Back during the presidential campaign last fall, the wingnuts on the right were ridiculed — sometimes by Republicans or conservatives — for harping on Barack Hussein Obama’s supposed Muslim religion, and for making a point of using his middle name.
I maintained then — and still maintain — that what was significant was not whether Barack Obama is really a Muslim, but the fact that the Muslims of the world seem to think he is.
And now comes confirmation of that assumption from an op-ed in Forbes by a woman named Asma Gull Hasan:
My Muslim President Obama
by Asma Gull HasanWhy members of the Islamic faith see him as one of the flock.
I know President Obama is not Muslim, but I am tempted nevertheless to think that he is, as are most Muslims I know. In a very unscientific oral poll, ranging from family members to Muslim acquaintances, many of us feel, just as African-Americans did for the non-black but culturally leaning African-American President Bill Clinton, that we have our first American Muslim president in Barack Hussein Obama.
I know it’s odd to say this. At first, I thought I was the only Muslim engaging in this folly, and I am reluctant to express it lest right-wing zealots try to use “Muslim” as a smear and cite my theory as proof of an Islamic traitor in the White House or some such nonsense. But, since Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, “I have to support my fellow Muslim brother,” would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice.
“Well, I know he’s not really Muslim,” I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, “yes he is.” They would cite his open nature and habit of reaching out to critics, reminiscent of the Prophet Muhammad’s own approach, and also Obama’s middle name, Hussein. Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can’t seem to accept that Obama is not Muslim.
[…]
The rationalistic, Western side of me knows that Obama has denied being Muslim, that his father was non-practicing, that he doesn’t attend a mosque. Many Muslims simply say back, “my father’s not a strict Muslim either, and I haven’t been to a mosque in years.” Obama even told The New York Times he could recite the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, which the vast majority of Muslims, I would guess, do not know well enough to recite.
I think many of us Muslims see Obama as Muslim, or at least of Muslim heritage, because his background epitomizes one of the major Muslim experiences — a diverse upbringing that eludes any easy classification as specifically one religion or one culture. So many of us Muslims around the world have Islam in common, but an altogether different culture from one another. Many Muslims share a culture with a Christian, Hindu or Buddhist community but not the same religion. When faced with such diversity, there are no hard and fast rules for Muslim identity.
– – – – – – – – –
The Qur’an speaks often of the umma, or the worldwide community of Muslims. In the early days of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad led the small umma. Every decision, every effort, everything was for the umma — people who were often unrelated by blood but had become related by choice as Muslims. In those early days, many Muslims had gone against the wishes of their own families in converting to Islam, pitting brother against sister, father against child. Perhaps that’s why the concept of umma became so dear and is still echoed today — in my opinion, echoed more than that Western favorite jihad — in Muslim homes, whether those homes are in the United States or in Palestine.
And now comes the key point: Barack Hussein Obama is part of the Umma, whether he acknowledges it or not:
Perhaps it is my — and most Muslims’ — loyalty to the umma that is behind our insistence on seeing Obama as Muslim. Islam survived and continues to survive because Muslims believe we have to respect and take care of each other, as members of the umma. If we were to start excluding members, or revising our broad guidelines for admittance, the very essence of the community feeling that is important in Islam, that gives me and other Muslims comfort everyday, would be undercut. So when Obama says he’s not Muslim, my umma mentality says I know better. Once you have a Muslim parent, especially a dad, you’re in. Whether you like it or not, Muslims all over the world see you as one of them.
Muslims all over the world see him as one of them.
This means that they have great expectations of him, and so far he has not let them down.
But he has some very high hurdles to jump. When the next hot war breaks out between Israel and the terrorist proxies of Iran and Syria, President Obama will be expected to act in a certain way. He will have to disavow Israel overtly, at the very least withhold further military aid, and preferably back some sort of retaliatory action specified by the UN.
This will be a tough expectation for the new president to meet. It would be a complete departure from our past behavior towards Israel, and would not be in our strategic interests. There will be strong opposition to such a change, even from within his own (unprecendentedly leftist) administration.
So how will President Obama handle this difficult dilemma?
As reported several days ago, Iran is now a “regional partner” in discussions about Afghanistan, and the ascendancy of the Iran lobby in Washington is a strong indicator that Israel will soon be thrown under the bus.
Who better to do the job than our first Muslim president?
Hat tip: JW.
They would cite his open nature and habit of reaching out to critics, reminiscent of the Prophet Muhammad’s own approach
These people can’t resist lying, even to themselves. Muhammad didn’t reach out to his critics, he murdered them.
