Waswas

The Arabic word وسوس (waswas) in various forms appears 5 times in the Qur'an.

The first two refer to the story of Adam and Eve. The fa- prefix means "but" or "then".

Then one time it's a persons soul which whispers. The tu- simply indicates present tense, 3rd person, feminine, singular verb.

And two times in a short sura 114. The al- indicates definite article (before a noun). The yu- indicates present tense, 3rd person, singular, masculine verb.

Tafsir Al-Jalalayn says that the "whisperer" in 114:4 is Satan:

From this we can conclude that the concept of waswas (Satan whispering into Muslim minds) is described in the Qur'an, so it is definitely a part of the Islamic doctrine.

Muslims are forgiven thoughts against Islam (the "whispers from Satan") as long don't act upon them and keep silent:

Most of the whispers come from urinating in a place for bathing:

Satan runs away farting, then comes back and whispers into hearts of Muslims when they pray, so they don't know how many rakats they have done:

But when Muhammad forgets how many rakats he has done during prayer, it is because he is just a human being (and it doesn't seem to be a product of Satan whispers):

Muhammad sprinkled water on his "private parts", so that he doesn't get whispers from Satan:

Soothsayers make accurate predictions thanks to hearing waswas:

Waswas is a sign of faith:

In the waswas-avoiding philosophy, you don't gather all information and then make rational conclusions. You gather only information which is in line with Islam, and everything which is not in line with Islam (regardless if it's true and logical) is dismissed. This creates a confirmation bias in Muslim minds.

For example, when Muslims try to prove that Allah exists, they often try the creationist argument, that "the world exists, therefore somebody must have d it". And now the question "Who created Allah then?" destroys their argument. But their argument was in line with Islam and this counter-argument is against Islam, so the first one continues to be widely accepted, but the counter-argument is dismissed as "waswas":

So the waswas concept is against the concepts like critical thinking and logic.

The concept of waswas is a perfect method to keep people believing blindly in false information, because if their beliefs were false, they would never realize that, because everything which leads to the realization would be considered waswas.

When you search the web, you will find many Muslims trying to "cure" themselves from waswas ^[1]. The basic treatment method is ruqya - exorcism. Verses from the Qur'an are recited on the "posessed" Muslim. There is also a possibility of self-ruqya ^[2], where Muslim tries to get rid of waswas by praying and reading the Qur'an (and other practices).

The waswas-avoiding behavior could probably be best described, in a secular way, by the psychological repression theory. A Muslim represses his "bad" thoughts. He pushes them out of his consciousness, into the unconscious mind. From the unconscious mind, the repressed thoughts might express themselves in dreams or as inner voices.

The therapy for psychological repression basically the opposite of what "Islamic therapy" does. In Freud's psychotherapy, the psychotherapist re-introduces the repressed thoughts back into the conscious mind ^[3]. The conscious mind then learns to live with the repressed thoughts and so there is no more repression. While the Islamic treatment of waswas is trying to repress the "bad" thoughts so much that they become silent. Which is not possible, because repressed thoughts don't disappear. They only hide in the unconscious mind and there they still affect a person's behavior and cause psychological problems.