[Beckwith]

The president's Obama's declaration of faith...

In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama then recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, "with a first-class [Arabic] accent."

The opening lines of the Adhan (Azaan) is the Shahada:

"Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
Allah is Supreme! Allah is Supreme!
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that there is no god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet... "

According to Islamic scholars, reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith, makes one a Muslim. This simple yet profound statement expresses a Muslim's complete acceptance of, and total commitment to, the message of Islam.

[darrellmaurina]

23 posted on Mon Oct 04 2010 19:49:03 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) by Beckwith: “In an interview with Nicholas Kristof, published in The New York Times, Obama then recited the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, ‘with a first-class [Arabic] accent.’”

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it would be hard to live in a Muslim country like Indonesia without hearing the call to prayer constantly.

Repetition is the key to memorization, and hearing something over and over again can easily lead to it being memorized whether one wants to remember or not. Not being able to get a song out of one’s own head is an example of involuntary memorization.

Someone living in Indonesia would, I believe, have heard the call to prayer far more often than the most popular rock song on the radio today.

I'll blame President Obama for lots of things, but being able to recite the Muslim call to prayer after spending much of his childhood in a predominantly Muslim country is not one of them.