Suffering through the Koran, Sura 81, 'The Folding up'.

During the development of Islam Mohammed was regarded by many as insane. His own tribe the Quraysh of Mecca which ran the reasonably impoverished and socially dislocated city-state, mocked him and eventual drove him to the Jewish town of Yathrib, renamed by Muslims as Medina. Mohammed picked up fragments of the Old and New Testaments and created such a mish-mash of incorrect and frankly ridiculous interpretations that he was simply laughed at by Jews and Christians, especially when he maintained that he was a 'prophet' in their tradition. Mohammed's conflation of the moon idol El or Al-Lah [or ali-ilah] with the Judeo-Christian 'God' was another laughingstock which did not pass unnoticed by non-Muslims. It is clear from the real history of Mohammed that he was a mental degenerate who according to the hadiths went insane at age 40, when he began to have dreams, visions and visitations from Gabriel:

“...you will discover that the prophet's "ministry" in Mecca was filled with troubling episodes. Following his first Qur'anic revelation, Muhammad claimed to have been demon possessed. By his own admission, he tried to commit suicide. Those who knew him best, his family and neighbors, said that he had gone mad. "He is a demon-possessed sorcerer fabricating scripture," they said, accusing him of plagiarism and of having purely selfish motives. They mocked his prophetic claims, ridiculed his Qur'an, and said that his preposterous notion of turning many pagan idols into the one God was insane. As a result of this verbal abuse, all chronicled in the Qur'an, Muhammad pledged to slaughter his kin.”

According to the historian Theophanes (752-817) Muhammad was an epileptic. This claim has been made by many other observers during and after the death of the mentally unstable Arab. Caesar was also an epileptic and there is little doubt that his obsession with power stemmed in part from this condition. The same would be true of Mohammed. Epileptics suffer from hallucinations, foaming at the mouth, shakes, and paranoia - the very symptoms which Mohammed displayed during his 'visions'.

Surah 81, like all Surah's is but a litany of demands to submit, shut up and obey. But it also contains a plea, that Mohammed was not insane or demonic, even though his fascistic intolerance, killing, murdering, slave-trading, sexual perversity and lusts, and his gluttony for food and wealth clearly denote him as a mentally aberrant and dangerously unbalanced animal. The Allah thing, which is of course Mohammed's second personality sternly warns the reader in Surah 81 that Mohammed is not possessed:

“Verily this is the word of a most honorable Messenger, Endued with Power, with rank before the Lord of the Throne, With authority there, (and) faithful to his trust. And (O People!) your Companion is not one possessed; And without doubt he saw him in the clear horizon. Neither does he withhold grudgingly a knowledge of the Unseen. Nor is it the word of an evil spirit accursed.” [81:19-25]

Mohammed recited the Koran [which means the Recital in English]. It is rather convenient therefore, that his second personality, the Al-lah thing, admonishes the Koranic reader that the most important human in history, one chosen and marked out by the Al-Lah deity [or Mohammed] as his special 'Messenger', is not insane, not possessed by Jinn or little devils, and can reveal the 'unseen' and unknowable to his human initiates. This sentence only highlights Mohammed's insanity. What psychologically deranged person can recite something from his alter-ego, and attribute to himself the vestiges of divine guidance and approbation? Today Mohammed would be locked up in a mental institution.

The merger of church and state within Islam; is also imitated in the merger of Mohammed and Allah, and in particular the denial of free-will. Keep in mind that Luther during the early 1520s wrote a treatise denying free-will, stating that he was too weak in body and spirit to reject the powers of the devil. Calvinism carried Lutheranism to its logical conclusion by unifying church and state into a despotic, irrational and quite intolerant power as evidenced by Calvin's rule in Geneva during the 1530s and 40s. Islam is thus not alone in its quest to merge the individual into the communal, nor is it unique in trying to subsume free-will into divine-will. What is unique about the Muslim theocracy is that Mohammed openly advocates that his followers give up their will not only to the Allah-thing but to himself:

“Verily this is no less than a Message to (all) the Worlds: (With profit) to whoever among you wills to go straight: But you shall not will except as Allah will, - the Cherisher of the Worlds.” [81:26-29]

This is clear. You have no will. You must follow the Allah moon deity. He has chosen a Messenger for you in the person of Mohammed. Thus Mohammed's law is Allah's law. Allah's will is Mohammed's will. Ergo Mohammed rules and you will obey his dictums as outline in his invention [attributable to Gabriel and the Moon deity], named Recital.

Mohammed was an early Calvin. He co-opted all political, economic and social processes and brought them under the command of his 'church'. It is unclear if this merger of church and state was part of his original program, or if it grew by happenstance and circumstance over 10 years. Arabia in the early 7^th century was in convulsion due to emigration from Yemen [the old Sabean kingdom had collapsed]; poverty, illiteracy, brigandage and endless tribal warfare. Mohammed cleverly convinced people that a 'great man', or dictator was needed to bring about social peace and cohesion, and to unify the Arabs who could then steal, plunder and usurp richer Jewish and Christian villages and towns. The Meccans could have killed Mohammed and stopped Islam in its tracks. One of the great tragedies of history was that they exiled him. Murdering Mohammed would have been a more intelligent policy.

[Note: This sura is taken from 'The Holy Quran', translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, reprinted in 1995, Goodword Books. Regarded as one of the best translations from Arabic to English of the Koran.]