# The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis/Volume II/A Short Study of the Life and Character of Mohammed

by
OWEN BERKELEY-HILL, Ranchi, India.
The psychology of Freud, which has for its leading motif the insistence on a rigid determinism in all psychic processes has led not only Freud himself, but many others, who have found themselves irresistibly drawn to accept at least this principle of his doctriqe, to submit to a psycho-analytical dissection a variety of historical personalities.
To undertake a psycho-analysis of the prophet Mohammed may appear at first sight to be a rather fantastic enterprise but in view of the fact that Abraham has subjected the Egyptian Pharaoh, Amenhotep IV, who lived nearly 2,000 years before Christ, to a most fruitful analysis, I have been tempted to undertake a review of the character of Mohammed along somewhat similar lines, for there is nothing shadowy or mysterious in the records of the life of the Great Arabian Prophet. We know as much of Mohammed as we do even of Luther and Milton.
As in the case of Amenhotep, there exists in the life-history of Mohammed an abundance of evidence which points unmistakably to the existence of a prodigious "parental complex". Therefore it is by no means unlikely that a psycho-analytic survey of the material at our disposal will enable us to recognise at least some of the psychogenic factors which impelled Mohammed to devote his life to the formulation and propagation of a religious and social system that is still, after thirteen centuries, accepted almost without question by a quarter of the population of the world.
After reading Abraham's fascinating analysis of the character-traits of Amenhotep IV, one cannot fail to be struck by the ​numerous points of resemblance between the young Pharaoh and the aristocratic Arab.
The character and activities of both men had their roots in an intense “father-complex” involving a strong infantile fixation in regard to the mother. For Amenhotep the roots of his venge fulness Jay in the beautiful and gifted Asiatic princess, Teje; while the incestuous love of Mohammed was directed towards the gentle Amina, daughter of Khuweilid, whose very name “Amina”, “the Faithful”, is daily in the mouth of every Muslim throughout the world.
In the case of Mohammed the “Father-complex” was of a rather peculiar kind since, being born a posthumous child, he never knew his father. The place of the father was taken by his grandfather, ​hence for Mohammed there was strictly speaking a "grandfather-", rather than a "father-complex".
As with Amenhotep, so with Mohammed; in neither did the aggressire impulses find expression in any active hostility against the objects of their jealous dislike. In both men the impulses underwent immensities of sublimation, so that both sought and found a solution to their respective conflicts in waging a life-long war on the traditions, religious, political and social, of their people.
Doubtless the aggressive impulses (against the father) of Amenhotep underwent a far greater degree of sublimation than those of Mohammed, so that his character became in the end more essentially to resemble that of Jesus of Nazareth than that of the founder ​of Islam, for the hatred of Amenhotep for his father found its final expression in a consuming love for all created things.
The intensity of the unconscious feeling of both these men can only be measured by the stupendous revolution brought about by them. This tendency to attack the authority of the father in the realm of religion and politics, as exemplified in the lives of Amenhotep and Mohammed, is not confined to individuals who show no other manifestation of mental derangement, but is now recognised to be a notable symptom of certain varieties of psychoneurosis. As Amenhotep cast out Amon, the god of his father, and transferred his reverence to Aton on whom he conferred a might and majesty hitherto unknown to the gods of Egypt, so Mohammed cast out the gods of his father, Al-lat, Al-Uzza and Manah, who were worshipped as angels under femalenames, and preached the worship of the Jevohah of the Hebrews, modified to fit the demands of his phantasy. Thus:
"They do not call besides Him on any thing but inanimate objects, and they do not call on any thing but a devil devoid of all good," (Koran, Chapter IV, v. 117) and again,
"Have you then considered the Lat and the Uzza, And Manat, the third, the last? What! for you the males and for Him the females! This indeed is an unjust division!
They are naught but names which you have named, you and your fathers; Allah has not sent for them any authority. They follow naught but conjecture and the low desires which (their) souls incline to; and certainly the guidance has come to them from their Lord.
"Or shall man have what he wishes?" (Koran, Chapter LIII, v. 19-24).
But in spite of the strength of the revolutionary tendencies of Amenhotep and Mohammed, we can observe in both a willingness to compromise on certain points, an attitude of mind that is frequently a feature of the behaviour of psychoneurotics. This willingness to compromise may be taken as an indication that the desire for paternal control is never entirely lost, even when the antagonism to it reaches its highest point of development.
Although Amenhotep broke with the ancient worship of Amon, ​the god of his father, and turned to the cult of Aton, he nevertheless resuscitated the worship of the Sun, which had been peculiar to Lower Egypt from time immemorial.
Similarly, Mohammed attempted on two notable occasions compromises with the past. The first compromise concerned itself with the worship of the ancient idols, Al-lat, Al-Uzza, and Manah, to which reference has already been made, for, although Mohammed ended by casting them all out, he was impelled originally to except them from expulsion from the new régime.
The story goes that one day at a gathering of the chief men of Mecca, Mohammed appeared and seating himself by them in a friendly manner began to recite in their hearing Chapter LIII of the Koran. The chapter opens with a description of the first visit of Gabriel to Mohammed and then unfolds a second vision of that angel, at which certain heavenly mysteries were revealed. The passage is as follows:
“ 'He also saw him (Gabriel) at another descent, By the Lote-tree at the furthest boundary, Near to which is the Paradise of rest. When the Lote-tree covered that which it covered, His sight turned not aside, neither did it wander. And verily he beheld some of the greatest Signs of his Lord And see ye not Lat and Ozza, And Manat the third besides?'
