See Beckwith’s post, #68.
If an American with an unusual background abandons his Muslim youth, he can normally get away with it because nobody notices. Who cares? And the Muslims in the neighborhood don’t know about it and probably don’t know him.
But if it becomes public knowledge that somebody prominent was Muslim and now isn’t, that would normally be enough to trigger a Fatwah somewhere. Salman Rushdie, for instance, still needs protection, because plenty of Muslims would like to kill him.
So, it’s a bit curious that Muslims are not outraged by Obama’s apostasy. In fact, they like him, and he likes them. It’s easy enough for your average multi-culti American Christian, maybe, to get on with Muslims, but not for a prominent ex-Muslim Christian. Normally he’d be the last person to open ecumenical relations with Muslims, because they hate what he represents, someone who has broken the most basic law of Islam and insulted Allah.
“Salman Rushdie, for instance, still needs protection,...”
...because he blasphemed against the Muslim prophet.
“So, it’s a bit curious that Muslims are not outraged by Obama’s apostasy.”
Mr. Obama hasn’t been very forthcoming about the fact that as a child, he was a Muslim. Although it’s generally known that he comes from a Muslim background, he’s been careful to obfuscate the fact that he, himself, was a Muslim.
As well, not all Muslims are hell-bent for leather to condemn as apostates those who leave Islam. In fact, foreign-born Muslims living in the United States are probably less likely to think that way than Muslims in the rest of the world.
Having employed Muslims, I know that many came here to ESCAPE radical, fundamentalist Islam, some at great personal cost. I remember one employee in particular. He’d been a tenured college professor in his home country. When he came to the United States, the only job he could get was selling electronics at a Luskins (local electronics store). Eventually, his material lot here improved substantially. But he gave up quite a bit to come here. Why did he come? Because he was in physical fear of his life, and the lives of his wife and children, for his failure to adhere to fundamentalist Islamic beliefs and practices.
He wasn’t the only Muslim who worked for me who told similar stories.
Like most immigrants to the United States, most Muslim immigrants here in the US aspire to the American Dream.
Thus, I kinda doubt that anyone here in the US is going to put a fatwa out on Mr. Obama because somewhere between the age of eight or nine, and the age of, say, 25, he became a Christian.
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