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Muhammad's Personality Profile
          According to Vaknin, "the narcissist's deep-rooted conviction that he is being persecuted by his inferiors, detractors, or powerful ill-wishers, serves two psychodynamic purposes. It upholds the narcisssist's grandiosity and it fends off intimacy"[132]

          Vaknin writes: "The narcissist claims to be infallible, superior, talented, skilful, omnipotent, and omniscient. He often lies and confabulates to support these unfounded claims. Within his cult, he expects awe, admiration, adulation, and constant attention commensurate with his outlandish stories and assertions. He reinterprets reality to fit his fantasies. His thinking is dogmatic, rigid, and doctrinaire. He does not welcome free thought, pluralism, or free speech, and doesn't brook criticism and disagreement. He demands — and often gets — complete trust and the relegation to his capable hands of all decision-making. He forces the participants in his cult to be hostile to critics, the authorities, institutions, his personal enemies, or the media — if they try to uncover his actions and reveal the truth. He closely monitors and censors information from the outside, exposing his captive audience only to selective data and analyses."[133]

          Bye elucidating the characteristics of the narcissist, Vaknin unintentionally and with astounding accuracy describes Muhammad's mind and the Muslim mindset. Muslims are narcissists to the extent that they emulate their prophet.
 


A Comparison between Islam and the Cult of the Narcissist

          The following is a description of the cult of the narcissist. First let us see what Vaknin says about the cult of the narcissist and then I will quote episodes from Muhammad's life and leave the reader to decide whether they coincide.
The narcissist's cult is "missionary" and "imperialistic." He is always on the lookout for new recruits — his spouse's friends, his daughter's girlfriends, his neighbors, new colleagues at work. He immediately attempts to 'convert' them to his 'creed' — to convince them how wonderful and admirable he is. In other words, he tries to render them Sources of Narcissistic Supply.
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         Often, his these 'recruiting missions' is different to his conduct within the 'cult'. In the first phases of wooing new admirers and proselytising to potential 'conscripts' — the narcissist is attentive, compassionate, empathic, felxible, self-effacing, and helpful. At home, among the "veterans" he is tyrannical, demanding, wilful, opinionated, aggressive, and exploitative.

As the leader of his congregation, the narcissist feels entitled to special amenities and benefits not accorded the "rank of file." He expects to be waited on hand and foot, to make free use of everyone's money and dispose of their assets liberally, and to be cynically exempt from the rules that he himself established (if such violation is pleasurable or gainful).

In extreme cases, the narcissist feels above the law — any kind of law. This grandiose and haughty conviction leads to criminal acts, incestuous or polygamous relationships, and recurrent friction with the authorities.

Hence the narcissist's panicky and sometimes violent reactions to "dropouts" from his cult. There's a lot going on that narcissist wants kept under wraps. Moreover, the narcissist stabilizes his fluctuating sense of self-worth by deriving Narcissistic Supply from his victims. Abandonment threatens the narcissist's precariously balanced personality.

Add to that the narcissist's paranoid and schizoid tendencies, his lack of introspective self-awareness, and his stunted sense of humor (lack of self-deprecation) and the risk to the grudging members of his cult are clear.

The narcissist sees enemies and conspiracies everywhere. He often casts himself as the heroic victim (martyr) of dark and stupendous forces. In every deviation from his tenets he espies malevolent and ominous subversion. He, therefore, is bent on disempowering his devotees — by any and all means.

The narcissist is dangerous.[134]
          Now let us see if there are similarities between this description and what we know about Muhammad and his religion.

          Islam is both missionary and imperialistic. Muhammad's main objective was to conquer and dominate. He tried to force everyone to

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Muhammad's Personality Profile
convert to his cult, starting with his family and relatives. He asked Abu Talib, his uncle and guardian to convert to Islam on his deathbed. When the old man declined, Muhammad walked out of the room mumbling, "I wanted to pray for him but Allâh prohibited me from doing so." However, he managed to convert Abu-Talib's children, including Ali, his own wife and some of his friends.

