Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan Criticizes Islam

‘A God Who Hates’
The Truth About Islam

A Televised interview to Al Jazeera.
Ms. Wafa Sultan speaks about the face of Islam, Muslims and Jews

July 28, 2014 (Original edited by the MEMRI Channel)

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan
Harshly Criticizes the Status of Women in Islam

Excerpts from an Interview with Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan
Aired on Al-Hayat TV December 4, 2008

Wafa Sultan: If Islam really treated women with honor, we would see the positive consequences of that honor over the course of the past 14 centuries. Islam did not treat women with honor. On the contrary, it has distorted the concept of honor. My brother Rashid, I can call this pen a knife for 14 centuries, but it will never become a knife. It will remain a pen. Islam has turned these concepts upside-down, and has forced its followers to see things as their opposites – to view killing and beheading as an act of tolerance, to view taking a woman captive as an act of compassion, to view the plundering of spoils of war as their right, and to view masturbation against a little girl’s thighs as marriage. Thus, it has destroyed the intellectual structure of the Arabic-speaking nation, and has produced people who cannot distinguish between things and their opposites – people with distorted thinking and warped mentality, as infertile as barren land, which cannot yield a thing.

The best proof of this is the reality of Islam. When the Prophet Muhammad married the child ‘Aisha, this was not an act of honor toward her childhood. When Muhammad married Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son, after seeing her naked and desiring her, this was not an act of honor toward married women. When Muhammad married the Jewish woman Safiya, upon his return from a raid in which he killed her father, brother, and husband, this was not an act of honor toward her. The same goes for all his marriages. Accusing women of being “lacking in brains” is not an act of honor toward her. Human beings – whether male or female – are the property of their Creator. No human being has the right to own another. The subjugation of women reduces them to a level lower than beasts – not to mention the laws of inheritance, testimony in court, the beating of a wife who refuses to go to bed with her husband, and “honor” crimes. Muhammad said in a hadith: “Three things spoil one’s prayer: A woman, a black dog, and a donkey.” Do they ever give this any thought? Do they realize that Allah chose the female body for his greatest invention – creation itself? Wouldn’t it be moral to bestow upon the female body a certain holiness, instead of viewing it as impure?

[…]

As for the intellectuals who claim that Islam honors women, they remind me of someone trying to catch two rabbits, which are running in opposite directions, and never catching either one. On the one hand, they try to convince the reader or the viewer that they are “liberal” and progressive, and support women’s rights, while on the other hand, they try to please the clerics and their followers by claiming that Islam honors women. History will show that they were deceivers, not intellectuals.

[…]

In my opinion, in the Arab countries in particular, you cannot say that the status of women has nothing to do with Islam. You cannot deny that there is a connection between the two. Islam is an all-embracing faith, which intervenes in the smallest details of a person’s life – beginning with the way he should enter the toilet, and ending with – excuse my language – the way he should wipe his behind. Since Islam is an Arab religion, it has succeeded in erasing the culture, customs, and traditions of the Arabic-speaking peoples, more than in Islamic nations that are not Arabic speaking. Therefore, in the Arab world in particular, the status of women is an inevitable outcome of the Islamic teachings.

[…]

I firmly believe that the Islamic faith was created to serve Muhammad, and to legitimize his desires and urges. As evidence, we have ‘Aisha’s words: “I see that your Lord hastens to satisfy your desires.” These words, which she said with innocence and spontaneity, embody the goal for which the Islamic faith was formed. Islam allowed men to marry infants in order to justify Muhammad’s marriage to ‘Aisha. Islam forbade adoption in order to justify Muhammad’s marriage to the wife of his adopted son – a thing forbidden by the pre-Islamic moral values of the Arabs. Islam permitted taking women captive and violating their honor in order to justify Muhammad’s marriage to Safiya, after killing her husband, her father, and her brother that same night. Can you imagine any woman on the face of this earth witnessing with her own eyes the killing of her husband, her father, and her brother, and accepting the religion of their killer on the spot, and sleeping with him?! Can the human mind possibly accept such a story?

[…]

I personally did not suffer, but I have witnessed many crimes against women perpetrated within my extended family and in the framework of my work. As a doctor, I have entered homes that have not seen the light of day, and I have witnessed many crimes against women, perpetrated under the influence of Islamic teachings. In my family – at the age of 12 at most, my sister’s daughter was forced to marry her cousin, who was over 40 years old. Her life with him was an intolerable hell on earth. When she felt there was no escape from this hell, she committed suicide. She set fire to herself, and within minutes she became ashes, leaving four children behind.

