Page:The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis II 1921 1.djvu/40

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32

OWEN BERKELEY-HILL

numerous points of resemblance between the young Pharaoh and the aristocratic Arab.

The character and activities of both men had their roots in an intense “father-complex” involving a strong infantile fixation in regard to the mother. For Amenhotep the roots of his venge fulness^[1] Jay in the beautiful and gifted Asiatic princess, Teje; while the incestuous love of Mohammed was directed towards the gentle Amina, daughter of Khuweilid, whose very name “Amina”, “the Faithful”, is daily in the mouth of every Muslim throughout the world.

In the case of Mohammed the “Father-complex” was of a rather peculiar kind since, being born a posthumous child, he never knew his father. The place of the father was taken by his grandfather,

↑ Another most significant feature in the determination of the vengefulness of Amenhotep and Mohammed, was the absence of male offspring to both of them. Since modern psychology began to throw light on the dark places of the unconscious life of mankind, few more notable discoveries have been made than those dealing with the ebb and flow of the eternal struggle between father and son, the fall and rise of ever-succeeding generations. It has been shown that the desire for children, but more especially male children, which is a characteristic of all races the world over, is not motivated solely by the instinct of reproduction but also by the desire of the parent, and that generally the male parent, to possess a natural and obvious means to avenge himself of the wrongs done to him by his own father. This intense desire to beget sons has doubtless played a great part in the institution of polygamy, and, conceivably, a still greater one as regards polyandry, especially polyandry of the type practised by the Todas of India, where the brothers of a family unite as husbands of one woman 80 that among the Todas, in asking a man if he is married, one says, “Is there a son?” Besides the desire to have a son to enable a man to overcome his father, it seems not improbable there exists along with this desire another, a sort of corrollary to it, namely, to have a son to perform expiatory rites for the peace of his soul, in short, someone who will pray the gods to forgive the father for what the father did to his own father, and so to palliate the guilt-complex in which the generations are co-partners, In the ancestor worship of the Chinese and in the Hindu ceremony of Sraddha we meet with the apotheosis of the expression of this unconscious wish. When however the individual man is deprived by circumstances of male offspring, we may occasionally observe him to tum elsewhither in search of the means to gratify his vengefulness, and as such seekers both Amenhotep and Mohammed are examples. When Amenhotep began to express his desire to avenge himself on his father by initiating the religious crusade which was to lead to the Boule-versement of Egypt and to the ruin of his dynasty, he was only twenty-four years of age bat already the father of four daughters. Although he could not have known at that age that time would not bring him the sacrifice in the shape of a son, he acted nevertheless as if his future in this respect had been vouchsafed to him. In the case of Mohammed it was slightly otherwise. Khadijah bore him two sons and four daughters. The first-born, a son was named Casim, but he only lived two years. Last of all was born the second son and he died in infancy. It must have been at the death of this second son, his last-born child, when the beloved Khadijah was at the advanced a-ie of fifty-seven and the idea of making another marriage had not yet corne to him, that Mohammed probably felt that all hope of obtaining his desire was now past, for from this moment forth there began that second period of intense brooding which led to the furious outburst recorded in the ninety-sixth Surah of the Koran which may be taken as marking the starting point of Islam. That Mohammed married again after the death of Khadijah, and, in addition, permitted himself many more wives than the number he prescribed for his followers, was doubtless due in part to a return of the desire to obtain male offspring, and twenty-five years after the birth of his last child we find him once more the father of a son, the child of the Coptic concubine Mary. That this child can have been named Ibrahim (Abraham) seems to point to the fact that the mind of Mohammed still retained memories of the terrible father who would have sacrificed his son, (Isaac). But the little Ibrahim was doomed, like his brothers, to a short life, and at the age of fifteen months we find him lying in a palm-grove near the house of his nurse dying. We see too the aged Prophet struggling to prevent his tremendous sorrow from bursting into expression, for had he not himself forbade his followers from wailing aloud? "Ibrahim! O Ibrahim!" he sobbed, "if it were not that this promise is faithful, and the hope of resurrection sure, if it were not that this is the way to be trodden by all, and the last of us shall join the first, I would grieve for thee with a grief deeper even than this!"

[1] Another most significant feature in the determination of the vengefulness of Amenhotep and Mohammed, was the absence of male offspring to both of them. Since modern psychology began to throw light on the dark places of the unconscious life of mankind, few more notable discoveries have been made than those dealing with the ebb and flow of the eternal struggle between father and son, the fall and rise of ever-succeeding generations. It has been shown that the desire for children, but more especially male children, which is a characteristic of all races the world over, is not motivated solely by the instinct of reproduction but also by the desire of the parent, and that generally the male parent, to possess a natural and obvious means to avenge himself of the wrongs done to him by his own father. This intense desire to beget sons has doubtless played a great part in the institution of polygamy, and, conceivably, a still greater one as regards polyandry, especially polyandry of the type practised by the Todas of India, where the brothers of a family unite as husbands of one woman 80 that among the Todas, in asking a man if he is married, one says, “Is there a son?” Besides the desire to have a son to enable a man to overcome his father, it seems not improbable there exists along with this desire another, a sort of corrollary to it, namely, to have a son to perform expiatory rites for the peace of his soul, in short, someone who will pray the gods to forgive the father for what the father did to his own father, and so to palliate the guilt-complex in which the generations are co-partners, In the ancestor worship of the Chinese and in the Hindu ceremony of Sraddha we meet with the apotheosis of the expression of this unconscious wish. When however the individual man is deprived by circumstances of male offspring, we may occasionally observe him to tum elsewhither in search of the means to gratify his vengefulness, and as such seekers both Amenhotep and Mohammed are examples. When Amenhotep began to express his desire to avenge himself on his father by initiating the religious crusade which was to lead to the Boule-versement of Egypt and to the ruin of his dynasty, he was only twenty-four years of age bat already the father of four daughters. Although he could not have known at that age that time would not bring him the sacrifice in the shape of a son, he acted nevertheless as if his future in this respect had been vouchsafed to him. In the case of Mohammed it was slightly otherwise. Khadijah bore him two sons and four daughters. The first-born, a son was named Casim, but he only lived two years. Last of all was born the second son and he died in infancy. It must have been at the death of this second son, his last-born child, when the beloved Khadijah was at the advanced a-ie of fifty-seven and the idea of making another marriage had not yet corne to him, that Mohammed probably felt that all hope of obtaining his desire was now past, for from this moment forth there began that second period of intense brooding which led to the furious outburst recorded in the ninety-sixth Surah of the Koran which may be taken as marking the starting point of Islam. That Mohammed married again after the death of Khadijah, and, in addition, permitted himself many more wives than the number he prescribed for his followers, was doubtless due in part to a return of the desire to obtain male offspring, and twenty-five years after the birth of his last child we find him once more the father of a son, the child of the Coptic concubine Mary. That this child can have been named Ibrahim (Abraham) seems to point to the fact that the mind of Mohammed still retained memories of the terrible father who would have sacrificed his son, (Isaac). But the little Ibrahim was doomed, like his brothers, to a short life, and at the age of fifteen months we find him lying in a palm-grove near the house of his nurse dying. We see too the aged Prophet struggling to prevent his tremendous sorrow from bursting into expression, for had he not himself forbade his followers from wailing aloud? "Ibrahim! O Ibrahim!" he sobbed, "if it were not that this promise is faithful, and the hope of resurrection sure, if it were not that this is the way to be trodden by all, and the last of us shall join the first, I would grieve for thee with a grief deeper even than this!"

[1]