Was Barack Hussein Obama A Muslim - YES HE WAS!

by **Admin** Mon Jan 14, 2008 10:00 am

1. Was Barack Obama a Muslim?

The issue of Barack Obama’s possible Muslim past has re-emerged
with conflicting reports about the presidential candidate’s
childhood in Islamic Indonesia.

The controversy was initially touched off in early 2007 when
several media outlets reported that Obama had attended a radical
madrasa, or Islamic school, when he lived in Indonesia.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs quickly countered with a statement:
“Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and
is a committed Christian.”

The reports about the radical madrasa turned out to be false. But
in March 2007, Gibbs amended his previous statement, telling the Los
Angeles Times: “Obama has never been a practicing Muslim,” the key
word being “practicing.”

Obama, his Kansas-born mother and Muslim stepfather moved to
Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, in 1967, and Obama lived there from
ages 6 to 10.

The Times sent a reporter to Jakarta to investigate Obama’s
childhood years there, and published an article on March 16 that
included these details:

A close boyhood friend of Obama, Zulfin Adi, said Barack “was
a Muslim. He went to the mosque.”

Obama’s first-grade teacher at a Catholic school, Israella
Dharmawan, said: “Barry (Barack’s nickname) was Muslim. He was
registered as a Muslim because his father was Muslim.”

In the third grade, Obama transferred to a public school,
where he was also registered as a Muslim. At the school, Muslim
students attended weekly religion lessons about Islam.

In his autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama mentions
studying the Koran and describes the public school as “a Muslim
school.”

More recently, Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes wrote on
FrontPageMag.com that his research led him to conclude that “Obama
was born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and for some
years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his
Indonesian stepfather.”

But on Jan. 2, the liberal organization Media Matters for America
(MMfA) took issue with Pipes’ report, criticized him for relying too
heavily on the Times article, which it claimed was “disputed,” in an
effort to “revive Obama-Muslim falsehood.”

Media Matters cited a March 25 article by Kim Baker in the
Chicago Tribune that challenged several assertions in the Times
story. Barker wrote that boyhood friend Adi “was not certain” about
his statements regarding Obama’s childhood and that he “only knew
Obama for a few months.”

The Media Matters Web posting stated: “Additionally, the Tribune
reported that ‘interviews with dozens of former classmates,
teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular
practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia.’”

Media Matters also said that “Pipes did not note that Obama’s
Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, has been described in the
Tribune as ‘much more of a free spirit than a devout Muslim.’”

Pipes fired back with a FrontPageMag.com article on Jan. 7,
titled “Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam.”

Pipes asked if any of the information from the Chicago Tribune
article refutes “my analysis, as MMfA contends. It raises questions
about two details in the Los Angeles Times account — the accuracy of
the Catholic school’s registration form and the reliability of
Zulfin Adi as a source on Obama. But on the larger issue of Obama’s
religious practices during his Jakarta years, it confirms the Times
account.”

Pipes concludes: “Therefore, what MMfA calls the ‘Obama-Muslim’
falsehood’ is in fact confirmed by both articles as truthful and
accurate.”

And he adds: “All this matters, for if Obama once was a Muslim,
he is now what Islamic law calls a murtadd (apostate), an ex-Muslim
converted to another religion who must be executed. Were he elected
president of the Untied States, this status, clearly, would have
large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim
world.”

Editor's Note: