by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Stonegate Institute<\/em><\/p>\n Many in the media are indignant with Reverend Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Invited on “Morning Joe” last Tuesday to discuss Christian persecution, the hosts turned the focus to interrogating Graham on whether he thought President Barack Obama was Christian or not. Though the Reverend concluded that Obama “has said he’s a Christian, so I just have to assume that he is,” he appeared skeptical, suggesting Obama’s policies disagree with Christian principles, and thus earning the full ire of much of the fourth estate.<\/p>\n Intrinsically trivial on many levels, this incident nevertheless brings several important points to the fore.<\/p>\n First, Graham was absolutely right to say that, “under Islamic law, the Muslim world sees Barack Obama as a Muslim, as a son of Islam”: according to Sharia, if one’s father is Muslim, one automatically becomes Muslim. In fact, the reason behind last week’s church attack in Egypt, when\u00a0thousands of Muslims tried to torch a church and kill its pastor<\/a>, is that a Christian girl fled her father after he converted to Islam: she did not want to be Muslim and was rumored to be hiding in the church. (This would\u00a0not be the first time<\/a>\u00a0in recent months that churches were attacked on\u00a0similar rumors<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Because of this automatic passage of Islam from father to son \u2014 with the death penalty for those seeking to apostatize, the condemned\u00a0Iranian pastor<\/a>\u00a0being just the most visible example \u2014 and because Obama attended a\u00a0madrassa<\/em>\u00a0(a Muslim religious school) during his youth in Indonesia, many Muslims are convinced that Obama is a “secret” Muslim. In a\u00a0Forbes<\/em>\u00a0article<\/a>, “My Muslim President Obama: Why members of the faith see him as one of the flock,” writer Asma Gull Hasan elaborates:<\/p>\n [S]ince Election Day, I have been part of more and more conversations with Muslims in which it was either offhandedly agreed that Obama is Muslim or enthusiastically blurted out. In commenting on our new president, “I have to support my fellow Muslim brother,” would slip out of my mouth before I had a chance to think twice. “Well, I know he’s not\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0Muslim,” I would quickly add. But if the person I was talking to was Muslim, they would say, “yes he is.” \u2026. Most of the Muslims I know (me included) can’t seem to accept that Obama is\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0Muslim. Of the few Muslims I polled who said that Obama is not Muslim, even they conceded that he had ties to Islam\u2026. The rationalistic, Western side of me knows that Obama has denied being Muslim, that his father was non-practicing, that he doesn’t attend a mosque. Many Muslims simply say back, “my father’s not a strict Muslim either, and I haven’t been to a mosque in years.” Obama even toldThe New York Times<\/em>\u00a0he could recite the\u00a0adhan<\/em>, the Islamic call to prayer, which the vast majority of Muslims, I would guess, do not know well enough to recite. [Read the\u00a0entire article<\/a>, which is more eye-opening than the author probably intended.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Another reason why many Muslims believe Obama is Muslim (a reason Ms. Hasan’s article understandably omits) is that, under the\u00a0Islamic doctrine oftaqiyya<\/em><\/a>, Muslims are permitted \u2014 in certain contexts even encouraged \u2014 to deny being Muslim, if so doing secures them or Islam an advantage. Accordingly, Islamic history is full of stories of Muslims denying and publicly cursing Islam, even pretending to be Christian, whenever it was strategic.<\/p>\n In other words,\u00a0if<\/em>\u00a0an American president was a secret Muslim, and\u00a0if<\/em>\u00a0he was lying about it, and even\u00a0if<\/em>\u00a0he was secretly working to subvert the US to Islam’s advantage \u2014 not only would that be justified by Islamic doctrines of\u00a0loyalty and deception<\/a>, but it would have ample precedents, stretching back to the dawn of Islam. Such as when Muhammad commanded a convert from an adversarial tribe to conceal his new Muslim identity and go back to his tribe \u2014 which he cajoled with a perfidious “You are my stock and my family, the dearest of men to me” \u2014 only to betray them to Islam’s invading armies.<\/p>\n Graham further upset “progressive” sensitivities by saying “All I know is under Obama, President Obama, the Muslims of the world, he seems to be more concerned about them than the Christians that are being murdered in the Muslim countries,” adding that “Islam has gotten a free pass under Obama.”<\/p>\n Yet who can deny this? Whether by\u00a0expunging any reference to Islam<\/a>\u00a0in US security documents, or enabling\u00a0Muslim persecution of Christians<\/a>, or orderingNASA<\/a>\u00a0to make Muslims “feel good” about themselves, or\u00a0bowing to the anti-Christian Saudi king<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the President has made his partiality for Islam very clear: Islam is undoubtedly getting a “free pass” under Obama.