The name Ali Sina, a pseudonym for the founder of the extremist Islamophobic website “Faithfreedom International,” has become emblematic of a disturbing trend in the digital age : the proliferation of hate speech and bigotry under the guise of free expression. Sina, who has infamously advocated for the use of atomic weapons against Muslim populations and declared a mission to “wipe out” Islam within 30 years, represents a troubling figure in the landscape of online extremism.
His rhetoric, deeply rooted in Islamophobia and xenophobia, mirrors that of other controversial figures like Robert Spencer of “Jihad Watch.” Both have utilized the internet as a powerful tool to disseminate their extremist views, capitalizing on the anonymity and reach provided by digital platforms to gather a significant following. Despite the lack of academic recognition, these individuals have positioned themselves as self-appointed leaders in a crusade against Islam, often blurring the lines between legitimate criticism and outright hate speech.
Ali Sina’s venture into the realm of published authors with his book “Understanding Muhammad : A Psychobiography” is an extension of this effort to legitimize his views. The choice to self-publish with a small press underscores the challenges faced by such controversial figures in gaining mainstream acceptance. This publishing route, often devoid of rigorous peer review, allows for the dissemination of ideas that might not withstand academic scrutiny.
The critical reception of Sina’s work and similar publications raises important questions about the responsibility of platforms, publishers, and the media in curbing hate speech while preserving freedom of speech. It also highlights the role of academia and credible scholars in countering misinformation and providing nuanced, informed perspectives on sensitive subjects like religion and cultural identity.
Content Overview
Self-Proclaimed Psychobiography
The book claims to be a “psycho-biography” of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, but it is far from being objective and sane in its purported “scholarship”. It claims to refer to the Islāmic religious texts (heavily relying on translations and not the original Arabic sources which betray the author’s lack of command in the language) and then attempts to characterize Muhammad(P) in “modern analytical terms”.
Coming from a Shi’ite background in predominantly Shi’ite Iran, it is not clear from the onset about why Ali Sina favours referring to the Sunni sources such as the hadith collection of Bukhari and Muslim (which is not used by the Shi’a and largely unfamiliar to them) and hardly mentions the Shi’ite sources themselves which talk about the Prophet(P). This leads us to suspect that he may not have the credentials of an Iranian Muslim as he claims to have.
Unfortunately, this book does nothing more than to resort to the old underhanded technique of cherry-picking a handful of half-truths, sprinkling them with lies, exaggerations and misrepresentations, and eventually to come up with a twisted mix of politically motivated propaganda.
Ali Sina, The Liar
While Ali Sina believes that his agenda will liberate Muslims, common sense would tell you that Ali Sina’s book comes nowhere close to it. In fact, he is much more likely to lend credence to the grumblings of right-wing nut jobs who want to stoke fear and hatred. The quality of Ali Sina’s “different” pseudo-scholarship is thus displayed by the revival of a long-abandoned polemic against the historical character of the Prophet of Islam – namely, the issue of epilepsy.
Nuanced scholars such as the Swedish academic Tor Andrae and prolific writer Karen Armstrong have long dismissed the idea of epilepsy as nonsense. It seems that Ali Sina believes that such studies about the Prophet(P) in historiography should be abandoned and instead we should return to Orientalists such as Margoliouth, Muir and other Christian missionaries who would have us believe that the Prophet(P) was epileptic.
Ali Sina consistently maligns the Prophet(P) as delusional – while at the same time ignoring that the coherence, completeness and success of Islam in its 1400 years of history show that it cannot be the product of a madman’s mind, nor of that of an epileptic. Ali Sina then calls him(P) a liar (an all-too-familiar accusation), conveniently ignoring how much he suffered for twenty years before gaining the upper hand and even then he had lived as a poor man with no luxuries. The inconsistencies of Ali Sina’s accusations against the Prophet(P) are themselves a testament to the foolishness of his reasoning.
