Rover
10-31-2008, 02:17 AM
First, I was just going to throw this in the 2008 election thread, but it would just get lost in there amongst the "Joe the Plumber is the antichrist" posts. And I think it has the potential to be interesting.
I was reminded of Obama's past when I saw this poll:
A University of Texas poll to be released today shows Republican presidential candidate John McCain and GOP Sen. John Cornyn leading by comfortable margins in Texas, as expected. But the statewide survey of 550 registered voters has one very surprising finding: 23 percent of Texans are convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a Muslim.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6084678.html (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6084678.html)
Nevermind that it's been 2 years and Obama still has trouble convincing people he isn't a son of Ishmael.
Technically, those 23% are correct. And it's one of the more fascinating aspects of a potential Obama foreign policy. How does Obama interact with the Muslim community as a Muslim apostate? Under Sharia, he'd be executed. And usually high profile apostates are given death warrants, ie Salman Rushdie and Magdi Allam. I can understand why Obama wouldn't want to give interviews about this during the campaign, but I wonder what his foreign policy position will be on how to interact with Muslim countries.
I see it as a potentially huge stumbling block in Middle East peace progress.
Here's a CSM article discussing how apostates are viewed in Islam (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0519/p09s02-coop.html?page=1), and how Obama's faith could be exploited by terrorists. The biggest thing that struck me in the article is that the Global War on Terror would be seen a war on Muslims by a Muslim apostate. And people used to think that George W. Bush was a great recruitment tool for al-Qaeda.
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.
There are two types of apostates according to sharia (Islamic law) and the Hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him).
The first type is murtad milli, one who converted to Islam and later renounced the faith. The second, and most egregious, type is murtad fitri. It refers to a person born of a Muslim father who renounces his birthright. Two recent examples of the latter are Magdi Allam (a male Egyptian who converted to Catholicism in Italy) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali-born woman who's now an atheist). Both now face death threats.
According 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.
Should Obama become US commander in chief, there is a strong likelihood that Al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab, will exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror (read: attacks against fellow Muslims). This perception would be leveraged to galvanize sympathizers into action.
Anybody have any thoughts on what happens to US foreign policy, specifically as it relates to the Muslim world, if Obama gets elected, which isn't going to happen, but, you know, just in case. I guess this should be discussed now, before Tuesday when no one will care what effect an Illinois senator will have on foreign policy.
I was reminded of Obama's past when I saw this poll:
A University of Texas poll to be released today shows Republican presidential candidate John McCain and GOP Sen. John Cornyn leading by comfortable margins in Texas, as expected. But the statewide survey of 550 registered voters has one very surprising finding: 23 percent of Texans are convinced that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is a Muslim.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6084678.html (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6084678.html)
Nevermind that it's been 2 years and Obama still has trouble convincing people he isn't a son of Ishmael.
Technically, those 23% are correct. And it's one of the more fascinating aspects of a potential Obama foreign policy. How does Obama interact with the Muslim community as a Muslim apostate? Under Sharia, he'd be executed. And usually high profile apostates are given death warrants, ie Salman Rushdie and Magdi Allam. I can understand why Obama wouldn't want to give interviews about this during the campaign, but I wonder what his foreign policy position will be on how to interact with Muslim countries.
I see it as a potentially huge stumbling block in Middle East peace progress.
Here's a CSM article discussing how apostates are viewed in Islam (http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0519/p09s02-coop.html?page=1), and how Obama's faith could be exploited by terrorists. The biggest thing that struck me in the article is that the Global War on Terror would be seen a war on Muslims by a Muslim apostate. And people used to think that George W. Bush was a great recruitment tool for al-Qaeda.
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.
There are two types of apostates according to sharia (Islamic law) and the Hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him).
The first type is murtad milli, one who converted to Islam and later renounced the faith. The second, and most egregious, type is murtad fitri. It refers to a person born of a Muslim father who renounces his birthright. Two recent examples of the latter are Magdi Allam (a male Egyptian who converted to Catholicism in Italy) and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali-born woman who's now an atheist). Both now face death threats.
According 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.
Should Obama become US commander in chief, there is a strong likelihood that Al Qaeda's media arm, As-Sahab, will exploit his background to argue that an apostate is leading the global war on terror (read: attacks against fellow Muslims). This perception would be leveraged to galvanize sympathizers into action.
Anybody have any thoughts on what happens to US foreign policy, specifically as it relates to the Muslim world, if Obama gets elected, which isn't going to happen, but, you know, just in case. I guess this should be discussed now, before Tuesday when no one will care what effect an Illinois senator will have on foreign policy.