<\/p>\n What Franklin Graham’s critics fail to understand is that, when it comes to Obama’s religious identity, the Reverend probably has Jesus’ dictum in mind: “By their fruits shall ye know them” \u2014 that is, pro-Islamic actions speak louder than Christian words.<\/p>\n \u00a92012 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim Stonegate Institute Many in the media are indignant with Reverend Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Invited on “Morning Joe” last Tuesday to discuss Christian persecution, the hosts turned the focus to interrogating Graham on whether he thought President Barack Obama was Christian or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[29,227,536],"tags":[12,192,1017,30,1060,95],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-ff","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6219,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/crucified-again-venn-institute-interviews-raymond-ibrahim\/","url_meta":{"origin":945,"position":0},"title":"Crucified Again — Venn Institute Interviews Raymond Ibrahim","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Raymond Ibrahim [Note: The following interview was conducted by the\u00a0Venn Institute\u00a0with Raymond Ibrahim] Raymond Ibrahim is a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam expert, and author most recently of\u00a0Crucified Again: Exposing Islam\u2019s New War on Christians. Follow him on Twitter\u00a0@RaymondIbrahim5 Venn Institute: Most Americans see persecution\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Crucified-Again-Cover.jpg?fit=797%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Crucified-Again-Cover.jpg?fit=797%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Crucified-Again-Cover.jpg?fit=797%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Crucified-Again-Cover.jpg?fit=797%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":994,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/when-elections-fail-jihad\/","url_meta":{"origin":945,"position":1},"title":"When Elections Fail, Jihad","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 31, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch The Obama administration supports \"democracy\" and \"self determination\" in the Middle East \u2014 two euphemisms that, in the real world, refer to \"mob-rule\" and \"Islamic radicalization,\" respectively. Yet, as\u00a0Jimmy Carter\u00a0recently put it: \"I don't have any problem with that [an \"Islamist victory\" in Egypt], and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1309,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iraqs-christians-near-extinction\/","url_meta":{"origin":945,"position":2},"title":"Iraq’s Christians Near Extinction","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 23, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine A\u00a0recent\u00a0Fox News report\u00a0tells of how \"a rash of attacks on Christian-owned businesses in\u00a0northern Iraq\u00a0has raised troubling questions about the future safety of the country's shrinking Christian community, particularly as US forces withdraw completely from the nation they've refereed since 2003.\" In fact, \"questions about the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7096,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-past-and-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":945,"position":3},"title":"The Past and the Future","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Last November Raymond Ibrahim was interviewed by Egyptian reporter Sherif Awad.\u00a0 The interview appeared in several Egyptian magazines and websites, as well as American ones, such as the\u00a0Westchester Guardian. \u00a0The interview follows: Awad: Can you tell us about your family and their profession and how and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5377,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-ailing-meritocracy\/","url_meta":{"origin":945,"position":4},"title":"Our Ailing Meritocracy","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Merit takes second place to gender and religion by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers When all the political sophistry is said and done, there is no denying that the claim to fame of the Democratic Party\u2019s two superstar candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, is that the one is a woman,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-tries-to-eradicate-radical-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":945,"position":5},"title":"Obama Tries to Eradicate Radical Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media The Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all words that allude to Islam from important national security documents. Put differently, the Obama administration has just announced its intent to ban all knowledge and context necessary to confront and defeat radical Islam (news\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5848,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945\/revisions\/5848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}