It takes one to know one.
I maintained then — and still maintain — that what was significant was not whether Barack Obama is really a Muslim, but the fact that the Muslims of the world seem to think he is.
This issue goes well beyond the simple matter of perception. It goes to very core of why the current Democratic administration is so dangerous with respect to America’s security and national interests. Prime time newscasts frequently mention how, unlike America’s previous administration, the current Democratic office holders are willing to “negotiate” with Islam in order to seek some sort of accommodation with the Muslim world.
What shall these “negotiations” have as their bargaining points? What is there to be negotiated? Let’s examine the fundamentals of Islam, which would represent the absolute bedrock of where any and all quid pro quo must take place.
Islam is widely recognized to have Five Pillars.
Shehada: The declaration of faith that Allah is the only true god and Mohammad is his messenger.
Salat: The five daily prayers.
Zakat: The (20%) tithing of a Muslim’s wages.
Saum: Fasting during the daylight hours of Ramadan.
Haj: The pilgrimage to Mecca which is incumbent upon all able-bodied Muslims who can financially afford to do so.
Less well publicized but still widely regarded as Islam’s “other two pillars”, are:
Shari’a: The brutal and oppressive code of Islamic law.
Jihad: The obligatory duty of all Muslims to ensure Islam’s ascendancy as this world’s only belief system, be it by persuasion or force, if necessary.
As a starting example, shari’a law would most definitely have to go. It is one massive violation of human rights. Yet, what are the prospects of deleting this basic pillar of Islamic belief?
The fact remains that Muslims who attempt or even suggest any modification of the above tenets are routinely murdered by their fellow Muslims for apostasy or being insufficiently pure. The Koran and its associated documents are cut in stone. Like a fly trapped in amber, Islam is intentionally rendered immutable and has crystallized into the barbaric credo that it is over the intervening centuries.
What’s more, those who suggest that Islam can undergo any sort of “reformation”—akin to that of Christianity—choose to ignore that Islam already has undergone a reformation. Courtesy of smarmy bastards like Qtub and other fundamentalist scholars, in the last fifty years Islam has reformed itself into something that is more puritanical, more intolerant, more violent and more abusive of women than ever.
Removing or altering any of the above “pillars of Islam” would render it alien unto itself. Consequently, what is there to negotiate? Any potential modification of Islam so as to render it even marginally compatible with Western civilization will require some alteration of the above principles. Yet, repeatedly we see that there can be no substantial change to any of these aspects. So, again, what is there to negotiate?
A central point remains how the fact that Obama and other Democratic party members think Islam can be negotiated with makes them into de facto Muslims. By piddling away these last few precious hours that we have to resist and fight Islam, they are advancing the Muslim cause and may as well be practicing Muslims themselves.
It is in this way that Obama is a Muslim regardless of his proclaimed Christian religious affiliation.
Far more curious is how bin Laden’s al Qaeda is desperate to reverse this tide of bonhomie being extended to Obama by much of the Muslim world. Calling him a “house Negro” and other derogatory terms, al Qaeda has sought to maintain the status quo of hatred and animosity that is so vital to the continuation of terrorist jihad proper. As is so often the case with Muslims, and now with Obama in turn, Islam places both of them in a no-win situation.
randian: These people can’t resist lying, even to themselves.
The insidious nature of taqiyya literally guarantees it. This is why the religiously sanctioned lying of taqiyya irrevocably and permanently damns Islam from the very get-go. Intentionally or not, Muslims will continue to mouth the falsehoods and give false praise to what can only be one of the most quintessential manifestations of evil in our modern world.
As Ms. Asma Gull Hasan so blithely notes:
Islam survived and continues to survive because Muslims believe we have to respect and take care of each other, as members of the umma. If we were to start excluding members, or revising our broad guidelines for admittance, the very essence of the community feeling that is important in Islam, that gives me and other Muslims comfort everyday, would be undercut.
Which is just so much whitewashed broad-brush twentyfour carat horse puckey. Muslims delight in killing other Muslims. In fact, due to their unparalleled military incompetence, it’s what Muslims do best of all. Assailing more advanced militaries has proven a surefire recipe for disaster, as Arab encounters with Israel’s armed forces have repeatedly shown.
Whether it be the centuries old rift between Sunni and Shiia or both of them declaring Sufi and Amahdiya alike to be utter heretics who are beyond the pale, Islam has shown itself wholely capable of “excluding members, or revising [its] broad guidelines for admittance” at every turn.