"When he had reached this verse, the devil suggested to Mahomet an expression of thoughts which had long possessed his soul; and put into his mouth words of reconciliation and compromise such as he had been yearning that God might send unto his people, namely:
"These are exalted Females, And verily their intercession is to be hoped for.
"The Coreish were astonished and delighted with this acknowledgment of their deities; and as Mahomet wound up the Sura with these closing words,
"Wherefore bow down before God, and serve Him,'
the whole assembly prostrated themselves with one accord on the ground and worshipped, Walid alone, unable from the ​mities of age to bow down, took a handful of earth and worshipped, pressing it to his forehead.
"Thus all the people were pleased at that which Mahomet had spoken, and they began to say: 'Now we know that it is the Lord alone that giveth life and taketh it away, that createth and supporteth. And as for these our goddesses, they make intercession with Him for us; wherefore, as thou hast conceded unto them a portion, we are content to follow thee.' But their words disquieted Mahomet, and he retired to his house. In the evening Gabriel visited him; and the. Prophet (as was his wont) recited the Sura unto him. And Gabriel. said: 'What is this that thou hast done? thou hast repeated before the people words that I never gave unto thee. So Mahomet grieved sore, and feared the Lord greatly; and he said, I have spoken of God that which He hath not said. But the Lord comforted his Prophet, and restored his confidence, and cancelled the verse and revealed the true reading thereof (as it now stands), namely:
"And see ye not Lat and Ozza, And Manat the third beside ? What ! shall there be male progeny unto you, and female unto Him? That were indeed an unjust partition! They are naught but names, which ye and your fathers have invented,' etc.
"Now when the Coreish heard this, they spoke among themselves, saying: 'Mahomet hath repented his favourable mention of the rank of our goddesses with the Lord. He hath changed the same, and brought other words intstead.' So the two Satanic verses were in the mouth of every one of the unbelievers, and they increased their malice, and stirred them up to persecute the faithful with still greater severity.
"Pious Mussulmans of after days, scandalized at the lapse of their Prophet into so flagrant a concession, would reject the whole story. But the authorities are too strong to be impugned. It is hardly possible to conceive how the tale, if not in some shape or other founded in truth, could ever have been invented. The stubborn fact remains, and is by all admitted, that the first refugees did return about this time from Abyssinia; and that they returned in consequence of a rumour that Mecca was converted. To this ​fact the narratives of Wackidi and Tabari afford the only intelligible clue. At the same time it is by no means necessary that we should literally adopt the exculpatory version of Mahometan tradition; or seek, in a supernatural interposition, the explanation of actions to be equally accounted for by the natural workings of the Prophet's mind."
The second compromise was a more important one, since it involved the retention of that most ancient and strange edifice the Kaaba—as the ὀμφαλός γἠς of Islam. In this case the rationalisations wherewith to justify the sanctity of the Kaaba were more successful than those required to retain as sacred the three "exalted females". Although Jerusalem had been the first “Kebleh", Mohammed, shortly after his flight to Medina, exchanged it for Mecca, thus linking Islam with the ancient pagan cult of his fathers instead of with Judaism.
It was not difficult to justify the retention of a building which was after all a divine institution. Was it not a temple built by Adam at the command of God in the likeness of a house he had seen in paradise before the Fall? Had it not been rebuilt after the Flood by the patriarchs Abraham and Ishmael and re-consecrated to the service of the true God from which high state it had fallen in the course of time through ignorance? Did not the appointed compassing of it symbolise the circling course of the heavenly bodies and the obedience of all creation to the Deity? Was not pious devotion nurtured by kissing the sacred corner stone? The slaying of sacrifices in commemoration of Abraham's readiness to offer up his son, signified a like submission.
Thus it came about that this strange cube of masonry, forty feet square, has remained to the present day, so that, in spite of a total lack of beauty or majesty, it continues to inspire many Muslims with such awe that on the day of the Hag many fear to look upwards near the Kaaba, so literally do they interpret the expression "house of God". Later on we shall have occasion to refer to one more striking instance of this "compromise-formation", as Abraham calls it, in the attitude adopted by Mohammed towards the "authority" of rulers and parents.
"In the name of Allah, the Benefic
* Say: He, Allah, is one.
* Allah is He on whom all depend.
* He begets not, nor is He begotten.
* And none is like Him" (Koran, Chapter CXII).
Mohammed reasserts that which had been the life of the old Hebrew the Merciful nation, and the burden of the song of every Hebrew prophet, that God not only lives but that he is a righteous and merciful ruler; and that to his will it is the duty and privilege of all living men to bow. But the God of Islam was to be a more compelling and authoritative God than Jehovah. As the Jew surrendered his birthright if he imparted his faith to other peoples, so the Muslim was to surrender his if he did not spread his faith wherever and however he might. Thus:
"And it does not beseem the believers that they should go forth all together; why should not then a company from every party from among them go forth that they may apply themselves to obtain understanding in religion, and that they may warn their people when they come back to them that they may be cautious?" (Koran, Chapter IX, v. 122.)
But it was not only with the creation of a One and Only God that Mohammed was concerned; he was also deeply involved in the question of the relationship that he himself should bear to this creation. As Abraham points out, the father is for the child the personification of power and greatness, so that, if at any time a child experiences feelings of hostility against his father, the son tends in phantasy to raise the paternal authority to the level of sovereignty so that in the end he himself becomes as it ​were the son of an imaginary king, and the real father recedes into the position of a sort of foster-father. Thus springs into being that very common phantasy of youth in which the boy fancies; himself to be a prince.