When You Criticize Their Prophet,
It Is As If You Chopped Off Muslims’ Noses

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan
Blasts Islam, the Prophet Muhammad, Sheik Al-Qaradhawi, and States

Following are Excerpts from an Interview with Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan
Aired on Al-Hayat TV on May 29, 2008

Wafa Sultan: When I examined the Koran, the hadith, and the Islamic books under a microscope, I came to the absolute conviction that it is impossible – impossible! – for any human being to read the biography of Muhammad and believe in it, and yet emerge a psychologically and mentally healthy person.

[…]

Do you remember the way that [the Prophet Muhammad] killed ‘Asmaa bint Marwan? His followers tore her body apart limb from limb, while she was breastfeeding her child. When they returned to him shouting “Allah Akbar,” he said: “No two goats will lock horns over her.” As you know, goals lock horns over the most inconsequential thing. For Muhammad, however, the killing of a woman while breastfeeding was too trivial a reason for goats “to lock horns over.” Is this a prophet of God?

[…]

It makes me very sad that Al-Jazeera TV allows an insane and terroristic creature like Al-Qaradhawi to use it as a medium for the spreading of his poisons, his terroristic fatwas, and his babbling. The words he used against me incited many young Muslims – who have been brainwashed and blindfolded, and who have been programmed to hate – to rain curses and threats upon me, right after the show in which he discussed my appearance on Al-Jazeera.

[…]

When Islam considers women to be deficient in reason, and I refute this assertion – in that case Islam attacks me, and I am merely attacking back. When Islam calls to kill whoever does not believe in it, and I refute this, in that case Islam attacks me, and I am merely attacking back. I do not attack Islam. I criticize it, but unfortunately, we, the victims of Islamic upbringing, view any criticism as an attack.

[…]

I always focus on the language – the language of Islam. The language of Islam is a negative, dead language, replete with violence, anger, hatred, and racism. Man is the product of language, the outcome of the negative and positive language to which he is exposed in this lifetime. If his life is dominated by negative language, he will emerge as a negative, reckless, and non-productive person, who rejects everything. On the other hand, if positive language dominates his life, he will emerge as a positive, happy, and productive person. This is why the negative language of Islam has failed. It has failed to produce people with a spontaneous and positive outlook. It has produced negative people. If we take a look at Islamic societies, we see what that negative man did.

[…]

I do not view Islam as a religion – according to my notion of religion. Islam is a political doctrine, which imposes itself by force. Any doctrine whatsoever that calls to kill those who do not believe in it is not a religion. It is a totalitarian doctrine that imposes itself by force. When I read, for example, the verse: “The adulterer and the adulteress – flog each of them with a hundred stripes, and do not let compassion for them move you” – I do not discern any spirituality in this verse. When a certain faith manages to can strip its believers of their last grain of compassion, it strips them of their spirituality as well.

[…]

Jesus Christ is the symbol of peace. He did not carry a sword, chop off heads, or accuse anybody of heresy. The problem in Islam is that if we were to act similarly to the Christians of the Middle Ages, and we were to model our lives after the life, actions, and words of Muhammad, we would find ourselves in an even bigger mess than the one we are in, and we would end up like Osama Bin Laden and his ilk. Read about the life of Muhammad. What do you find there? Nothing but his raids and his wives, in addition to his hadiths, some of which make you shudder. I shudder when I hear the hadith: “A woman’s paradise is under her husband’s foot.”

[…]

The Islamic teachings have become dreadful in the skulls of the Muslims. I see no alternative but to open up these skulls, and to clean the life-threatening cancerous cells in these brains.

[…]

When the Syrian people swarmed the Danish embassy and burned it down, it burned my heart too. Why? The Syrian people are dying of hunger. The Syrians, despite their [ancient] civilization, chase after their daily bread. Why don’t they swarm the palace of their president, who has 40 billion dollars in European bank accounts, and burn down the palace, along with its occupant? They swarmed the Danish embassy, giving the West the wrong image of the moral and civilized Syrian people. Therefore, I describe their conduct as barbaric and backward.

[…]

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a religious conflict. I support the Palestinian cause. I support the Palestinian children. I lose sleep over the suffering of Palestinian women. I cannot even step on an ant, so how could I possibly be against them? This is inconceivable. This is a political conflict, and they should ask their leaders about what they have done to resolve the problem. But the problem is rooted in religion. A week or two ago, I read a short story in an Islamic book, according to which Muhammad was walking with some of his followers when they heard a commotion. They asked him: “What is this, Messenger of Allah?” He said: “These are the Jews being tormented in the grave.” Regardless of the conflicts Muhammad had with the Jews back then, this statement indicates that the graves of their ancestors were in Saudi Arabia, correct?

