is the proof of that oppression and why he should hate the Jews and the infidels? If a child ask that question he will be slapped on the face so he can learn this is an inappropriate question, but if an adult asks that question he could be in big trouble. 

Deindividuation has been also associated with other social phenomena such as genocide, stereotyping, and disinhibition. This explains the behavioral pattern of the believing/practicing Muslims. The mob lynching of the American contractors in Fallujah and the evisceration of the Israeli soldiers and gnawing on their hearts in Ramala are just two cases that were brought to public light because the victims were Americans and Israelis. But this behavior is not uncommon in Islam. In Iran thousands of Baha’is lost their lives to mob lynching. In Pakistan the same happens to those accused of violating the blasphemy law and insulting Muhammad. Muslims are often roused to hysteric levels, after listening to the sermons in their mosques, and become ready to commit murder.    

Ironically it is the brutality and the repressive nature of Islam, in conjunction with its absolute irrationality that has made this doctrine a successful religion and has allowed it to survive this long.

Islam cannot stand scrutiny. Muhammad knew perfectly that he is unable to answer the questions raised by his critics. Therefore he saw to it so no one dare question him ever. 

Even in the West if someone pronounces something critical of Islam, Muslims protest en masse and murder the westerners in Dar al Islam, claming that their “sensibility has been hurt”. The idea is to intimidate you from criticizing their religion next time. They are fully aware that they can’t answer answer your criticism and that means the end of Islam.   

Why Everyone Praised Muhammad? 

One question arises in the mind of the Muslims: Why all Muhammad’s companions praised him so much? Why no one spoke opprobriously of him even after his death?

The answer is that In a society that is based on personality cult, speaking your mind is not easy. Telling the truth could bring you ostracism and even cost your life. People who think differently keep their thoughts to themselves. Instead the sycophants try to endear themselves by eulogizing the leader through flattery and exaggerated adulation. After the death of the cult leader, the sycophants add to their charade to gain prestige.  Even today the situation is not changed. People who dissent are afraid to talk and are persecuted; while the toadies are honored for writing eulogies about Muhammad. How can truth come out in this repressive and deceitful atmosphere? 

We have many stories about Muhammad ordering the assassination of those who criticized him and about Omar who was ever ready to withdraw his sword and slit the throat of one who questioned Muhammad’s authority. Muhammad encouraged sycophantism and punished criticism.

Therefore the secrets of Muhammad’s success are no secrets anymore. He succeeded because he told the biggest lie ever and because he was extremely ruthless towards those who questioned him and disagreed with him.

Muhammad succeeded also because he appeared among the most ignorant, the most superstitious and the most barbarous people. The qualities that he needed to bolster his marauding religion were all present among his early followers and later were imposed on others who fell prey to his cult. Chauvinism, bigotry, haughtiness, arrogance, megalomania, stupidity, greed, lust for sex, disrespect for life and other ignoble qualities such as these, that are the hallmark of Islam were already present as the materia prima in the Arabia where Muhammad launched his prophetic career. All he had to do was to invent a big lie and add some intolerance and some violence to create the most perfect religion of hate.    

This is why Islam has survived so far and not because it is a true religion.