Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam
Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia, despite being listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school, Strada Asisia, where he attended 1st through 3rd grades. At the time, the school most likely registered children based on the religion of their fathers, said [Israella Pareira] Darmawan, Obama’s former [1st-grade] teacher. Because Soetoro was a Muslim, Obama was listed as a Muslim, she said.
The enrollment form from the Catholic school, which has been cited as evidence that Obama was a Muslim in Indonesia [including by the Los Angeles Times], also was rife with errors. It listed Obama as an Indonesian, listed his previous school incorrectly and failed to list his mother, Ann, at all.
Barack Obama with his public school classmates in Indonesia. |
About Obama’s time at a public elementary school, 1970-71, variously known as the Sekolah Dasar Nasional Menteng No. 1 or the Basuki school, Barker writes:
When Obama attended 4th grade in 1971, Muslim children spent two hours a week studying Islam, and Christian children spent those two hours learning about the Christian religion.
During a recent visit to this public school, Barker found that
Weekly religious classes are required for all students, whether Muslims, Christians or Hindus, under the government curriculum. A new shiny mosque is in the corner of the courtyard. “The Muslims learn about Islam, prayer and religious activity,” said Hardi Priyono, the vice principal for curriculum. “And for the Christians, during the religious class, they also have a special room teaching Christianity. It’s always been like that.”
About Obama’s step-father, Lolo Soetoro and his religiosity, Barker writes:
In their first neighborhood, Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers, a few neighbors said. But Soetoro usually was too busy working, first for the Indonesian army and later for a Western oil company. “Sometimes Lolo went to the mosque to pray, but he rarely socialized with people,” said Fermina Katarina Sinaga, Obama’s 3rd-grade teacher at the Catholic school, who lived near the family. “Rarely, Barry [a nickname for Barack] went to the mosque with Lolo.”
Barker learned from his friends and family that Lolo Soetoro, who died in 1987, was “much more of a free spirit than a devout Muslim” and “hardly the image of a pious Muslim.”
His nephew, Sonny Trisulo, 49, said Soetoro always liked women and alcohol. One of his health problems was a failing liver. “He loved drinking, was a smart and warm person, the naughtiest one in the family,” Trisulo recalled.
As for Zulfan Adi, cited in the Los Angeles Times piece:
Zulfan Adi, a former neighborhood playmate of Obama’s who has been cited in news reports as saying Obama regularly attended Friday prayers with Soetoro, told the Tribune he was not certain about that when pressed about his recollections. He only knew Obama for a few months, during 1970, when his family moved to the neighborhood.
Does any of the above information from the Chicago Tribune article refute 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 Zulfan 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. Note in particular three excerpts from Barker’s article:
- “Interviews with dozens of former classmates, teachers, neighbors and friends show that Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia” – implying he was an irregularly practicing Muslim.
- “Obama occasionally followed his stepfather to the mosque for Friday prayers, a few neighbors said” – confirming that he did pray in the mosque.
- “Obama’s 3rd-grade teacher at the Catholic school, who lived near the family [said that] ‘Rarely, Barry went to the mosque with Lolo’” – confirming that Obama attended mosque services.
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 United States, this status, clearly, would have large potential implications for his relationship with the Muslim world.
In sum: Obama was an irregularly practicing Muslim who rarely or occasionally prayed with his step-father in a mosque. This precisely substantiates my statement that he “for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian step-father.”
Therefore, what MMfA calls the “Obama-Muslim falsehood” is in fact confirmed by both articles as truthful and accurate.
Calling this a falsehood is in itself a falsehood.
Source: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5354
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Comments
Both the author and Pipes are wrong. My original comment was apparently incorrect. Pipes is not an idiot.
Oh, come on. I think it is just funny,all these attempts to link Obama with Islam and therefore, supposedly, with Islamic terrorists. Just say what the real problem you have with Obama: he is black. You know that that is the real reason you don’t want him elected. All the rest is pure BS.
Black? Well half black at least…No it’s his neo-socialist positions that bother me. He could be RAINBOW colored and he would still be a stealth candidate that has escaped any real media scrutiny, unless you count cheering and back slapping. He’s an empty suit on an ego trip, he WILL say or do the wrong thing and blow it. COUNT ON IT! (maybe we should see if he faces Mecca at sundown or whatever they do… ah NOT REALLY!!)
Okay listen, and listen very very carefully. The problem with obama is not that he is black. Please, I beg you, listen to the obvious clues that which this article presents to you. He is not an american, not by any stretch of the definition. Please don’t side with obama. He will eventually bring this country to it’s knees. Any other black man or woman could run for that office and I would vote for them, anyone but this man.
Bullshit.
Barack Obama never accepted or practiced Islam as an adult (which would be age 15 in Islamic law) and therefore according to classical Islamic jurisprudence cannot be an apostate.