Islam--Sociopathy As Religion

Before he became a historian of note, George Kennan was a diplomat of skill and repute. He is best known for having designed the foundation for the policy of containment which guided the US for nearly a half century before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kennan's point of departure was his understanding of the "sources of Soviet conduct," of necessity a historically based view of the cultural, intellectual, social and political nature of Russia and its people. He saw history as far more than prologue to the present. Kennan's view of history was that it propelled peoples and the institutions they either created or allowed to exist within certain, narrow channels. Only the introduction of massive and sustained resistance to the historical flow within these channels would allow or cause the canal banks to fail and new directions to emerge.

Not all historians by a long shot share Kennan's rather narrow understanding of the past with the present and the future. Still, his basic approach has much to recommend it. The simple reality is human ideas, culture, society and the structures or institutions which emerge from them have inertia.

Inertia. That's the magic word for understanding much of what is going on in the present day. Inertia. A concept that is commonplace in physics. Defined by Newton's famed laws.

You should remember it from high school physics.

OK. If you don't, here it is. A body at rest or in uniform motion remains at rest or in uniform motion unless acted upon by an outside force.

Humans as well as their ideas and institutions from the smallest to the largest show the same tendency to unchangingness. Each and every one of us as well as the human context in which we live tends to chug along seemingly without change. Unless acted upon. By a force.

Get a grip on that. Acted upon by a force. With human beings the force need not be physical. It does not even need to come from outside the society. Unlike physical objects we can generate the forces that change us and our context.

"Wait one, Geek! What the hell has this got to do with anything?"

Hang on with the Geek for a few minutes, bucko, and you'll see it has everything to do with the conflict underway between Islam and the West (OK, to be fully ecumenical, the East as well.)

(First, a personal confession of sorts. The Geek has tried hard to follow the politically correct procedure of distinguishing between "Islamists/jihadists" and Islam. That effort springs, no doubt, from the Geek's years in the professorate where sensitivity is all. The Geek can no longer keep up the pretense of making a distinction when there is no difference. That decision is no doubt a reflection of his years dealing with intelligence where the obligation is to call it as you see it to the best of your knowledge and belief regardless of personal or career consequences.)

The necessity for dropping the distinction between "Islamist" and Islam is inertia. The inertia of Islam. The persistence of the founding nature and character of Islam as well as the deathless roll of its founder, Mohammad, in the inertia of Islam.

The ongoing fountainhead of Islam is threefold: the Quran, the hadith (stories about or sayings of Mohammad collected and verified roughly a century after his death as either "strong" or "weak" according to the probable degree of authenticity) and the Sunnah--the biography of Mohammad. This biography is based in large measure on the hadith. It is particularly crucial to understanding Islam because Mohammad is al insan al kamil, the "ideal man."

In short, a Muslim cannot go wrong if he acts in the same way as Mohammad did back in the Seventh Century.

None of the tripartite basis of Islam is secret or hard to find. Go to http://www.dar-us-salam.com/. The Quran, the multi-volume hadith, the sunnah are all there, easy to buy if not so easy to read.

Time to dig a bit.

The Quran is short, about the same length as the Christian New Testament. It is arranged according the length of the chapters which makes it a bit tough to parse between the earlier and later writings. That in turn makes it harder to properly apply the uniquely Islamic tool of "abrogation" which states that in cases of internal contradiction, the later takes priority over the former. In short, the Islamic deity can change his mind and the earlier version is rendered, in the words of Nixon's press secretary, "inoperative."

Nifty, heh?

Perfect for a political movement based on violence as it wins. Start with all sorts of warm, fuzzy, win the hearts-and-minds mood music. End with lopping off the heads of defeated opponents in wholesale amounts.

As you read the Quran get ready to wade through more blood and gore than that which spatters sections of the Jewish Bible. Along with the slasher movie segments there is a fine short course in conducting successful insurgency. (The Geek recommends it over the maundering of Mao.)

