Islam: Producing “psychopaths” by the millions – Peter Burrows 6/9/25 elburropete@gmail.com 

Religious Muslims have noted on more than one occasion that without the death penalty for apostasy, Islam would have vanished long ago.  This matter-of-fact observation does not seem to be made with any regret, but with approval, even pride. Check out this video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=153396989867227 12/7/2020 – “If they had gotten rid of the apostasy punishment Islam wouldn’t exist.” – Yusuf al-Qaradawi 

That led me to conclude that Islam must welcome psychopaths because they are obviously the ones doing the honor killings, throwing gays from rooftops, and assassinating the apostates. After all, normal people wouldn’t commit such heinous acts, would they?  

That assumption seemed safe when I heard Jordan Peterson, who has a PhD in psychology, say in a number of videos something to the effect that thank God psychopaths are only two to four percent of the population, given the amount of damage they can do. 

The exact number of psychopaths hasn’t been pinned down, but it is not a trivial number. Various studies have put the percentage of psychopaths in the population as high as 4.5 percent or as low as 1.2 percent.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/

Even using the lowest estimate, since there are over 1.5 billion Muslims, that works out to 18 million psychopaths. That seems like enough to do the nasty disciplinary work necessary to ensure Islam’s survival.  

That would include disciplining the Muslim who doesn’t observe the strict religious doctrines of Islam and those who want to keep a pet dog, or who don’t think their 9-year-old daughters are old enough to get married, or who enjoy listening to music. Do you think loving daughters, dogs and music should be celebrated as perfectly normal and not things to die for? Welcome to why I thought Islam needs psychopaths. 

Still, something about the psychopath narrative just didn’t add up.  How could Muslim leaders around the world just snap their fingers and thousands would be in the streets violently protesting when somebody had burned a Koran, or somebody had insulted Muhammad — like drawing a picture of him?  

This led me to do a little reading about psychopaths, and I learned that while Islam may welcome psychopaths, it certainly doesn’t need them. The Islamic religion creates an all-encompassing, highly authoritarian society that turns hundreds of millions of ordinary Muslims into zealots who will enthusiastically kill, torture and rape apostates or unbelievers, and they will do so with no regrets.  

Just like psychopaths.  

Whether such people are in fact psychopaths, or sociopaths or just temporarily deranged, or whatever, I don’t think is important. As a practical matter, if a crazed mob of Muslims chops off your head, you’re just as dead as if a lone psychopath did it.   

My research on psychopathic behavior is based largely on a book by psychologist Philip Zimbardo, “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil,” published in 2007. Dr Zimbardo, who died in 2014, achieved everlasting fame, or perhaps infamy, as the psychologist who designed and carried out the Stanford Prisoner Experiment (SPE) in 1971 at Stanford University.  

A movie about the SPE, on which Dr. Zimbardo advised, was released in 2015 shortly after his death (4.4 out of 5 stars, 2,400 reviews): 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420293/

Zimbardo’s book, which I highly recommend, examines other psychological studies in addition to his own SPE, and he describes in detail examples in the real world that confirm the primary conclusion of those studies: ordinary people will behave atrociously, with very little encouragement, if their circumstances require it. An especially disturbing example, which mirrored the SPE, was how American soldiers behaved at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. 

If you can’t understand how Germans could participate by the hundreds of thousands in all aspects of the Holocaust, and if you think that it couldn’t happen here, you’re wrong. You and I and our neighbors are just like those ordinary Germans. 

In a section titled “The Nazi connection: could it happen in your town,” Zimbardo quotes another well-known experimental psychologist, Stanley Milgram: “If a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town.” 

Zimbardo describes two impromptu experiments, one by a high school teacher and one by a third-grade teacher, showing how easy it is to Nazify nice, wholesome American kids. (I think the third-grade teacher should have been jailed.) Both created such publicity that each was made into a documentary:  

The Wave  youtube.com/watch?v=4qlBC45jk3I   

A class divided www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mcCLm_LwpE 

As the SPE, and too many real-world examples show, the environment we find ourselves in can lead us to do things we would normally be ashamed of, things that are against our basic values. We are influenced by our need to conform, our need for acceptance and, importantly, our fear of rejection, of being ostracized.  

We overestimate our ability to resist these external forces. “I would never do that,” is what we say, but the evidence says otherwise, especially if we are in a military environment where orders are expected to be obeyed without question.  As bad as the atrocities at the Abu Ghraib prison were, they pale in comparison to the Japanese rape of Nanking or, for that matter, the U.S. Army killing civilians at My Lai. 

During the Nuremburg trials the common excuse was, “I was only following orders.” and that’s a credible excuse. I have no doubt that for many Germans, the fear of punishment helped to overcome any moral objections they might have had. I also have no doubt that for many Germans there was NO moral objection to what they were doing.  

After all, Jews, Slavs, Russians, Gypsies and others were not part of The Aryan “master race.”  Zimbardo emphasizes that dehumanizing our enemies can remove any concern about how we treat them.  At Adolph Eichmann’s trial it became apparent that he had absolutely no guilt about what he had done. The only guilt he would have felt would have been if he hadn’t carried out his orders. 