Among the insane we frequently meet with delusions of noble birth which take their origin in ideas of hostility against the father. The same thing is to be found in myths and fairy tales; wherein the hero is brought up by lowly parents, but later comes into those princely rights to which he was from the first entitled by the nobility of his birth. In fairy stories of this sort the age-long conflict between father and son finds expression under all sorts of disguises. Both Amenhotep and Mohammed were so placed by the circumstances of their birth that, for each to rise to a higher degree of sovereignty than his father, it was necessary to appeal to the super-human. Although Mohammed was not, like Amenhotep, the son of a king, there was nothing, humanly speaking, greater for him than bis tribe, the Coreish, at the pinnacle of whose aristocratic eminence reigned the venerable patriarch, his grandfather, Abd-ul- Muttalib. What better replacement figure of his grandfather could be found than the god of the Hebrews, of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Moses? Did not the god of the Patriarchs bear the very features of the patriarchs themselves? As a product therefore of the same type of unconscious ideas that gave rise to the adoption of Aton by Amenhotep as the god of Egypt, and of Jehovah by Moses as the god of Israel,. there sprang into being that Allah, the Creator of All, the Originator, the Sustainer, the Destroyer, the Lord, the Master, the Just, the Merciful. Among the almost endless list of appellations wherewith Allah may be åddressed it is significant to find not only that the name of "Father" finds no place, but it is forbidden to address Allah by this name. We are therefore at liberty to conclude that this omission is yet another expression of the workings of Mohammed's mind under the influence of the "Father-complex".
Furthermore, as in Aton and Jehovah were reflected the personality of Amenhotep and Moses respectively, so Allah became the reflection, magnified perhaps, of the personality of Mohammed, and from these divine prototypes which were the outcome of their creative phantasies, each was able to draw that fiery zeal and wield that tremendous power which made their careers so remarkable in the history of mankind.
​Another notable point of similarity between these two great reformers is that both of them suffered from periodical attacks of a paroxysmal kind, thus indicating an indubitable neuropathic temperament.
Strange and graphic accounts of these attacks have been preserved to us by Ayesha, the girl-wife of Mohammed, in which she describes the physical phenomena attending these seizures. Ayesha records of the prophet that, "he heard as it were the ringing of a bell; he fell down as one dead; he sobbed like a camel; he felt as though he were being rent in pieces, and when he came to himself he felt as though words had been written on his heart".
Sprenger, the author of "Das Leben und die Lehre des Mohammed", has described these fits most minutely and with a great deal of curious learning. He thinks that Mohammed, "suffered from hysteria, followed by catalepsy rather than epilepsy".
In regard to their married life both Amenhotep and Mohammed were exceptional. The young Pharaoh, contrary to established custom, clung passionately to a single wife throughout his short reign; while Mohammed lived for twenty-five years a life of punctilious fidelity to the elderly Khadijah, although the customs and traditions of his race permitted the grossest license as regards sexual intercourse.
Now Mohammed was the only and posthumous child of Abd-ullah, the son of Abd-ul-Muttalib. Abd-ullah was one of the most beautiful and refined youths of his time, and his name, Abd-ullah "Servant of God", was not an uncommon one among ante-Mohammedan Arabs. His family belonged to the most ancient and illustrious tribe of the Corcish, whose strength and influence had been established by his ancestor, at the fourth remove, the famous Cossai, Abd-ullah's father, Abd-ul-Muttalib, held the coveted office of entertaining all pilgrims to Mecca, a position which carried with it great power and influence.
When Abd-ullah was twenty-four years of age his father married him to Amina, the niece of Wuheib, who was a descendant of the famous Cossai, founder of the fortunes of the Coreish. At the same time Abd-ullah's father, Abd-ul-Muttalib, in spite of his advanced age, married Halah the cousin of Amina and daughter of Wuheib.
Shortly after his marriage with Amina, Abd-ullah set out on ​a mercantile expedition to Syria, from which he never returned, being overtaken with a fatal illness and dying at Medina.
Mohammed was born shortly after his father's death and this concatenation was probably one of the most important events in the career of the prophet, since it must have influenced the lines along which his Edipus-complex developed.
Either as the result of the ill-health of his mother, Amina, or because it was customary among the better class Arab families of those times, Mohammed was put out to nurse, and he was first suckled by a slave-woman of his uncle Lahab, his father's brother. This woman had recently suckled Lahab's youngest brother, Hamza, so Mohammed thus became foster-brother to his own uncle—an event which in all probability contributed later to the development of his chief phantasy.
Later Mohammed was given another wet-nurse, Halima, and she took him away with her to her tribe, the Bani Sad, so that for two years, until she weaned him, Mohammed did not see his mother. Halima then brought Mohammed to this mother, and the sight of so sturdy a child delighted Amina so much that she begged Halima to take the child back again with her to the desert, which, accordingly, Halima did, and for another two years the young Mohammed remained among the Bani Sad.
When about four years of age Mohammed suffered, for the first time, from one of those paroxysmal attacks to which allusion has already been made. In spite of a good deal of uneasy apprehension which the onset of these seizures aroused in the mind of Halima, she continued, at the earnest entreaty of Amina, to keep Mohammed with her for yet one more year, after which she restored the child to his mother.
In the sixth year of his life Mohammed was taken by his mother to visit her relatives in Medina and she alighted from her camel at the house where her husband had died and was buried.
This visit to Medina was vividly recalled by Mohammed in after years, when, at the age of fifty-three he once more gazed upon the house. "Here", he said, "it was my mother lodged with me; in this place is the tomb of my father."