          At first, when Muhammad was still weak and had few followers, he was courteous, attentive, compassionate, empathic, flexible, helpful and even self-effacing. There is a sharp contrast between the Qur'anic verses written during this period and those written in Medina when he became powerful and did not need to wear a mask to woo new converts. Once he had become powerful, he was demanding, tyrannical, willful, aggressive and exploitative. Then he raided villages and towns and after killing their able-bodied men and looting them, demanded survivors submit to him or face death.

          The following are examples of the kind of verses Muhammad wrote in Mecca:

1.
Be patient with what they say, and part from them courteously. (Q.73:10)
2.
To you be your religion, and to me my religion. (Q.109:6)
3.
Therefore pe patient with what they say, and celebrate (constantly) the prais of your Lord. (Q.20:103)
...

10.
And do not dispute with the followers of the Book except by what is best. (Q.29:46)


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          Now let us compare them to those written later in Medina when Muhammad became powerful.

1.
Oh you who believe! Murder those of the disbelievers and let them find harshness in you. (Q.9:123)
2.
I will instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers; smite above their necks (beheading) and smite all the finger-tips off. (Q.8:12)
3.
Whoso desires another religion than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him. (Q.3:85)
4.
Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. (Q.9:5)
...

10.
Fight those who do not believe in Allâh and the last day ... and fight People of the Book (Bible), who do not accept the religion of truth (Islam) unitl they pay tribute by hand, being inferior. (9:29)


          This much should suffice as evidence that Muhammad changed drastically after he came to power. The gentle, attentive, compassionate and empathic preacher was transformed into a demanding, tyrannical, ruthless, and willful despot.

          It was after the battle of Badr that the cruel and vindictive spirit of Muhammad towards his opponents first began to display itself. Muir narrates ...
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          ... Muslims present Islam as a religion of peacefulness and tolerance toward outsiders, and will assume a smiling countenance to proselytize potential recruits. They are extremely helpful, humble, and charming to those whom they want to woo and in front of the media. Among themselves, however, they act very differently. They are tyrannical and demanding. Once you convert to Islam and the honeymood period is over, Muslims will drop the smiling mask and become high-handed, aggressive and abusive. They expect the convert's questioning of Islam to end, and after conversion any possibility of going back is also considered terminated. This is consistent with the guidelines Muhammad himself laid down through his own conduct — guidelines that have been encoded in Islmaic Law.

          Muhammad felt entitled to special benefits and treatments not accorded to others, including his followers. He not only did things that were against universally acclaimed ethical principles, even by the society in which he lived, but he also went against his own stated rules. He basically did whatever he pleased and when that shocked his followers, he brought a verse from his imaginary Allâh to justify his action and silence any critic. With a verse from Allâh under his belt, anyone whispering a word against his indecency was denying God and, of course, the fate of those questioning Allâh and his messenger was death. His words were faslul-khitab (the end of discussion). Examples abound. Here are a few: ...

          ... in order that there should be no difficulty for you. And Allâh is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful."

          What difficulty? The difficulty of having to control his lustfulness, of being a decent human being, faithful to one woman! Are we to believe in a man who found it difficult to control his basest animal instincts as the best of creation? Don't actions speak louder than words? On one hand, he lived like the vilest beasts, and on the other he spoke of himself so loftily, putting words in the mouth of the Almighty to praise him. Remember that while still in Mecca, living off the wealth of his wife Muhammad did not ...



... continued astonishing with convincing evidence in the book "Understanding Muhammad", with Sahih Bukhari saying that oaths have no meaning for Muslims, and other "eye-opening" chapters of the true Islam by Ali Sina, ex-Musim of Iran.


Page 96: "... His marriage to Zeinab, his own daughter-in-law, confounded even his followers. To silence them again, his Allâh came out of his sleeve with a verse saying Muhammad is not the father of anyone but the messenger of Allâh and the Seal of the prophets. (Q.33:40)

          He claimed that his marriage to Zeinab was arranged by God to show people that adoption was a bad thing and should be annulled. As you can see, just because he could not control his lust, he made his bogus deity tell people that adoption was wrong, depriving countless orphans of a secound chance at life. Doesn't this alone disqualify him as a messenger of God?

         How can the almighty God be offended by adoption, which is perhaps one of the most humane and lofty of actions? ..."


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