By now you’re probably thinking, “What does this have to do with Islam, Burro?  

Quite a bit. A billion-and-a-half Muslims have been raised in a culture that requires them to behave as badly as Nazis against non-Muslims when the situation permits. This is not hypothetical. It’s happening every day, all over the world: 

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Like the Nazis, these Muslims will tell you they’re only obeying orders, and like the Nazis, if they refuse to obey those orders, they risk execution. Nazis who didn’t obey orders were traitors; the Muslim traitor is an apostate.  

The major difference between the two is that while many Germans could see that Hitler was a despicable human being, it’s a rare Muslim who can see that Allah is a despicable divine being. That’s a big problem when dealing with Muslim terrorists: Muslims believe they are obeying an infallible GOD. 

Furthermore, in a touch of diabolical genius, in some cases, Muslims are not just obeying God, they’re HELPING God. Two verses in the Koran bestow this honor on the terrorist: 

 “Make war on them. Allah will chastise the apostates through you — tell the unbelievers if Allah doesn’t visit you with chastisement, they will be chastised at your hands.” (Verses 9:14 and 9:52, condensed and edited.) 

And it’s not just acts of terror. There was a case in Texas a few years ago where a Muslim taxi driver killed his two daughters because they were becoming Westernized. He left their bodies in the backseat of his taxi and then proceeded to live within the Muslim community for 12 years before he was apprehended, and then it was by accident. Under sharia law, God’s law, there is NO penalty for a Muslim father who kills his daughters. (Reliance of the Traveller (sic)- A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law pg. 584)  

In fact, any Muslim who reported him to the police could be judged guilty of deferring to man-made laws over Allah’s law, which is an apostasy. Verse 5:47 in the Koran: “–those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are the transgressors.” That’s why it’s almost never the case that Muslims report other Muslims who commit crimes, let alone acts of terror. 

Perversely, if a Muslim dies while committing some atrocity against the infidels, that is not something to fear but something to celebrate. This is what Allah/God says about dying in the cause of Allah: 

“Believers! What is amiss with you that when it is said to you: “March fourth in the cause of Allah” you cling heavily to the earth? Do you prefer the worldly life to the Hereafter? Know well that all the enjoyment of this world in comparison to the Hereafter is trivial. If you do not march fourth, Allah will chastise you grievously —   

“Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their belongings and in return has promised that they shall have Paradise. They fight in the Way of Allah and slay and are slain. Such is the promise He has made — who is more faithful to his promise than Allah? Rejoice, then, in the bargain you have made with Him.” (Verses 9.38, 9,39 and 9,111, slightly edited, Mawdudi translation, my emphasis.) 

So, for a Muslim, “just following orders” is not an understandable but ultimately pathetic rationalization, it’s an act of worship. Following God’s orders trumps following any man-made laws, such as the Constitution, which Muslims obey only until they overthrow the infidel’s country. 

Unsurprisingly, Islamic indoctrination begins at a very early age. In Reliance of the Traveller on page 109 it says that when a child is seven “he is ordered to perform the prayer, and when ten, is beaten for neglecting it.” There’s no question that molding children at such a young age can have life-long effects. The third-grade experiment Zimbardo mentions showed how quickly children can become very hostile to one another based on a trivial difference, eye color. What would happen if, year after year, they were taught to not just hate non-Muslims, but to kill them?  

I’m afraid the lesson would be learned all too well. Another study, also at Stanford, used nursery-aged children to test if aggression can be learned at an early age through observation and imitation. The study, called the Bobo Doll Experiment, involved 74 children and a Bobo Doll, a large inflatable clown. A subset of the children watched an adult verbally and physically abuse the doll for ten minutes. He then left the room and, left alone, the children proceeded to do the same to poor Bobo, some with an unexpected enthusiasm.  

Some Islamic grade schools also use dolls to teach aggression, specifically by cutting off the doll’s head. This prepares the children to be good warriors in the way of Allah when they get older. This is reinforced by teaching the appropriate commands from Allah in the Koran: 

“When you meet the unbelievers in battle, smite their necks —” (V 47:4), and “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, so strike at their necks –.” (V 8:12). Verse 8:13 then explains, “This is because they defied Allah and His Messenger. Whoever defies Allah and His Messenger must know that Allah is severe in punishment.” (Mawdudi translation.) 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AG7Ct0EqTFI IS Teaches Children How to Do Beheadings 

Bible class for Muslims! Thus, it shouldn’t surprise us that a French secondary school teacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by an 18-year-old Muslim in France back in 2020, because Paty had, allegedly, shown caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, an act of blasphemy, during a class discussion on freedom of expression.  

Even though Paty’s attacker was sent to Paradise by the local police, this was probably just what he wanted: Rivers of wine and eager virgins awaited him. Not much of a deterrent, don’t you agree? On the other hand, I can’t imagine any teacher in France daring to criticize ANYTHING about Islam after that. 

The Press almost always characterizes these atrocities by individual Muslims as “lone wolf” acts committed by psychopaths, and not representative of the religion of Islam. This is true even when the Muslim openly, and proudly, declares his actions were in the name of Allah.       

