Cultural psychology: How Islam managed to stay medieval for 1,400 years
By: Nicolai Sennels, Psychologist

While almost all other cultures changed from primitive and medieval to democratic and egalitarian societies, one culture has managed to keep even its most brutal and backward traditions and values for 1,400 years until today. Still today, the majority of Muslims prefer to live by values that can be traced all the way back to the desert tribes in which the founder of their religion lived. Getting to know life in Muslim families and societies is like traveling back to the time of Muhammad. Here one finds shocking laws and traditions that are obviously criminal and inhumane — but for some reason accepted — in our otherwise humanistic culture.

While non-Muslim scientists invent new fantastic medicines and technologies daily; discover the most amazing things about the universe, its building blocks and inhabitants; and Western voters and politicians have created the most humane, rich and free societies in world history – most Islamic countries are still amputating limbs for theft; stoning women and homosexuals; heavily inbred; denying people free speech and democracy; and contributing absolutely nothing when it comes to science, human rights or peace.

What are the cultural psychological factors making Islam able to stay medieval for 1,400 years?

Religion
One main factor is that while all other religions allow their followers to interpret their holy scriptures, thereby making them relatively adaptable to secular law, human rights and individual needs, Islam categorizes Muslims who do not take the Quran literally as apostates. And according to Islamic law, the sharia, apostasy is to be punished with death. The sharia thus makes it impossible for Islamic societies ever to develop into modern, humanistic civilisations.

The fact that Muslims deviating from the Quranic world view are to be punished has the direct consequence that scientific facts conflicting with the naive and childish world view held in pre-Enlightenment cultures are suppressed. Together with massive inbreeding — 70 percent of Pakistanis, 45 percent of Arabs and at least 30 percent of Turks are from first cousin-marriages (often through many generations). This has resulted in the embarrassing fact that the Muslim world produces only one tenth of the world average when it comes to scientific research, and are dramatically under-represented among Nobel Prize winners. Fewer books have been translated into Arabic in the last thousand years than the amount of books translated within the country of Spain every year.

Within Islam, faith and tradition is obviously valued far, far more than inventions and discoveries that would ease suffering and lead to a more reasonable understanding of the complexity of the universe and the potential of its inhabitants.

Child rearing
Another powerful defence mechanism within Islamic culture is found within Muslim child rearing. A very real threat of violence and even death is over every Muslim child’s head, should he or she decide to choose another life style than that of its parents. Even if the parents allow their child to choose his or her own religion — or none at all — other Muslims are dedicating their lives to kill them. Together with the wide use of violence and even torture within Muslim families, the horrific amount of daily family executions of Muslim youth is enough to keep the vast majority from even considering escaping the way of the sharia. The Quran’s and the Hadiths’ many promises of hellfire to those who go against Muhammad’s orders and example scares many from leaving the culture that brings them so much suffering. I clearly remember how several Muslim inmates at the prison I was working in as a Psychologist expressed what seemed to be compassion, when I told them that I do not believe in Allah.

In order to further make sure that children grow up to follow the same patterns as their family, many of them are subjected to mind-numbing repetitions of Islam’s exceedingly violent scriptures, making many of them ticking time bombs wherever they live.