On the return journey to Mecca, Amina fell ill and died. The little orphan was carried back to Mecca by Omm Ayman, his ​Ethiopian nurse, and committed to the care of his grandfather Abd-ul-Muttalib.
It is recorded of the old man that he became greatly attached to his grandchild, and permitted him to take liberties that aroused the jealousy of his sons, who would attempt to drive the child away. "Let my little son alone", the old man would say, making room for him on the rug on which he sat. Mohammed soon began to feel and appreciate the bereavement he had suffered in the loss of both his parents and became, it is recorded, a pensive and meditative child. It is obvious that the tenderness shewn to him by his grandfather, as well as the nobility of the patriarch to whom such great deference was always paid, must have greatly impressed the imagination of the child, more particularly when he began to weave what Freud terms his "Family Romance", wherein the replacement of the father by a more agreeable substitute is the most prominent phantasy.
In the case of Mohammed there must have been a departure from the line which this phantasy-formation usually follows, since as we have already observed, Mohammed was the posthumous child of this father and, in addition, he did not live for more than a few months in contact with his mother, during the whole course of his life. Hence that feeling of hostility usually reserved for the father, was in the case of Mohammed reserved for his grandfather, who came to play in every respect the rôle of father. Furthermore, the peculiar circumstances of Mohammed's life must have given rise to the idea that for him his father and mother had never existed, an illusion which must have received considerable support by his constant association with his young step-grandmother, who was of the same generation as his own mother, being her first cousin, as well as with his young uncle Hamza, who was also his foster-brother. At least one result of this ​A SHORT STUDY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 43
dition of Mohammed's early life may have been to evoke that desire, which is very common in children, namely to become the parents of their own parents. This curious construction of the imagination is closely connected with incestuous wishes, since it is an exaggerated form of the commoner desire to be one's own •father. »
In this connection we may note that Mohammed was always very particular in his numerous references to Mary the mother of Jesus, and the doctrine of the immaculate conception was strongly upheld by him. The conception of Mary and the birth of Jesus are de- scribed in detail in the Koran and the calumny of the Jews that Mary was guilty of fornication is denounced in Chapter IV, v. 156.
Finally Mary is placed by Mohammed among the four perfect women of the world — the other three being Miriam (Mary) the sister of Moses, Khadijah his wife, and Fatima his eldest daughter by Khadijah.
The guardianship of Abd-ul-Muttalib lasted only two years. At his death the charge of the orphan Mohammed was taken over by his uncle Abu Talib, elder brother of Mohammed's father. Abu Talib was no less zealous in his devotion to the child than his father had been. He made him sleep by his bed, eat by his side and go with him whenever he walked abroad.
About this time Mohammed began to employ himself in tend- ing the flocks of sheep and goats on the neighbouring hills, and it was while thus occupied that his love of brooding in retirement began to develop into a passion. In adopting this attitude towards the world in which he Uved, that is to say towards the world of reality, we can discern a further manifestation of Mohammed's neuropathic disposition, as well as the lines along which his phantasy formation was beginning to urge him.
In the words of Rank: "Der Neurotiker lebt dann nicht mehr in der Welt der wirklichen Geschehnisse, sondem in einer anderen, von seiner Phantasie geschaffenen".
Among the many subjects that occupied his attention at this time, there was one above all' on which it appears that he dwelt in wrapt contemplation, and that was the life and character ol Moses.
With the story of the great Hebrew law-giver the Arabs had
1 See Ernest Jones: Papers on Psycho-Analysis pp. 653 and 234, and Rank: op. cU. ​44 OWEN UERKELEY-IIILL ||
been acquainted long before the utterance of Chapter VII |
of the Koran, which is entitled the "History of Mosc>". In his |
later days Mohammed was wont to remark that "(iod has never J
chosen any one to be a prophet who had not, like Moses, like;
David, or like himself, tended sheep in the wilderness". There is little doubt that as Mohammed grew older he identificcl himself more and more with Moses, partly l>ecause he felt himself to be like him and wanted to be more like him, and partly l>ecause he found in the Jehovah of Moses the prototype of the Allah of his own creative phantasy.
That Mohammed was now becoming the subject of intense repression in certain aspects of his mental development, nothing affords a better measure than the phenomenal chastity of the young Arab at this period of his life, who, although he belonged ,
to a race which, according to Wavell, * has absorbed nine-tenths ||
of the entire amount of the erotic passion destined for the whole r
of mankind, the correctness of his deportment and the purity of his life were so exceptional that some of his biographers have been led to ascribe the preservation of his chastity to the special ^
intervention of Providence. - g
Certainly Mohammed's life had been u to Uiis time free from |^
any sexual experience, a fact to which he bore witness in later . ^^
life. For example, he relates how one night he had entered the |^
town to divert himself; "even as youtlis are wont by night to f
divert themselves," when he was arrested by heavenly strains of |-,
music and, sitting down, slept till morning. Thus he escaped temp- f
tation. "And after this", said Mohammed, "I no more sought after vice; even until 1 had attained unto the prophetic ofTice."' ^
If Mecca, in the days of the youthful Mohammed, was anydiing |
like the Mecca of the twentieth century as so vividly described by ■:
Wavell, « who maintains that the inhabitants of the holy cities, (Mecca and Medina), are given to all the vices of the cities of the Plain and a few more besides of modern introduction, we are *
left with only two possible alternatives to explain the purity of y
Mohammed's life, viz. either he was endowed with the most ex- i
ceptional powers of repression or his sexual desire was extremely |, .
exiguous. ^
« A Modern Pilgrim in Mecca. = Muir: Life of Mahomet p. 19. •' ci/i. cit., p. 137.