The most recent example of this occurred on the first of June of this year in Boulder, CO, when a 45-year-old Muslim, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, threw Molotov cocktails at a group marching in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza, injuring 15. The married, father of five, recorded this message prior to his attack, ensuring we all knew why he did this if he didn’t survive:  

“If I told my wife and son every day to do something, but they didn’t do it, I would be angry. Maybe I would divorce my wife, maybe I would kick my son out of home. Then what about Allah, who says to us every day, dozens of times: ‘Allah Akbar.’ Do not forget: Allah Akbar. Do not forget that Allah is greater than everything. Not the Zionists, America, Britain, France, or Germany – only Allah has the right to be feared. I say to my mother, my wife, my children, my brothers, my people: I attest before Allah and before you that Allah, His Messenger, and Jihad for Allah’s sake are more beloved to me than you and the whole world are.”  (my emphasis)       

https://www.memri.org/tv/boulder-co-firebomber-sabry-soliman-video-declaration-jihad

I didn’t see his statement covered on any of the networks. Maybe I missed it.  

The failure to identify Islam as THE motivating factor is also true of media coverage of suicide bombers, who Muslims see as analogous to Japan’s Kamikaze pilots. That’s how we should view them, too. Not as psychopaths, but as an especially deadly tactic in Islam’s war against us, as were Japan’s Kamikazes.  

This means that to put a stop to the suicide bombers we must go beyond the individual and into the mosque, the font of these atrocities.  In other words, to get rid of suicide bombers we must get rid of the religion of Islam. That will be much more difficult than ridding the skies of Kamikaze pilots. The Japanese ended their war when their emperor ordered them to. Islam has no emperor to obey, at least not here on Earth.  

We can’t reason with people who believe they are obeying God when they kill us. We can’t reason with people who celebrate atrocities committed in God’s name. The most heinous acts, if done in “jihad for Allah,” are perfectly acceptable by the Muslim society, even celebrated. 

Muslim behavior during and after the October 7 attack on Israel is sad proof of that, e.g., they cheered when the caskets of dead hostages, including those of strangled babies, were paraded through the streets of Gaza. Jews, you see, are subhumans who have earned the wrath of Allah, and Allah has been known to turn them into apes and swine, and that’s according to Allah Himself. (Verse 2:65, 5:60 and 7:116) 

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/20/middleeast/hamas-israel-hostages-release-bibas-intl-hnk

In short, Muslim society provides all the incentives for ordinary people to behave like Jekyll–and-Hyde psychopaths and none of the disincentives: group approval, camaraderie and no fear of consequences, just the opposite, all of it ordained and rewarded by Allah. Their justification of “just following orders,” is unassailable.      

Since Muslims will never police themselves to protect non-Muslims, to protect ourselves from them we must realize that for all practical purposes, ALL Muslims are complicit in EVERY act of terror Muslims commit.  

Ideally, we should close every mosque in America and deport every Muslim who objects. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen. The non-Muslim population is simply too ignorant of Islamic fundamentals to support that, which is also true of many ordinary Muslims. Not so the imams at the pulpit or those heading Islamic organizations such as CAIR, ISNA and ICNA.     

At the very least, any national Islamic organizations that supports Islamic terrorism in any way should be banned. We should also authorize the surveillance and infiltration of individual mosques, something that will be opposed by the ACLU and anybody else who thinks that “freedom of religion” has no boundaries. At the very least, we should close any mosque terrorists are associated with.  

I’m afraid none of the above will happen until Muslims have killed enough of us to get our attention. So far, media coverage of Muslims killing infidels every day is virtually nonexistent.  

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

One place they are NOT killing people is China. I wrote about China’s successful crackdown on Muslim terrorism in October of 2020, five years ago, but the lesson hasn’t been learned anywhere else. (See “How to read the Koran (and understand Islam): “China’s Muslims: a different perspective,” Essay 9.)   

Essentially, what China has done, and we should, too, is to declare Islam a terrorist organization. After all, that’s what it is. Ironically, in 2014, CAIR, The Council on American Islamic Relations, was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates, which claimed that the organization has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a fundamentalist Islamic group that would like to change the relatively secular government in the UAE.  

Until our nation wakes up, we as individuals must do whatever we can to protect ourselves, our families, our churches, and our synagogues from “jihad in the way of Allah.” Keep in mind that deadly violence can come without warning from ANY Muslim.  (See Essay 17 in the above: “Never trust a Muslim, especially a “moderate” Muslim.”)      

In those 26 states that have Constitutional Carry, which means if you pass the required background check to buy a weapon, you don ‘t need additional vetting to carry it concealed, arm yourself and urge your friends to do the same. Unfortunately, New York, where most American Jews live, is not a Constitutional Carry state. Many Jews will have to choose between breaking the law or going defenseless. 

In the meantime, somebody should suggest to President Trump that he issue an executive order authorizing the FBI to issue Constitutional Carry permits. That would bypass stare laws and allow Jews to protect themselves at all times. Sadly, I suspect this commonsense move would be opposed by New York’s liberal Jews.  Sigh.