Obama's Religion

Then-Senator Obama wearing traditional African garb, a gift from his hosts while visiting Kenya

Barack Hussein Obama's ties to Islamic religion and culture possessed have been revealed in many of his own comments and actions, both before and after taking the office of President of the United States. While he has a Muslim heritage, and he professes to be a Christian, there is evidence to suggest that he is a Muslim. These are just some examples that show the influence of Islam on him:

• Obama declared in prepared remarks, "The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country - I know, because I am one of them."
• Obama's wife Michelle does not accompany him to Muslim nations because Sharia law would apply to her there; on a presidential trip she was with him until France, but then returned home.
• Obama's background, education, and outlook are Muslim, and fewer than 1% of Muslims convert to Christianity.
• Obama's middle name (Hussein) references Husayn, who was the grandson of Muhammad, which most Christians would not retain.
• Obama has said "my Muslim faith."
• He has said that "Islam can be compatible with the modern world."
• Obama said the Muslim call to prayer is "one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset," and recited "with a first-class Arabic accent" the opening lines: Allah is Supreme! ... I witness that there is no god but Allah ...."
• Obama stated that the autobiography of Malcolm X, a Nation of Islam leader who became a Muslim, inspired him in his youth.
• Obama raised nearly $1 million and campaigned for a Kenyan presidential candidate who had a written agreement with Muslim leaders promising to convert Kenya to an Islamic state that bans Christianity.
• Obama's claims of conversion to Christianity arose after he became politically ambitious, lacking a date of conversion or baptism.
• In the book Obama,"Renegade" his friends say that "he actually really wasn't much of a churchgoer."
• On the campaign trail, Obama was reading "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria, which is written from a Muslim point-of-view.
• Contrary to Christianity, the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya encourages adherents to deny they are Muslim if it advances the cause of Islam.
• Obama uses the Muslim Pakistani pronunciation for "Pakistan" rather than the common American one.
• Obama was thoroughly exposed to Christianity as an adult in Chicago prior to attending law school, yet no one at law school saw him display any interest in converting. Obama unabashedly explained how he became "churched" in a 2007 speech: "It's around that time [while working as an organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago] that some pastors I was working with came around and asked if I was a member of a church. 'If you're organizing churches,' they said, 'it might be helpful if you went to a church once in a while.' And I thought, 'I guess that makes sense.'"

"I really endorse and support the policies that he has adopted,"
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said of President Barack Obama
as reported by the
Washington Post.

• Obama is mentioned as helping to organize the 1995 Million Man March led by black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan from the Nation of Islam.
• Obama visited "more than one mosque" in Kenya while on a political trip there but did not visit any churches, although there are a large proportion of churches and even a National Temple in Kenya.
• Obama has chosen the Secret Service code name "Renegade". "Renegade" conventionally describes someone who goes against normal conventions of behavior, but its first usage was to describe someone who has turned from their religion. It is a word derived from the Spanish renegado, which originally meant "Christian turned Muslim."
• Obama enjoyed a bigger increase in voter support in 2008 (compared to 2004) by Muslims than by any other voting group, including blacks; "Muslim turnout in the U.S. elections reached 95 percent, the highest Muslim turnout in U.S. history."
• "President-elect Barack Obama has yet to attend [Sunday] church services since winning the White House earlier ..., a departure from the example of his two immediate predecessors."
• Obama used his Muslim middle name when sworn in as President.
• Obama botched his public oath of office in which he placed his hand on a Bible, and then chose not to use the Bible for his real, private oath.
• At the G20 summit in April 2009, Obama bowed deeply to Saudi King Abdullah, a Muslim who is also the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
  

  President Obama bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia - April 2009
  Never before in the history of the U.S. has a president displayed such shocking deference to a foreign official and Obama has not bowed to any other royal leaders. Obama later stated, "We have to change our behavior in showing the Muslim world greater respect." Obama's spin doctors and left-wing apologists dismissed the obviousness of the bow. One anonymous aide stated, "It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah." However, in video of the incident, Obama's left hand can clearly be seen staying at his side until after he had finished his bow. Additionally, Obama also met with Queen Elizabeth, who is much shorter than King Abdullah, but he did not bow when he shook her hand and neither he nor the queen appeared to have any difficulty. (Many liberals and even a handful of conservatives have proposed that President Bush also bowed before King Abdullah. However, there is a vast, inexorable difference between bending down to receive a medal as Bush did and bowing in deference to a foreign leader as Obama did.)
• Obama required that a religiously affiliated college take the extraordinary action of concealing with wood the monogram "IHS", which represents the name of Jesus, during a speech by Obama there
• On more than one occasion, Obama verbally attacks the economic livelihood of Las Vegas for unknown reasons. The reason may be his contempt of gambling which is forbidden in the Koran.
• In 2006, Obama gave an irreverent speech about using the Bible in public policy. It resembled a stand-up comedy act, with Obama making fun of the books of the Torah, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount and other key Biblical passages.
• In 2010, Obama changed the logo of the Missile Defense Agency, incorporating a crescent star. The new logo closely resembles that of the Iranian Space Agency.

Obama tries to downplay his Islamic background by claiming that his Kenyan Muslim father was a "confirmed atheist" before Obama was born, but in fact less than 1% of Kenyans are atheists, agnostics, or non-religious. There is apparently no evidence of any Christian activities or local church participation by Obama while he was in Massachusetts from 1988 to 1991. Finally, Obama abruptly left his radical Christian church in Chicago in 2008, when it became politically controversial, without first finding another church to join. On April 7, 2009, Obama visited a mosque in Istanbul, Turkey.

See Also

• Muslim agenda of the Obama administration