In connection with at least three Muslim terror attacks (one, two, three) this year, police were able, almost on the spot, to diagnose the attacker as suffering from mental illness. It always amazes me how authorities are able, in a surprisingly short time, to diagnose somebody. Being an experienced psychologist myself, I know that it usually takes hours, and most often days, weeks or even months, to correctly diagnose a person.
Having worked with criminal Muslims (see my article: “Report from the therapy room: Why are Muslims more violent and criminal?”) and done extensive psychological analysis of Islam’s texts for years, my take is that the enormous amounts of hate speech in the Quran (Allah’s revelations through the angel Gabriel to Muhammad) and the Hadiths (Muhammad’s equally holy words and deeds) function as propaganda that makes the psychological step to follow these same books’ hundreds of orders for Muslims to kill non-Muslims shorter and easier – no matter if you are sane, rich and have a happy family, or not.
I would not surprised if it turns out that people with psychiatric diagnoses are over-represented among criminal Muslims. There may be several reasons for this. One is that inbreeding – which is known for increasing the risk of schizophrenia and other psychiatric problems, which again increase the likelihood of violent behaviour – is exceedingly widespread among the followers of Islam (up to almost half of Muslims may be inbred) (see my article: Muslim Inbreeding: Impacts on intelligence, sanity, health and society). It can also be because violence is more accepted in upbringing in Muslim families – which is also known for increasing risk of psychiatric disorders and violent behavior. Finally, it may be that the Quran is more likely to inspire people who are crazy and prone to violence, while sane people might reject these books as outdated and barbaric.
The fact is that there are also people from other religions who have mental problems, who are poor or have problems in the family, but none of them (or at least many, many fewer – as in 1:1000) commit mass murder in the name of religion. If the latest wave of “mentally ill” terrorists had not been brought up with a religion that preached death and annihilation of non-believers, would they have committed their atrocities? I believe not.
The problem is not insanity, poverty or family problems. The problem is a religion that preaches hate against people of all other faiths and orders its own followers to kill us. People with psycho-social problems who have been fed this religion since birth may be more vulnerable to act according to its God and prophet, but the root cause – the match that lit the fire, the cause without which these people would never have been told that killing is a good thing – is still the religion.
Nicolai Sennels is a psychologist in Denmark.