The Post-Muslim Presidency of Barack Hussein Obama

A recent article in the Arab News (available here), linked at the fine PowerLine blog (available here) on November 26 has, once again, raised an interesting and persistent question: Is Barack Hussein Obama, the President of the United States, a Muslim? The article quotes Obama’s paternal grandmother, 88 year old Haja Sarah Omar as saying “I prayed for my grandson Barack to convert to Islam.” Omar was interviewed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia while on the Haj, the journey all observant Muslims are expected to perform once in their lives to Mecca, the most holy city of Islam.

John Hinderaker of PowerLine was not impressed. “President Obama is NOT a Muslim, whatever else he may be. But he needs this kind of story [linked to the Arab News story] like a hole in the head.” Hinderaker concluded his post: “ In principle, the fact that a substantial part of Obama's family is Muslim is neither here nor there. If Obama were a successful President, no one would care. But given that many millions of Americans view him as a kind of alien presence as a result of the policies he has tried to impose, Obama must wish his Kenyan relatives would fade quietly away for the balance of his term in office.”

In the traditional American sense, Mr. Hinderaker is correct, but in the Muslim world, the matter is seen entirely differently, and in a just world perhaps the Muslim viewpoint should prevail in this matter, particularly considering Mr. Obama’s apparent dedication to supporting and praising all things Islamic. Mr. Obama has never failed to laud and “reach out” to Islamic regimes and domestic groups regardless of their known and suspected terrorist connections, such support--from time to time-- causing his Administration considerable embarrassment, if one accepts that Mr. Obama and those chosen to surround and advise him are capable of embarrassment.

A case in point is Mr. Obama’s NASA head, Charles Bolden, who in a June interview with Al Jazeera at the American University in Cairo outlined Mr. Obama’s priorities for the space agency: “...and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science...and math and engineering.” While one might be forgiven for wondering what this has to do with, well...space, it is yet another in a long series of insights into the thinking of a man who can’t seem to summon up any praise for America and Americans, but always has a good word for people and nations who are, if not directly supportive of, at least sympathetic toward, Islamic terrorists who delight in murdering Americans.

The important distinction, which I’m sure as an attorney, Mr. Hinderaker appreciates, is that Americans enjoy the blessings of the separation of church and state and the traditions flowing from it while Muslim nations almost uniformly do not. It is well known that Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that he is a Christian, having converted at some point in the past under the influence of the Rev. Wright. The intentions and influence of the kind of Marxist, blatantly anti-semitic, racist and anti-American black liberation theology so openly practiced in Wright’s former church may be fairly debated elsewhere. The point is that in the American tradition, each American has the freedom to chose their faith, and they tend to accept the faith professions of others at face value. In addition, one may freely leave a given faith and adopt another, and Americans commonly don’t find this in the least remarkable.

Part of the American tradition is that children are generally raised in the faith practices of their parents, but it is understood that when they reach sufficient age and understanding, they may choose to remain in that faith, to explore, even to adopt another, or to become essentially faithless. Apart from parental disapproval and disappointment, generally no consequences arise from such choices.

However, in matters of faith, as in politics and much else, Americans tend to have sensitive and accurate hypocrisy detectors. Americans tend to notice when one’s words and actions do not well match, and this is a large part of Mr. Obama’s problem.

The facts are quite simple. Mr. Obama was born to a Muslim father. The children of a Muslim father are Muslims. In Islam, this is not a matter of choice, but a matter of custom, tradition and Sharia. When Mr. Obama attended a Muslim school in his youth in Indonesia, his parents identified him as Muslim on school records. Presumably his parents were not mistaken or playing a prophetic, ironic joke on school authorities, a joke that would not become apparent until young Barry Sotero attained manhood, an obviously Islamic name and became POTUS.

This traditional, cultural reality is at the heart of the conflict between America and Islam. Americans identify themselves, first, as Americans. For more than 200 years, e pluribus unum has been a worthy motto and description of the process by which millions of immigrants have come to America to gain that which they--and generations of native born Americans--held most dear, the right to say “I am an American.” Americans might also consider themselves to be Texans or North Dakotans or perhaps Lutherans or Catholics, but their dedication and loyalty to their nation--for all intents and purposes--takes precedence over concerns of religion, race or heritage. Considering the European experience--an experience many Europeans appear to have forgotten--Americans who are suspicious of those whose first allegiance is to a religion have good and historically well documented reasons to be suspicious.

If one follows the letter--and observant Muslims would surely argue, the spirit--of Islam, all Muslims, wherever they live, are first, last and always, Muslim. Under Sharia and tradition, Muslims, whether born into the faith or converts by choice or force, have no choice: Once a Muslim, always a Muslim. One who leaves the faith is an apostate and the punishment for apostasy is death, such death sentence to be carried out by family members, the agents of Muslim states, or any fervent Muslim anywhere. While the sentence may never be carried out, the sword always hangs over the head of the apostate.

As Americans, we tend to believe individual professions of faith, as long as they are accompanied by actions that tend to support those professions. This is Mr. Obama’s problem. For a self professed Christian, he tends to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy in the promotion of the welfare of Islam and of Muslims, and comparatively little in the promotion and welfare of traditionally American values relating to faith, to say nothing of democracy, the continuing furor over his refusal to clearly condemn the Ground Zero mosque being only one of a great many cases in point.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that in professing conversion to Christianity, Mr. Obama has publicized his status as an apostate Muslim in the eyes of observant Muslims everywhere. The more cynical might assert that Muslims understand that Mr. Obama is really one of them and has to profess Christianity so that he can continue to work on behalf of Muslim interests. Lying to infidels in the furtherance of the goals of Islam is a part of the faith. That Mr. Obama has denied ever being Muslim might be accepted by Americans who consider only faith decisions made by adults to be truly informed and legitimate, but to observant Muslims, such statements only add deadly insult to mortal injury.

So Mr. Hinderaker is right too in that it matters not that many members of Mr. Obama’s extended family are Muslim. Many presidents have had inconvenient, embarrassing family members. But the success, or lack thereof, or Mr. Obama’s presidency has no bearing on this matter. The problem remains Mr. Obama wanting to have a respected, even worshipped presence in each world/faith tradition while simultaneously drawing blessings and benefits from both. That these are mutually exclusive, actively hostile (on the part of Islam), irreconcilable worlds and traditions phases Mr. Obama not at all for he is above and beyond such petty concerns in the same way that he has transcended the boring, insignificant office of the presidency.

The controversy continues and will not abate, because while most Americans find themselves willing to accept Mr. Obama’s profession of Christian faith, when his NASA head is, at Mr. Obama’s direction, far more interested in patting long dead Muslims on the back for Algebra than in exploring space and reaping the benefits therefrom, they can’t help but scratch their heads and wonder why a self described Christian in a secular nation seems so interested in representing the best interests of Islam. Why he seems so little interested in effectively ending the Islamic terrorist threat, a threat his Administration cannot and will not specifically identify, is a matter for another time, but is also a major contributor to Mr. Obama’s woes in this area.

Mr. Obama may be thought to be an alien of sorts by many Americans, but this is so because his words and actions since taking office have revealed him to be anything but a faithful representative of the American people and nation. Islamophobia? American common sense. One can only imagine Mr. Obama’s frustration at this and much else. After all, who we gonna believe, him or our own lyin’ eyes?