Was Barack Obama a Muslim?

[Ibrahim Al Copti]

Dear Faith-Hope_Love

thanks for your thoughtful posts
you said

For example take Pope Shenouda, I could say with some certainty that his schooling was similarly close to islam as obama's, Pope Shenouda having been schooled in Egypt and Obama in Indonesia, both islamic countries where the quran is part of the school syllabus whether you're a muslim or not.

Or take Pope Benedict who, not by his own choice, was a member of the Hitler youth, but it would very unfair to say that he sympathises with Nazis.

I think there is still a difference between these Pops and Obama

it is the parent effect

Pop Shinoda's family was not of Muslims
and Pop Benedict's family was not of Nazi's believers

But Obama's father was a practicing Muslim
so claiming he was doing that against his will is not accurate

Another point is critical: we do not blame Obama for having a Muslim father, but lying about it to achieve his ambitions

Third and final point is that having a Muslim heritage is definitely going to be an issue if he is planning to go after terrorists who happened to be devout Muslims ...
this is very dangerous and his empathy, bias and soft hand are always going to be factors affecting his judgment

God Bless

[Faith-Hope_Love]

Hi Ibrahim

On your first point, the parent effect.

I didn't go as far as saying that barack did anything 'against his will', I'm only saying that any child has their school choices made for them by their parents and somewhat by society, I don't know that this happened in spite of resistance by a 6 year old and I'm not claiming that.

If you have a coptic community around you try asking a handful of older people who went to primary school in egypt whether they learnt the koran in school or not (it is learnt and memorised as literature in arabic class, and studied as a theology in religion class, so even christians would have exposure to islamic teaching in school in their arabic classes).

This, plus the fact that only one of his parents was muslim (his dad) and that his dad disappeared from his life from childhood and forever more, and that he was raised by his mother and grandmother, non-muslims, pretty much wipes out the parent effect argument.

Onto your second point about lying about his dad, can you please give me a reference for that. I wouldn't put it above any politician, including this one, to tell convenient lies to get ahead but I need some proof like a speech of his, or excerpt from his book or even a statement made by his campaign managers and not corrected by him, any original source will do.

On your last point which I think is his suitability to fight the war on terrorism, I seriously think that this obama family issue is so trivial that nobody should be wasting their time with it. If the war on terrorism was my priority, and personally it would be if i was an american voter, then I have plenty of positive reasons to vote for the other fellow, but no reason to either vote for obama or not. Maybe when he starts picking his team I can make a judgement about them but obama himself has almost no record that I can go by, and sketchy family history will just not do as a way of making a decision about a man.

What do you think ?

[Ibrahim Al Copti]

Dear Faith-Hope_Love

Hi Again

If you have a coptic community around you try asking a handful of older people who went to primary school in egypt whether they learnt the koran in school or not (it is learnt and memorised as literature in arabic class, and studied as a theology in religion class, so even christians would have exposure to islamic teaching in school in their arabic classes).

I think u still miss my point
no Coptic would learn the Koran as a Muslim
Barak practiced Islam as a Muslim
as Daniel Pipes put in his article

The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Zulfin Adi. … Obama's younger sister, Maya Soetoro, said in a statement released by the campaign that the family attended the mosque only "for big communal events," not every Friday

So he was a practicing Muslim when he was a child

on your comment

This, plus the fact that only one of his parents was muslim (his dad) and that his dad disappeared from his life from childhood and forever more, and that he was raised by his mother and grandmother, non-muslims, pretty much wipes out the parent effect argument.

This is a very subjective argument
because we do not know how much effect his father had on him
If he managed to write a book on his FATHER



it is reasonable to think that HE had an impact on his life

Onto your second point about lying about his dad, can you please give me a reference for that.

sorry it is my mistake
I was misunderstood
I did not mean lying about his dad
but about "NEVER" being a Muslim
http://www.barackobama.com/factcheck...ama-not-muslim

That claim is not accurate, if he registered as a Muslim and prayed in a Mosque, celebrated

You could say instead "I practiced Islam but never meant anything to me "

But "never_been_a_Muslim"
ans " never prayed in a mosque"
for me that is a lie .. a big one too

If the war on terrorism was my priority, and personally it would be if i was an american voter, then I have plenty of positive reasons to vote for the other fellow, but no reason to either vote for obama or not.

in my opinion, an American voter shouldn't take chances and leave a critical issue like that to possibilities


by the way, I have hard times coping with McCain's policy .. especially the economic one
But better save than sorry [concerning B.O. of course]

God bless

[Faith-Hope_Love]

Hi Ibrahim

I think this phrase of yours is much too honest and straight for most politicians :)

You could say instead "I practiced Islam but never meant anything to me "

My impression is that obama was pretty much a skeptic who didn't take his religion at all seriously, of course you can't say something like that and survive an election, so instead he said 'never was a muslim', 'never practiced', etc... But I don't make any distinctions between 'massaging the truth', as they call it, and outright lying, the guy lied as far am I'm concerned.