In the Quran you will also get to meet Mohammad. He is a singular personality. And, quite unpleasant to boot. This "ideal man" is possessed of a thirst for vengence against those who "mocked" him. This "ideal man" has a love of booty--which, presumably to his political credit, he shares with those who support him.

The "ideal man" also has an unlimited drive for power. Compared to him modern aggrandizers such as Hitler and Stalin were small time operators.

The theology of the Quran is derivative. While the Geek has but a lowly masters in comparative religion, even he could see that there is nothing new in the Quran. There is a total absence of any theological concept that cannot be traced directly to roots in the earlier polytheistic religions of the Arabian desert or to Judaism and Christianity. Not surprising, both monotheistic faiths had a long standing presence in the area when Mohammad arrived on the scene and polytheism was in the air he breathed and the sand on which he stood.

The final feature of the Quran is its emphasis on death. And, its focus on hell. No other piece of religious literature begins to have the love affair with hell found in the Quran. The descriptions of the torments of the damned (primarily women it might be noted) are laid out with a sensuous regard for detail. It's a sort of pornography. The pornography of pain and hopelessness. A pornography that should appeal only to the kind of man who would volunteer for the cadre at Dachau or Belsen-Bergen.

We really get to meet the "ideal man," upclose, personal and unpleasant in the hadith and sunnah. Here we see him at work. Hard work such as personally chopping off the heads of defeated Jewish adversaries, the Bani Quaraiza. (Sira, pp 463-4)

According to the hadith and sunnah, Mohammad not only was given to the notion of victory at any price, treachery, counseling genocide, and personally killing unarmed captives. He also deflowered yet one more new wife, a nine year old.

The picture of Mohammad that comes out of the Quran, hadith and sunnah has a name. Actually it has several names depending upon the user's degree of medical knowledge and political correctness. See, http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=39219.

Mohammad, the "ideal man" of Islam, the man who sets the standard for all Muslims (or at least those of the male persuasion) was a sociopath. The political movement he started under the banner of religion is a sociopathy. A sociopathy that calls itself a religion.

You want some features?

OK. Consider the following. Islam, whether Arab or later adherents, has cut the most bloody swath across the world in recorded history. One need not look any further than the Muslim conquest of Hindu India to see the greatest acts of pure genocide ever committed.

The spilling of blood in oceanic quantities is a necessary feature of a belief system utterly without empathy. The lack of empathy is a key diagnostic feature of sociopathy.

Consider the inability of Islam to compromise--on anything. The basic stance of Islam over the past thirteen hundred years is: what's mine is mine--what's yours will be mine.

Uncompromising pure self-interest unalloyed by other considerations is another key diagnostic feature of Islam. Back then and today.

Consider the extraordinary sensitivity of Muslims to presumed slights, insults, mockings and so on. From Mohammad to the OIC, Muslims are eager to claim that they are being insulted and demand vengeance. (Preferably the same vengeance that Mohammad, the "ideal man" demanded: death! Off with their heads!)

Egocentrism of this cosmic sort is another key diagnostic feature of sociopathy.

Are you getting the picture?

Underneath all the diagnostic features, under all the "anti-social" attitudes and behaviors, the sociopath is filled with fear. He is propelled with fear. He lives in fear.

Islam is predicated upon fear. The fear of death. More, the fear of hell which is drummed so deeply into the back brain of each and every believer.

Islam is and always has been fearful. Only the most fearful seek to eliminate all competition, all dissent, all deviant views. Only the most fearful seek global conquest by whatsoever means. Only the fearful seek to provoke, induce, manufacture fear in the minds of all who disagree, dissent, oppose or are merely different somehow.

Only the fearful seek as a sort of paradise the unchanging world of the Seventh Century Arabian desert with its stark silence and barren soil.

Only Islam has these goals explicit in its basic writings. Only Islam has these features written in the life of the "ideal man."

Only Islam is sociopathy. And Mohammad was its founder and still guiding light.

None of this will change--unless acted upon by an outside force.