,.* ​A SHORT STUDY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 45
A study of the married life of Mohammed certainly reveals a number of data which support this former hypothesis i. e. that the repression of every impulse towards sexual experience was due to the immensity of certain incestuous fixations. We may there- fore presume that to this and to no other cause may be attribu- ted the scrupulous chastity of Mohammed for the first twenty-five years of his life and later the selection a^ his first wife the elderly matron Khadijah, who at the time of her marriage with him was fifteen years older than he, and already twice a widow.
On these two accounts,, i. e. her age and her widowhood, Khadijah must have afforded Mohammed a very perfect replace- ment-figure for his own mother, for it was only as a widow that he had ever known his mother.
The degree of gratification which this marriage afforded his incestuous fixation can be best measured by the punctilious fide- lity Mohammed displayed to his wife for the twenty-five years of their married life and by the reverence he paid to her memory until the day of his death, so that "the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival", i
Khadijah bore Mohammed two sons and four daughters. Both sons died in infancy but the "daughters survived.
Many tpaditions are recorded of the sympathetic attachment of Mohammed and Khadijah, the one for the other, and all point to the deference Mohammed always paid to her and how he in- variably sought her advice and encouragement. At that great crisis of his life when he believed that he had received his first message from God by the mouth of the angel Gabriel, trembling and agitated, he tottered to Khadijah and told her of his vision and agony of mind. "Fear not", exclaimed Khadijah, "for joyful tidings dost thou bring. I will henceforth regard thee as the prophet of our nation. Rejoice, Allah will not suffer thee to fall to shame. Hast thou not been loving to thy kindfolk, kind to the neigh- bours, charitable to the poor, faithful to thy word, and ever a defender of the truth?"
"So Khadijah believed" (runs the simple tradition), "and attested the trudi of that which came to him from God. Thus was the Lord minded to lighten the burden of his prophet, for he heard nothing that grieved him touching his rejection by the people,
* Gibbon: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chandos Library, Vol. Ill, p, 164. ​46 OWEN BERKELEY-HILL
but he had recourse unto her, and she comforted, reassured and supported him."
Thus did the good Khadijah comfort and soothe the distracted prophet not speaking as a wife but as a mother. At last when Khadijah died in her sixty-fifth year no word save to express his deep and mournful reverence for her ever escaped the Ups of Moham- J
med, not even to Ayesha, whose ready wit and arch vivacity came |
to enthral completely the heart of the propliet. Thus, in answer to I
Ayesha, who was jealous of the old and dead Khadijah and asked f
the prophet: "Am I not so good as she ?", Mohammed replied: "No, by |
Allah, you are not so good; for she believed in me when no one else did, she was my first disciple, she honoured and protected me when I was poor and forsaken."
At the death of Khadijah Mohammed was desolated, but the "mother-complex" persisted so that another marriage followed with another replacement-figure in the person of the elderly widow, Sauda.
The incestuous love for the mother now began to give rise to that other complex which is so often observed to go with it, namely, a "daughter-complex", with the result that Mohammed at the age of fifty became betrothed to a child aged six, named Ayesha. Three years afterwards the marriage was consummated. From this time forth to the end of his life, Mohammed constantly displayed in the choice of his wives evidence of the operation of his incestuous impulses in their search for gratification.
For example, in his marriage with Zeinab bint Khozcima and Zeinab bint Jahsh, we sec the selection of two women who bore the same name as Mohammed's own daughter by Khadijah ("daughter-complex"), who had both lieen married already ("mother- complex"). Also the first husband of Zohiab bint Khozcima had borne the same name as Mohammed's father— Abdnlla, so it is not impossible to imagine that in his marriage with Zeinab bint Kho- zeima, Mohammed found gratification for yet another complex, namely, a "sister-complex". Again, AbduUa, the husband of Zeinab bint Khozeima, was the brother of Zeinali bint Jahsli, thus making the two Zeinab's sisters-in-law. Lastly, tlic husband of Zeinab bint Jahsh was Zeid, the adopted son of Mohammed, and to enable him to marry the wife of his adopted son, Moliammed expressly ordered the woman to be divorced. Thus in the case of Zeinab bint Jahsh, the incestuous "daughter-complex" was doubly repre​A SHORT STUDY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 47
seated, for she not only bore the same name as one of Moham- med's own daughters, but was the wife of his adopted son to whom he was so attached that he regarded him as his own son and had bidden him to call himself, Zeid bin Mohammed, that is, Zeid the son of Mohammed.
It is now well known that unconscious incestuous impulses often seek gratification through marriage with persons bearing the same name as the object of the incestuous affection. Recently, in a monograph published in the first number of this Journal, J. C. Fliigel has illustrated this point in reference to the marriages of King Henry VIII of England.
Another notable point is that this same Zeid had been per- suaded years before to marry Mohammed's aged nurse, 0mm Ayman, who was so many years senior to Zeid that Mohammed promised paradise to his adopted son as a reward for performing so meritorious an act!
It is significant in this connection to bear in mind that the notices in the Koran of the voluptuous Paradise as described with an abundance of detail in Chapter LV, are almost entirely con- fined to a time when Mohammed was living a chaste and tem- perate life with a wife three score years of age: "But to him that dreadeth the appearing of his Lord, there shall be two gardens, Planted with shady trees,
Through each of them shall two fountains flow.
And in each shall there be of every fruit two kinds.