Interviewer: Yes.

Wafa Sultan: They are people of this region, as is evident from the Islamic books and the Koran itself.

[…]

The problem with the Muslims is that they do not distinguish between their prophet and their own noses. When you criticize Muhammad, his actions, and his life, it is as if you chopped off their noses.

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan
Clashes with Egyptian Islamist Tal’at Rmeih

Mar 04, 2008

Excerpts from a Debate Between Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan & Egyptian Islamist Tal’at Rmeih
Aired on Al-Jazeera on March 4, 2008

Egyptian Islamist Tal’at Rmeih: “The West only understands the language of force. Contacts with the West which are not based on real force are futile. One day, America declared that the North Korean nuclear dossier would be referred to the U.N. Security Council. North Korea issued a one-line declaration: ‘Korea will consider this to be a hostile act of war.’ The Americans bit their tongues, and that was it. The West understands nothing but the language of force, and attacks nobody but the weak. Therefore, our nation – with all its people, and organizations, institutions, rulers, and subjects – is required to adopt a resolute stand of resistance and confrontation in the face of these criminal and hostile acts. The West, in this confrontation, which is not divorced from the massacres that are taking place in Palestine and Iraq…The embassies of Denmark, Holland, France, and the U.S. are not more precious to us than Iraq, which has been destroyed, or than Palestine, which is experiencing a real – not fabricated – holocaust. These countries are subject to a holocaust and a massacre. How can we confront this? By Allah, if we issued a communiqué, signed by all the Arab and Islamic organizations and institutions, the West would bite its tongue and stop all this. By Allah, if the Arab summit decided to boycott Denmark, they would all be disgraced. By Allah, if the masses of the nation would gather for one hour only around the embassies of Denmark, those despicable lowlifes would be in a position of retreat, not attack.”

[…]

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan: “All religions and faiths, throughout the history of humanity, have been subject to criticism and affronts. With time, this has helped in their reform and development. Any belief that chops off the heads of its critics is doomed to turn into terrorism and tyranny. This has been the condition of Islam, from its inception to this day. Islam has sentenced [its critics] to prison, and whoever crosses the threshold of that prison meets his death. The Danish cartoons have managed to break down the first brick in the wall of that prison, and to open up a window, through which the sunrays enter, after a lengthy darkness. The Danish newspaper exercised its freedom of speech. Liberties are the holiest thing in the West, and nothing is more important. But if Islam were not the way it is, those cartoons would never have appeared. They did not appear out of the blue, and the cartoonist did not dig them out of his imagination. Rather, they are a reflection of his knowledge. Westerners who read the words of the Prophet Muhammad ‘Allah has given me sustenance under the shadow of my sword’ cannot imagine Muhammad’s turban in the shape of a dove of peace rather than in the shape of a bomb. The Muslims must learn how to listen to the criticism of others, and maybe then they will reexamine their terrorist teachings. When they manage to do so, the world will view them in a better light, and consequently, it will draw them in a better light. The reactions of the Muslims, which were characterized by savageness, barbarism, and backwardness, only increased the value of these cartoons, and gave them more importance than they merited, simply because they proved that these cartoons were true, and that the message they were conveying was true. The Muslim is an irrational creature ruled by instincts. Those teachings have deprived him of his mind, incited his emotions, and reduced him to the level of an inferior creature that cannot control himself or react to events rationally.”

[…]

Tal’at Rmeih: “God help me. First, Islam is too great to be harmed by the publisher of the cartoon, or by that woman who is talking over there. The truth is that everything she said is 100% false, I’m sad to say. It seems to me that the American and Zionist intelligence agencies have begun to produce people who are hostile to their own nation.”

[…]

Dr. Faysal Al-Qassem, Moderator: “How come freedom of expression in the West is sacred only when it comes to degrading the Muslims? Are they allowed to talk about the Holocaust? Are they allowed to talk about Christianity? That is the question. Cinemas were burned down in the West when they talked about Christ.”

Wafa Sultan: “I live in America, and I never heard of a single cinema that was burned down here. Where do you get your information from? It sounds as if you are living in America, not me.”

Moderator: “In France.”

Wafa Sultan: “This is completely baseless. You should criticize your own beliefs just as Christians criticize their beliefs.”

