One of the reasons the New Yorker cover showing fist-bumping Obamas in Muslim garb caused such a ruckus is that its appearance coincided with the release of a Pew Research Center report showing that 12% of Americans (interestingly, 12% of both Democrats and Republicans) still believe Obama is in fact a Muslim. As Eleanor Clift laments, typically, in Newsweek,
A survey released this week conducted by the Pew Research Center finds the notion Obama is a Muslim "bipartisan and enduring." Equal percentages of Republicans and Democrats (12 percent in each party), believe he is a Muslim, with Democrats who hold the belief significantly less likely to vote for Obama.
Jonathan Alter, also in Newsweek, also laments that "the New Yorker cover, now being displayed endlessly on cable TV, speaks louder than any efforts by Obama supporters to stop the smears," and then he indulges in a little smearing, or at least exposing, himself:
For a while, I thought only rightwingers and other Obama haters bought into the lies being spread about him. Then I got a call from Ross Perot, who was trying to plant some dirt about John McCain leaving live POWs behind in Vietnam (untrue, by the way). In the course of the conversation, it became clear that Perot thought Obama was a Muslim. When I informed him that Obama was actually a Christian, Perot was relieved.... In this, alas, Ross Perot has plenty of company, and among people with a much less conspiratorial bent....
Given Obama's prominent association with Rev. Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ and his extended discussions of his journey of religious discovery in his two autobiographies (does anyone else get the idea that Obama is Obama's favorite subject?), not to mention the passions that are aroused by even the mildest questioning of Obama's religious identity, it is probably a mistake to suggest that there is any reasonable basis whatsover for any informed person to suggest that there may be at least one sense in which Obama is a Muslim.
Since I don't need the wrath such a suggestion would invite, I don't intend to suggest it. But it does seem worth pointing out (more in the nature of a reminder than an original observation, since others have made this point) that, in addition to the 12% of dumb, misinformed, probably bitter Americans, millions of people around the world are firmly convinced that Obama is a Muslim. Why do they think so? Because a strong, perhaps dominant, interpretation of Muslim Sharia law tells them so.
As the well-known military and foreign affairs analyst Edward Luttwak wrote in a New York Times OpEd just two months ago, but well before the New Yorker implosion,
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant.
Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.
His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the Arabic as "apostasy," but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim's family may choose to forgive).
An identical argument was made about the same time by Shireen K. Burki in a Christian Science Monitor OpEd:
Osama bin Laden must be chuckling in his safe house. After all, the 2008 campaign could very well give Al Qaeda the ultimate propaganda tool: President Barack Hussein Obama, Muslim apostate.
The fact that Senator Obama - the son of a Muslim father - insists he was never a Muslim before becoming Christian is irrelevant to bin Laden. In bin Laden's eyes, Obama is a murtad fitri, the worst type of apostate, because he was blessed by Allah to be born into the true faith of Islam....
Acording to Islamic jurisprudence, children of a Muslim father - even an apparently nonpracticing one, such as Obama's father, and irrespective of the mother's faith - are automatically Muslims. Most Muslims around the world agree: A child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Period.
Now, everyone who is in favor of arrogant, isolationist America deferring to world opinion on all important matters, just as you did here, please stand up.
Fortunately, the United States is not governed by Sharia law. Individuals, even candidates for president, are free to choose their own religion, and their choices deserve a certain measure of respect - though not absolute respect, lest we be inhibited from offering the robust criticism that Rev. Wright, Minister Farrakhan, and those who follow them so richly deserve. So, is there any sense in which Obama is a Muslim? I suppose the answer depends, at least in part, on what the meaning of "is" is.
Posted by John Ray. For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. For a daily survey of Australian politics, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS Also, don't forget your roundup of Obama news and commentary at OBAMA WATCH
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