How telling is it that a woman, no less, stupidly extols Islam for its inclusiveness even as she herself, along with her Muslima sisters are one and all, treated worse than livestock throughout the Islamic world?
Doesn’t this indicate that the religion-thing is a cover for the racial-thing? Islam is becoming the voice of the ‘oppressed’ black/brown man – the coming conflict will not be ideological but racial.
Delighted to see that the Dutch people still have some common sense.
Geert Wilders for President!
Kind regs from Amsterdam,
Sag.
Zenster said: “Far more curious is how bin Laden’s al Qaeda is desperate to reverse this tide of bonhomie being extended to Obama by much of the Muslim world”.
Good point Zenster, We are surely dealing with the most sly and deceptive people and ideology in history. We know that only force will prevent their march towards totalitarianism, might the bin Laden statements be a foil? A deliberate attempt to make Iran and the other Islamic nations appear so much more tolerant and reasoned? people with whom Obama can negotiate? We know that they will stop at nothing, we know lying and deception of infidels is permitted(taquiya). It’s just a thought because as you say it is a curious detail in this whole sorry business.
Re Obama and Islam:
Obama’s close family and childhood ties to Islam make it a familiar and non-threatening ideology. I was raised a Catholic, for me the smell of incense, hearing the Latin Mass, seeing flickering candles in the recesses of churches are a source of nostalgia & contentment, nothing threatening there even though I don’t practice nowadays. Quite naturally Obama states that he delights in the sound of the Imam calling the faithful to prayer, he can recites Islamic texts, he has memories of a childhood attending Islamic classes in Indonesia and his stepfather practicing Islam, nothing threatening there even though he doesn’t practice nowadays. I have seen reports that his Minister Jeremiah Wright was a Muslim before converting to Christianity, and that his church in Chicago still sells Islamic literature and welcomes practicing Moslems. Perhaps other s knows more about this.
I don’t think Obama can truly see Islam as a threat, it never threatened him as a child and our childhood memories become ever more important as we grow older. Any threats towards the West are caused by Western aggression, incursions into sacred Islamic lands, greed for oil and exploitation of believers and so forth. In the mind of people like him I worry that there is an underlying belief that it is we who need to be more tolerant and adaptable, more flexible towards the beliefs of others.
Randian
Muhammad reached out to his critics and murdered them.
I hope that satisfies everyone, Muslims included.
Zenster
Do not forget that Darfurians are Sunni Muslims and yet continue to be massacred wholesale. This is not new. Churchill wrote in The River Wars, that Darfurians Muslims were the most merciless when it came to fighting the mad mahdi’s army. In their hatred of the Arab Muslims they forgot or ignored fire drill.
MEANWHILE
HATE PREACHER GETS OK TO RUN SHARIA LAW DEMO
28th February 2009 – By Tom Savage and Ross Kaniuk
HATE preacher Anjem Choudary will march in London today calling for Britain to adopt Islamic Sharia law.
The startling move comes just days after processions celebrating St George were banned for being racist.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/view/71154/Hate-preacher-gets-OK-to-run-Sharia-law-demo/
AND
4,000 MUSLIM BRITS JOIN TALIBAN By Ross Kaniuk
THOUSANDS of British-born Muslims have joined the Taliban in Afghanistan.
UK troops say they are facing a mini civil war as more Brits head out to fight for the enemy.
Senior officers said British-born Muslims from the West Midlands and Yorkshire have travelled to Helmand province and other parts of southern Afghanist
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/posts/view/70883/4-000-Muslim-Brits-join-Taliban
Obama has denied being Muslim,
Yes. And David Irvin and some “bishop” or other deny being Holocaust deniers as well.
Von Brandenburg-Preußen
You are islamic, if you no little about islam. So is Obama.
You are islamic, if you no little about islam. So is Obama.
USS Hussein sub with nuclear weapons and all Muslim crew. Inshallah.
This sub will point towards Mecca 5 times a day, and then point back at the US.
Only bigots could oppose this. Inshallah.
But that doesn’t mean Obama is a Muslim.
“‘I felt God’s spirit beckoning me,’ he wrote of the experience in his book ‘The Audacity of Hope.’ ‘I submitted myself to His will and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.’”
http://www.submission.org/convert.html
“How to Become a Muslim”
This verse is used on the page How to Become a Muslim.
“So here we have it. When God showed Abraham the perfect religion, He commanded Abraham to Submit (”Aslimu”) and Abraham said “Aslamtu li rabbil aalameen”. This is how MUSLIMS (or converts) should attest their faith (or to convert);
“I SUBMIT TO THE LORD OF THE WORLDS”
“
The following verse is from the Quran Chapter (Surah) 2, “The Cow” or Al-Baqara (also al-Baqarah).