I think you also repeat my own sentiment when you say that the extent of his dad's influence is subjective, you and I just differ in outcome, I think it wouldn't count for much in my decisions, precisely because I don't have the evidence I need, you would say 'don't risk it', that's fair enough.

[Faith-Hope_Love]

Oh and by the way Ibrahim,

There's something that I've been assuming the whole time but never explicitly said here (just to avoid stating the bleeding obvious), and that is that islam (the religion) and islamism/islamofascism (the ideology) are not the same thing in practice.

I think I ought to make that explicit because I would be horrified if some muslim friend of mine read this thread and thought that I equated the two.

The difference in my view is one between private religious belief, (islam) and one that must assert itself on others, even if by force
(islamism).

But this is a purely practical statement, it remains for others to argue whether islam in theory can live alongside any other religion, I won't get involved in that discussion.

Of course all religions have to assert themselves on non-believers to some degree and it's a matter of degree but the practical distinction here is clear enough for me.

[Ibrahim Al Copti]

Dear Faith

can u elaborate more on this part

There's something that I've been assuming the whole time but never explicitly said here (just to avoid stating the bleeding obvious), and that is that islam (the religion) and islamism/islamofascism (the ideology) are not the same thing in practice.

May be I do not see the obvious

God bless +++

[Faith-Hope_Love]

Hi Ibrahim

By the bleeding obvious I meant the difference between islam as a faith, and the relatively recent ideology of islamofascism. And it is recent, you can trace its roots back to a handful of 20th century egyptians like sayyed al kutb and ayman al zawahiri (yes, THAT ayman al zawahiri). But I had to mention this because it appears to me that more than a few people in this thread equate the two, thinking that all muslims are terrorists (either actually terrorists or potentially terrorists).

If all muslims in the world (all 1+ billion of them) were terrorists, the world would look very different to how it looks today.

That's not to say that islam, the faith, isn't aggressive in pushing itself on 'infidels', I'm only saying that this doesn't universally happen through violence. And I think the distinction is not only an honest one, but a useful one.

For instance when I oppose sharia courts in my country (or in america on in canada) I don't do that because i think it's a slippery slope to terrorism, I oppose sharia courts on their own merit. My fellow countrymen, and women, deserve better than the kind of medieval caprice that the sharia courts can call justice.

I think this is more honest, and also more fair, than to brand people terrorists.


Where the distinction between the faith and terrorism starts to fail however is in places like egypt. Look at the events in abu fana monastery and the way that authorities either let crime happen or just refuse to do anything about it and the difference between plain old islam, and islamoascism becomes less clear.

But this isn't really the case in the west.

[Ibrahim Al Copti]

Dear Faith

And it is recent, you can trace its roots back to a handful of 20th century egyptians like sayyed al kutb and ayman al zawahiri (yes, THAT ayman al zawahiri)

Do you why they started the Muslim brotherhood movement ?

If all muslims in the world (all 1+ billion of them) were terrorists, the world would look very different to how it looks today.

nobody would say that ...

But the obvious to me that you are confusing Islam as an ideology and Muslims how much they stick to that ideology

difference between islam as a faith, and the relatively recent ideology of islamofascism

Islamofascism is a western term trying to make sense of all the Islamic violence happening

But actually, Islam as an ideology that condone terror and violence , whether you call it Fascism, Nazism, ......etc

and u said it

That's not to say that islam, the faith, isn't aggressive in pushing itself on 'infidels',

I totally agree

I'm only saying that this doesn't universally happen through violence. And I think the distinction is not only an honest one, but a useful one.

Of course, violence is not the only tool to force ideology on some people
There are many other ways
including deceit (Al-taqiyya)
Dhimmitude
Slavery

So, I agree with you that violence and terror are not the only means ...
They are part of a big package
fortunately enough, not all Muslims, especially non-Arabic speaking, practice the whole package

the closer and deeper u get inside the Islamic ideology, the more you get closer to more ugly parts of the package

God bless +++