Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/57

 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