They shall repose on brocaded carpets, the fruits of the two gardens hanging close by.
In them shall be modest damsels, refraining their looks, whom before them no man shall have deflowered, neither any genius,
Like as if they were rubies or pearls." ^
In the later chapters, uttered in Medina, when he was surround- ed by a numerous harem, women are only twice referred to as one of the rewards of Paradise, and on both occasions in these simple words: "and to them" (believers) "there shall be therein pure wives".*
It was not the husband of Khadijah but the husband of Ayesha, the delectable enchantress, who spoke of wives in such terms as
» Muir: op. ciU Ch. IV, p. 81. ' Idem: op. cit. ​t
48 OWEN BERKELEY-HILL
we read in Chapter II of the Koran: "Your wives are a tilth for you, so go into them when you like"; again, "Men are the maintainers of women, because Allah made some to excel others and because they spend out of their property; tine good women are tlierefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded, and those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping places and heat them, tlien if they obey you do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great" (Koran, Chapter IV. v. 34); again, "O true be- lievers, verily of your wives and your children ye have an enemy: wherefore beware of them" (Koran, Chapter LXIV, v. 14).
These utterances, we may take it, were determined for Mo- hammed by the "daughter-complex"; it is the father who speaks | of "obedience", "admonishing", and "beating".
There is nothing of particular significance in the precepts of the Koran, nor in the "tladith", as regards consanguinity in its bearing on marriage. In formulating his precepts in this respect Mohammed seems to have followed more or less the code of Moses, with the notable exception that the prohibition against a man marrying his grandmother, such a remarkable feature of the Mosaic ordinance, iinds no place in the list of relations with whom marriage is forbidden.
However, when we come to examine the pronouncements of Mohammed in regard to X^idows, Divorce, Orphans, and the re- lations between parents and offspring, we find evidence indicating the operation of strong subjective feeling.
Before the days of Mohammed, the Arabs had entertained tJie world-wide prejudice against the re-marriage of widows, so that, , according to Burckhardt S the Arabs regarded every thing connec- ted with the nuptials of a widow as ill-omened, and unworthy of the participation of generous and lionourable men.
We may be sure therefore that the very specific and precise legis- lation formulated by Mohammed in regard to the re-marriage of widows and to the provision that should be made for women on becoming widows, are the outcome of his own personal predeliction for widows due to his fixation on his mother. Indeed, the most notable reform instituted by Mohammed in this connection was the abolition of the Arab custom of permitting the inheritance by the son of his father's wives, a procedure that was so closely akin > Quoted by Wcstermarck: The History of Humun Marriage p. 127. ​A SHORT STUDY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 49
to incest, that the mere idea of it so stirred the repressed incest- complex in his own mind that this had to be stamped out at all costs.
Thus is the frenzy of reform fed by feelings of the very type which the reformer seeks to destroy! It is the sublimation with reversion of the Sadistic impulse that produces the Humanitarian!
In his rules regarding Divorce, in spite of the provision insisted on for divorced women, Mohammed has always been regarded by most of his Christian biographers as a monster of licence: "Ye may divorce your wives twice; and then either retain them with humanity or dismiss them with kindness." "But if a husband divorce her a third time, she shall not be lawful for him again, until she marry another husband" (Koran, Chapter II). This injunction gave rise to the institution of the "Mostahil" or hired husband, wliose func- tions were to legalise re-marriage with a thrice-divorced wife, an abuse which may not have been contemplated to the full extent by Mohammed when promulgating this canon.
His attitude in general towards Divorce shews how different were his feelings when actuated by the "daughter-complex" from those determined by the "mother-complex". For example, the impulses which directed his decrees on Divorce belonged to the same group as those which led to the divorce "by order" of Zeinab bint Jahsh, the wife of Zeid, the beloved-adopted son. Again, the subjective feeling of Mohammed becomes very clear when we come to study his commands in regard to the treatment and care of orphans, for was he not himself an orphan from the age of six?
He says of himself, "Did he (the Lord) not find thee an orphan, and hath he not taken care of thee }" (Koran, Chapter XCIV). And again, "And let those fear to abuse orphans . . . Surely they who devour the possessions of orphans unjustly, shall swallow down nothing but fire into their bellies, and shall broil in raging flames" (Koran, Chapter IV).
But it is in his pronouncements on the subject of the relations between children and parents that the operations of the uncon- scious mind of Mohammed became most manifest, and it is here that we may expect to find the key which unlocks the riddle of his hfe.
One of the most remarkable features of Mohammed's doctrine which established equality of rights, was the inculcation of an ​50 OWEN BERKELEY-HILL
intense reverence for authority. According to a saying of the i
prophet, even if a negro slave is placed in authority he must |
be obeyed. Among the varieties of authority enumerated, that |
vested in parents is given a foremost place. "And your Lord has I
commanded that you shall not serve (any) but I lim and goodness ^
to your parents. If either or both of them reach old age with f
you, say not to them (so much as) 'Ugh' nor chide them, and J
speak to them a generous word". "And make yourself submissi- |
vely gentle to them with compassion, and say: my Lord! have |
compassion on them, as they brought ine up (when 1 was) little." |
(Koran, Chapter XVII, v. 23-24). 'The injunction to obey parents I
implicitly is however qualified by the proviso that parents are |
only entitled to obedience from their children as long as they do 1
not compel their cliiidren to serve others tlian God [Koran, s
Chapter XXIX, v, 8), •|
It is in this connection that we meet what appears at first sight to be a strange paradox in the belief and practice of Islam, the explanation of which lies in the full recognition of the enor- mous subjective feeling for authority entertained l)y Mohammed. Thus, in spite of the repeated insistence on reverence for all in authority made by him, Mohammed cannot escape from the charge that he taught his followers, directly or implicitly, to be- lieve that they should fight for their faith, that they should assert themselves as the favoured people, and that it is wrong for them to endure if they can help it, a direct and visible assertion ol infidel superiority. Hence the adherents of no religious system are so prone as the Mohammedans to sudden outbur.sts of frenzy against the very authority they are adjured to revere and obey. The ex- planation lies in the fact that we are dealing once more with a case of ambivalent "compromise" on the part of Mohammed.
