Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/55

 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.