Ali Sina, The Ignorant
Ali Sina clearly ignores several facts contained within the Sirah itself ; that the Prophet(P) spared the Makkans who had tortured and killed his followers for two decades even after conquering them, that he spared all the hypocrites in Madinah undermining his authority (something the man Sina describes would not tolerate), that he had all too often freed prisoners of war freed for no material gain, that he explicitly forbade harming innocent civilians such as women, children, elderly and monks ; that he always honoured his treaties even if they were extremely unfair to him (until the disbelievers broke them), that his stories are filled with instances where he spared men who were out to kill him, that as soon as someone became Muslim, he forgave all their past evils, betrayals and murders.
The only people that the Prophet(P) was harsh with were with those who were treacherous and betrayed their pacts to turn on the Muslims to destroy them in their weakest moment – which is considered as high treason in times of war. Ali Sina deviously omits the context and interpreted such acts as something that the Prophet(P) habitually does, which is nothing short of deception to his readers.
Perhaps we should not be surprised at his attempts of ad hominem and poisoning of the well ; after all, Ali Sina’s methodology is consistent with his use of “weak Hadiths”, saying of the Prophet(P) that are not accepted by Muslims or are seen as weak sources for the religion. Further, this short list of verses from the Holy Qur’an shows Islam in a different light and contradicts the conclusions made by Ali Sina :
- “There is no compulsion in religion, for the right way is clearly from the wrong way. Whoever, therefore, rejects the forces of evil and believes in God, he has taken hold of a support most unfailing, which shall never give way, for God is All Hearing and Knowing.“1
“And so (O Prophet!), exhort them your task is only to exhort ; you cannot compel them to believe.“2
“Allah forbids you not, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) Faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them : for Allah loveth those who are just.“3
Ali Sina, The Demented
The only people who would “love” this book are either psychologically demented — similar to Ali Sina himself — disaffected Muslims who have been hurt in the past and want to blame someone for their problems, or they are extremist Hindus and right-wing Christians who would like nothing better than to rationalize their extremist racism and xenophobic hatred with spurious scholarship.
Muhammad(P) did not witness any insurrections or attempts on his life at the hands of his own followers. Not even after his death did anyone attempt to assassinate his memory or desecrate his grave. Instead, the Prophet’s(P) example spawned an empire that ruled over the Middle East for one thousand years and saw a revival of culture and learning the likes of which was not seen in the West until the Age of Enlightenment.
Conclusions
In summarizing this tiresome work, “Understanding Muhammad : A Psychobiography” is not a biography at all, much less a “psychobiography”, of the Prophet Muhammad(P) but a pathetic attempt at character assassination and the rehashing of age-old polemics dating as far as the earliest days of Orientalism.
In fact, the author’s methodology is consistent with what that is found on his website and other atheist websites online. It is simply bad history and even worse psychology by a man who can claim to be neither a historian nor a psychologist. “Understanding Muhammad” does not understand Muhammad(P) at all.
He simply repeats the lying polemics of Serge Trifkovic, Robert Spencer, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other atheists who have an axe to grind against Islam. When bigots and extremists approach any text, be it the Turner Diaries, the Bible, the Qur’an, Nietzsche or the Sirah literature, they cannot be divorced from contextual hermeneutics. The reason Ali Sina views the Prophet Muhammad(P) in such light is simply a case of trying to find a demon through the nitpicking of isolated incidents. Indeed, if one were to play with such rhetoric, one could find justification for the Holocaust, even within the New Testament as Hitler did.
We have come to the conclusion that a brief psycho-analysis of Ali Sina will find that he is simply a bigoted, disaffected “former Muslim” who is no doubt working out issues with his painful upbringing at the hands of his puritanical parents, cruel Islāmic clergy or perhaps a child-molesting Iranian mullah (or whatever the thorn in his side may be), as in his book he has focused all his rage into painting the ugliest portrait of the Prophet Muhammad(P) that can ever be conceived by the most insane mind.
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