We have already cited two instances of this manifestation of the working of the unconscious mind of Molvamn>ed, one in re- gard to the perpetuation of that ancient temple of idolatry, the Kaaba, which succeeded, and the other relating to the worship of the three "exalted Females", which failed. Again we find this same tendency manifested in the attitude adopted by Mohammed towards authority. While on the one hand the authority of [varcnts and rulers was to be respected according to the objective feeling of Mohammed, on the other hand, in pursuance of his subjective feeling on the subject of parental authority, it must be opposed
1,^ ​A SHORT STUDY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 5l
and destroyed, so that, in certain circumstances, defiance of autho- rity was not only justifiable but to be encouraged.
In this aspect of Islam doubtless lies the secret of its tremen- dous power, for although it appears to make its appeal to man's conscious feeling for religion, in reality Islam stirs up the deeply- buried and unconscious complex against the father, which is an attribute that pervades the minds of all men. From hardly any other source could there spring those wild torrents of emotion that enable men, "utterly lost to every call of honour, or patrio- tism, or family affection, whose only occupation is eating, and whose only recreation is woman, to thrill with excitement at the summons of the faith, and meet death with a contempt the Red Indian could only envy". ^
It is beyond the scope of this article to consider the social and political consequences that might follow upon a fuller appre- ciation of this distinctive characteristic of Mohammedan doctrine, but it is evident that were such facts realised there must result the adoption of a more rational and scientific attitude towards all Muslim which would again result in saving those responsible for the maintenance of law and order in countries inhabited by Mo- hammedans from that condition of petrified embarrassment into which such persons invariably fall whenever they are called upon to face any widespread expression of Mohammedan feeling in regard to some religious or social dogma.
We have now seen how the case of Mohammed illustrates that the most intense desire to transcend the paternal authority cannot escape from the feeling that all authority whatsoever can be dispen- sed with. On the contrary, the phantasy that desires the abrogation of the father's omnipotence conceives simultaneously the existence of a still more tremendous power, and creates a fresh "father", either human or superhuman, in whom to repose these gigantic attributes. In the case of Mohammed this phantasy created a replace- ment-figure whose attributes were: "He is Allah, besides whom there is no God; the King, the Holy, the Author of peace, the Granter of Security, Guardian over All, the Mighty, the Supreme, the Possessor of every greatness; Glory be to Allah from what they set up (with Him)".
But the matter does not end with the creation of the replace- ment-figure. The phantasy is further concerned with the relation
' Townsend: 'The Great Arabian' in Asia and Europe, p. 182.
4* ​-S-;
52 OWEN BERKELEY-HILL
of the creator to his creation. What then may we take to be ^
Mohammed's conception as to his relation to the Allah of lus creation? From the very precise nature of his utterances against the divine origin of Jesus Christ, i. e. that he was literally the son of God, it may be presumed that Mohammed never enter- tained any conscious idea of a possible kinship with Allah. Never- theless this does not exclude the possibility of his jjaving entertained the idea that he was miraculously bom, especially because of the very meagre r61e played by his parents in his life. The most notable feature of Mohammed's character during the Mcccan period was the increasing strength of his conviction that he was tlic Messenger of God, with the result that any strong conviction, even any strong wish, that he entertained, appeared to him to be borne in |
upon him by a force external to himself. I^ter on, after the flight ^
to Medina, the character of Mohammed changed still more. Accor- ^
ding to Muir, ^ "the acquisition of temporal power, aggrandisement, |;
and self-glorification mingled rapidly with the grand object of the Prophet's life; and they were sought after and attained by precisely the same instrumentality. Messages from heaven were frequently and freely brought down to justify political conduct, in precisely the same manner as to inculcate religious precept. Battles were fought, executions inflicted, and territories annexed, under pretext of the Almighty's sanction. Even grosser actions were not only excused but encouraged by the divine approval or command. A special licence was produced, allowing Mohammed a double number of wives; the discreditable affair with Mary the Coptic slave was justified in a separate Sura; and the passion for the f
wife of his own adopted son and bosom friend was the subject of an inspired message in which the Prophet's scrujiles were re- buked by God, a divorce permitted, and marriage with the object of his unhallowed desires enjoined." Hence we find little to wonder at when Omar, the Simon Peter of Islam, in an agony of grief at the death of Mohammed, draws his sword and swears to strike off the head of anyone who dares to say that the Prophet is dead. "Is it then Mohammed", cries the venerable Abu Bakr, in his attempt to pacify Omar, "or the God of Mohammed that we have learned to worship?"
"Slay the UnbeUevers wheresoever ye find them", was hence- fortll the watchword of Islam; "Fight in the way of Ciod until
* of. cit., p. 633.
fc
€^​A SHORT STUDY OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED 53
opposition be crushed and the religion becometh the Lord's alone!"