[…]

Moderator: “Don’t you think that you are treating the viewers like fools? You present some trivial reactions as barbaric. Have you forgotten that the country in which you live destroyed Iraq in its entirety, killing 1.5 million Iraqis and driving five million out of their homes? Didn’t you see the dozens of children annihilated in Gaza, in a holocaust, as Israel itself admits? When a man blows himself up, he becomes a terrorist, but when you annihilate an entire people, whole countries, it is considered a humanitarian act?! Who are you kidding?”

[…]

Wafa Sultan: “Why are they upset about what is going on in Gaza, while the Koran says to them: ‘They shall kill and be killed.’ So here they are – killing and being killed. What’s wrong with that?”

Tal’at Rmeih: “Leave the Koran out of it. If you want to talk politics, go ahead.”

Moderator: “I beg you to stick to politics. He talked only about politics.”

Wafa Sultan: “Dr. Faysal, you know that you cannot separate Islam from politics. Islam is not a religion, but politics. You must let me express my views the way I want. When you called me, you didn’t say I was not allowed to discuss Islam or the Koran. Islam says to them that they will ‘kill or be killed’, and here they are—killing and being killed. So what’s wrong with that? They want to be martyred and to meet their black-eyed virgins, and Israel is merely helping them get what they want. What’s wrong with that? If you want to change the course of events, you must reexamine your terrorist teachings, you must recognize and respect the right of the other to live, you must teach your children love, peace, coexistence, and productive work. When you do that, the world will respect you, will consider you in a better light, and will draw you in a better light.”

Moderator: “Can you denounce the Zionist massacres in Gaza? That’s a simple question. Do you have the courage to do so?”

Wafa Sultan: “I can denounce the Palestinians and the Israelis alike. Hamas chose this path, and you have to pay the price for your choices. When you decide you want peace – I am sure that Israel wants peace, but as long as you keep reciting those teachings, which are full of hatred, rancor, and terrorism, you will be unable to make peace with others. You must recognize and respect Israel’s right to live. You must teach your children love, peace, and coexistence. Only then will there be peace.”

[…]

Moderator: “Do you dare to say that the number of people who died in the Jewish Holocaust is even one less [than what they claim]? Do you dare to say that? Why don’t you dare to even touch on Jewish history – let alone on Jewish religion and sanctities? Why do you flex your muscles only against the oppressed Muslims?”

Wafa Sultan: “Why do you want me to deny historical documents that confirm that the Holocaust took place? If there was no proof, I would deny it. But I cannot deny history, knowledge, and documents confirming that the Holocaust indeed took place. Why do you want me to deny the facts?”

Moderator: “From what she says, it is clear that she has no problem denying the holy books, but she is adamant about not denying historical documents.”

Wafa Sultan: “Can you as a Muslim deny the massacre of the Jews of the Bani Qureyza tribe, by Muhammad and his followers?”

[…]

Tal’at Rmeih: “There is a gang that controls [the West], and you are not allowed to criticize Israel or the Holocaust. Anyone who criticized the Holocaust was placed on trial. Noam Chomsky wrote one line about the Holocaust in a book, and the book was recalled from the market. Bernard Lewis – that great philosopher – said something about the Holocaust and was placed on trial. What did the American president say to the U.S. forces sent to the Philippines? He gave them two orders: ‘Kill all people above the age of ten, and convert [the rest] to Christianity.'”

[…]

Wafa Sultan: “Did you invite me to the show to hear hollow speeches, which have been around for 1,400 years?”

Tal’at Rmeih: “Allah be praised, we have an identity and a culture.”

Wafa Sultan: “How can someone who believes in killing people who do not pray possibly criticize liberties in the West? This is a farce. What past is he defending? Is he defending the invasions and lootings?”
Tal’at Rmeih: “I am defending the past of the Islamic nation, which was the beacon of knowledge for the entire world…”

Wafa Sultan: “…polygamy, beheadings, chopping of heads and feet on alternate sides, accusing people of heresy, and drinking camel urine, as a cure for all ailments – is this the past he is defending?”

Tal’at Rmeih: “No, I am defending a magnificent past of a magnificent nation, which was the cradle of knowledge and civilization, at a time when the most that people in the West could do was to catch a rabbit and scurry back to their caves. This nation has made the greatest contribution to civilization and humanity. Our religion is not complete without recognition of other religions. We are the ones who have called for tolerance and respect for religions.”

Ex-Muslims! Wafa Sultan

WAFA SULTAN: ISLAM IN INCOMPATIBLE WITH WESTERN LAW