SHAKIR: When his Lord said to him, Be a Muslim, he said: I submit myself to the Lord of the worlds.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/002.qmt.html
Decatur: We are surely dealing with the most sly and deceptive people and ideology in history. We know that only force will prevent their march towards totalitarianism, might the bin Laden statements be a foil? A deliberate attempt to make Iran and the other Islamic nations appear so much more tolerant and reasoned?
Quite the reasonable question. My own guess is no. From the scant knowledge I have of bin Laden and al Qaeda, I would venture that he has, at best, an arm’s length relationship with Iran. The puritanical nature of Wahabiist Islam makes any sincere collaboration seem unlikely.
However, I do like the basic premise of your idea. It reminds me of a recent discussion at GoV about the obliteration of Mecca. Buried in its replies was a comment that noted how increasingly frequent mention of destroying Mecca would make targeted assassinations of Islamic leaders seem all the more moderate.
Obama’s close family and childhood ties to Islam make it a familiar and non-threatening ideology … I don’t think Obama can truly see Islam as a threat, it never threatened him as a child and our childhood memories become ever more important as we grow older. Any threats towards the West are caused by Western aggression, incursions into sacred Islamic lands, greed for oil and exploitation of believers and so forth. In the mind of people like him I worry that there is an underlying belief that it is we who need to be more tolerant and adaptable, more flexible towards the beliefs of others.
In this, I agree with you. I have frequently speculated that George Bush’s own status as a born again Christian may have imbued him with such a sense of religiosity that ostensible Muslim piety blinded him to Islam’s darker side. Playing the happy shill for Saudi Arabia only made matters worse.
One can only wonder just how far the underdog mentality goes with Obama. Possessed in great measure it would certainly explain Obama’s sympathetic view of Islam. Nonetheless, there still remains the enduring question of how Obama or any other of Islam’s Western supporters can turn a blind eye to the wholely unacceptable nature of shari’a law.
Civilized minds surely must reel at any notion of finding the least accomodation with such wholesale barbarity. Instead, we see feminists and progressive liberals advocating for or falling mysteriously silent regarding this massive abuse of human rights.
Given that Islam does not, cannot and clearly will not forsake its inextricable symbiosis with shari’a, it defies all reason that any sane person does not foresee a civilizational clash with Islam. What’s more, despite strenuous Western efforts to deny it, Islam already has initiated its own global clash with dar al harb.
The foregoing leads to only one of two conclusions. Islam’s ascendancy or utter devastation. So long as Western powers hold such a vast disproportion of this world’s nuclear weapons, I predict the latter.
“Iran is now a “regional partner” in discussions about Afghanistan, and the ascendancy of the Iran lobby in Washington is a strong indicator that Israel will soon be thrown under the bus.”
What a great thing it would be if Obama throws Israel under the bus! This would be the best present he can give Israel. I long for this moment. This is the only thing that can screw the Israelis’ heads back on. They don’t need American support or their “string attached” help package. They should pursue an independent policy. God is on their side.
God is on the side of the biggest batallions.
As for Obama, he wants it both ways, vigorously denying he is Muslim (but not attending any church since leaving Trinity) and in his speeches to Muslims broadly hinting, by noting his Muslim birth, childhood, father, and relatives, that he is indeed Muslim.
He wants it both ways, like he always does.
He does not believe that he will pay a price for a terror attack in this country and will be able to lecture people into submission about how racist they are. He is of course clueless, being essentially alien to America and therefore the beloved creature of status-obessed yuppies.
As for women in Islam, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali notes, they have some benefits that make them vigorous defenders of Islam. Among them the ability to share powerful men like say, Mohammed bin Laden, Osama’s father, who had a total of 22 wives and 57 children.
Of course this makes men the losers in Islam, if they are not already powerful and prepared to defend their harem like a lion in a pride.
Which is why Women don’t generally object to Islamization, and men generally do. Men are the losers, and women the great winners.
Anti-Islamist parties in Europe can count on the fingers of one hand their female supporters, they are almost exclusively male for this reason
Hasan wrote:
So when Obama says he’s not Muslim, my umma mentality says I know better. Once you have a Muslim parent, especially a dad, you’re in.
Yep. Hussein Obama may not be a natural born U.S. citizen, but he’s definitely a natural born Muslim and all of Islam knows it.