Thus did the child cry through the mouth of the man, seeking vengeance upon the father; and because of the intensity of the passion and because of the conditions under which it developed and because of the nature of the buried complexes to which the cry made such a profound appeal, one fourth of the human race, and that the unchangeable one, has not been merely influenced but utterly remoulded. So it comes about that after thirteen cen- turies we may observe an Asiatic, apathetic to a degree no ordinary European can comprehend, start up a hero, if appealed to in the name of Mohammed, fling away life with a glad laugh of exul- tation or risk a throne to defend a guest!
That these emotional outbursts are not confined to individuals but may affect whole communities is a phenomenon men of every creed and generation will at least be wise to consider. It is due to its appeal to these hidden sources of feeling that' Islam is still, when its stateliest empires have passed away, and its greatest achievements have been forgotten, the only force able to hurl Asia upon the iron civilisation of Europe. Perhaps after all the findings of modern psychology were anticipated by Renan when he charged Mohammed with inventing a new religion to revenge himself upon his brethren!
Received November 1, 1920.
* ↑ See his "Leonardo da Vinci" in "Schriften zur angewandten Seelenkunde", 1910.
* ↑ See Imago 1912, Bd. I.
* ↑ Another most significant feature in the determination of the vengefulness of Amenhotep and Mohammed, was the absence of male offspring to both of them. Since modern psychology began to throw light on the dark places of the unconscious life of mankind, few more notable discoveries have been made than those dealing with the ebb and flow of the eternal struggle between father and son, the fall and rise of ever-succeeding generations. It has been shown that the desire for children, but more especially male children, which is a characteristic of all races the world over, is not motivated solely by the instinct of reproduction but also by the desire of the parent, and that generally the male parent, to possess a natural and obvious means to avenge himself of the wrongs done to him by his own father. This intense desire to beget sons has doubtless played a great part in the institution of polygamy, and, conceivably, a still greater one as regards polyandry, especially polyandry of the type practised by the Todas of India, where the brothers of a family unite as husbands of one woman 80 that among the Todas, in asking a man if he is married, one says, “Is there a son?” Besides the desire to have a son to enable a man to overcome his father, it seems not improbable there exists along with this desire another, a sort of corrollary to it, namely, to have a son to perform expiatory rites for the peace of his soul, in short, someone who will pray the gods to forgive the father for what the father did to his own father, and so to palliate the guilt-complex in which the generations are co-partners, In the ancestor worship of the Chinese and in the Hindu ceremony of Sraddha we meet with the apotheosis of the expression of this unconscious wish. When however the individual man is deprived by circumstances of male offspring, we may occasionally observe him to tum elsewhither in search of the means to gratify his vengefulness, and as such seekers both Amenhotep and Mohammed are examples. When Amenhotep began to express his desire to avenge himself on his father by initiating the religious crusade which was to lead to the Boule-versement of Egypt and to the ruin of his dynasty, he was only twenty-four years of age bat already the father of four daughters. Although he could not have known at that age that time would not bring him the sacrifice in the shape of a son, he acted nevertheless as if his future in this respect had been vouchsafed to him. In the case of Mohammed it was slightly otherwise. Khadijah bore him two sons and four daughters. The first-born, a son was named Casim, but he only lived two years. Last of all was born the second son and he died in infancy. It must have been at the death of this second son, his last-born child, when the beloved Khadijah was at the advanced a-ie of fifty-seven and the idea of making another marriage had not yet corne to him, that Mohammed probably felt that all hope of obtaining his desire was now past, for from this moment forth there began that second period of intense brooding which led to the furious outburst recorded in the ninety-sixth Surah of the Koran which may be taken as marking the starting point of Islam. That Mohammed married again after the death of Khadijah, and, in addition, permitted himself many more wives than the number he prescribed for his followers, was doubtless due in part to a return of the desire to obtain male offspring, and twenty-five years after the birth of his last child we find him once more the father of a son, the child of the Coptic concubine Mary. That this child can have been named Ibrahim (Abraham) seems to point to the fact that the mind of Mohammed still retained memories of the terrible father who would have sacrificed his son, (Isaac). But the little Ibrahim was doomed, like his brothers, to a short life, and at the age of fifteen months we find him lying in a palm-grove near the house of his nurse dying. We see too the aged Prophet struggling to prevent his tremendous sorrow from bursting into expression, for had he not himself forbade his followers from wailing aloud? "Ibrahim! O Ibrahim!" he sobbed, "if it were not that this promise is faithful, and the hope of resurrection sure, if it were not that this is the way to be trodden by all, and the last of us shall join the first, I would grieve for thee with a grief deeper even than this!"
* ↑ As Abraham has pointed out, op. cit. S. 342.
* ↑ Muir: Life of Mahomet, p. 87.
* ↑ Bosworth Smith: Mohammed and Mohammedanism.
* ↑ op. cit.
* ↑ Quoted by Bosworth Smith, op. cit.
* ↑ Bosworth Smith, op. cit.
* ↑ Muir, op. cit.
* ↑ In a footnote to his sketch of the life history of Amenhotep, Abraham calls attention to the important rôle the wet-nuro may play in the life of the child and how with the neurotic "genießt schr häufig die Amme einen besonderen Vorzug". In this respect also both Amenhotep and Mohammed displayed similar tendencies, It is recorded that the wet-nursc of Amenhotep was permitted by him to take up a prominent place at his court, while Mohammed never omitted to pay affectionate compliments to Halima, and for the devoted Omm Ayman he found a husband in no less a person than his own beloved adopted son, Zeid bin Haritha.
* ↑ See Rank: Der Mythus von der Geburt des Helden.