Do most Muslims have a double standard when it comes to praising or condemning the actions of their leaders? Please consider the responses to the actions of Saddam Hussein and those of Muhammad, Islam’s prophet.

When Saddam, master tyrant, fell through the gallows as his enemies shouted expletives at him, few people wept. Saddam’s brutalities are still too recent, with too many witnesses and photos, to have become mythologized by the passage of time.

Nearly everyone agreed that Saddam was a horrendous man, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and others, whom often died in excruciating pain because of Saddam and his sons’ penchant for the sadistic torture purely for amusement.

Nearly everyone vilifies Saddam. That is, everyone except millions of Iraqi Sunnis, as well as admirers in various Sunni Muslim-dominated countries. For them, Saddam’s mega-criminality is not an obstacle to respecting, even adoring, him as the enemy of that perpetual “Great Satan,” the United States, as well as the slayer of thousands of “infidel” Shiite Muslims.

Neutral parties no doubt would say Saddam aficionados have simply lost it; they are wantonly blind to his evil due to their own personal prejudices. Some have lost their once privileged positions in Saddam’s Iraq, or they side with any enemy of the United States, i.e., “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Maybe they simply admire Mafiosi types of any sort.

The question for rational people is: How do these “Saddamites” square this circle in their own mind? What mental forces are at play that can warp certain communities of people, some quite large in their own right, into defending Saddam in light of the prima facie evil of his deeds? Have these people been struck by some mass psychosis into fawning over a murderous thug? Regardless, the stark brutality of Saddam is still obvious enough for the majority of people to view him as a plague on humanity, and regard the dead dictator’s supporters as mentally deranged in their regard for him.

We know of other infamous murderers, from the relatively small-time Charles Manson to mega-maniacal Stalin, who continue to have their “groupies.” The groupies are widely looked upon with distain, if not creepy amusement, by the vast majority of people. The common view seems to be that their bizarre, indeed sick, sensibilities have led them into the camps of such villains.

Saddam, of course, viewed himself as an historical figure, no different in intent and demeanor than other autocratic rulers throughout history. He was well aware that these rulers meted out justice with a cruel stick. Reputedly, he was an admirer of Stalin, and a fan of the Godfather movie series. These elements no doubt gave him inspiration, along with the various cruel leaders mythologized in the pantheon of Arabdom. He aspired to be one of them. It is only Saddam’s misfortune that his star fell because of the modern development of human rights and the ability to visually and verbally record his crimes, often ironically done by his own minions, for the world to see.

Time, like fame and money, have a way of softening brutality in the public’s mind. Thugs morph into heroes, tyrants soften into wise rulers, and murder and torture are glossed over, made relative, or disconnected from the rulers. A few thoughtful words or a grandfatherly face from the monster will win over the wantonly naïve among us, (and there are many).

It is a matter of record that the activities of Muhammad would be considered severe human rights violations were they to be committed today. Like Saddam, Muhammad tortured and killed thousands of his alleged enemies, often collectively, based on nothing more than ethnic affiliation. In one notorious instance, Muhammad beheaded all the adult Jewish males of the Banu Qurayzah tribe, and had their wives distributed among the Muslims as “war booty.” Muhammad determined male adulthood by whether a boy had pubic hair or not. In other indicative instances, Muhammad had a poetess murdered for allegedly insulting him in a poem, and a purportedly 100-year-old poet murdered for the same thing. In yet another instance, Muhammad had alleged criminals put to death by chopping off their limbs, poking out their eyes, and leaving them in the sun to die. And so on, and so on Muhammad committed or oversaw other major human rights violations, including rape, theft, pedophilia and slavery.

These instances seem to be in line with the type of torture that Sadaam wrought on his people, whenever they got “out of line.” Yet, oddly, if we apply the same logic to Muhammad as we do with Sadaam—that his supporters have “lost it” and are simply blind to Muhammad’s crimes, it is considered by many to be in bad taste at the least, and a high crime by Muslims for “insulting the prophet.”

What gives? Does calling oneself the Prophet and claiming to act in God’s name simply a clever way of avoiding criticism by created a sort of cognitive dissonance in otherwise rational people? Does the shear weight of 1400 years of following a man’s ramblings makes it appear too foolish for cultures to admit the words may be lacking in some respect? Ironically, one way out is of this confusion was closed by Muhammad himself, which is excusing his actions as a relic of the seventh century, because Muslims’ claim there is only one standard for all time, which Muhammad delivered via the Koran.

I guess we’ll just have to wait for the deluge for the answer. So called moderate Muslims seem to be mum, or actively censorious, about discussing Muhammad’s possible crimes. Or do they think collective beheads, murdering poets, raping someone’s wife, etc, are not criminal when non-Muslims are the victims? And what of bedding of nine-year-old Aisha, who was definitely Muslim? Are they chagrined at such questions? It’s obvious that their outrage at “insulting the prophet” is not genuine, but is that of a liar, caught in a lie. The din just gets louder the closer critics get to the truth.

To Muslims: You know the above holds truth, but when will you face it? Yes, you will be under a death threat from fellow Muslims for admitting the true nature of Islam, but aren’t we all? It’s time you set yourself free.