Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim

Alright, so I know this is a bit of a delayed blog post, but I’ve seen debates around the internet and magazine covers recently going over whether or not the president of the United States is a Muslim. This has spawned from the fact that a recent poll has shown that over 20% of Americans think that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

Clearly, I am not one of those 20%.

Obama has said repeatedly that he is a Christian, and whether or not this is true, one can figure out whether or not he is a Muslim (or I guess whether or not he is a good Muslim) by taking the five pillars of Islam (basically five duties Muslims must do, I guess like the opposite of the Ten Commandments) and, based on what we know about Barack Obama, figuring out which he fulfills and which he does not.

1. Shahada. At one time in a Muslim’s life, he or she must say and believe a statement (referred to as the shahada) that “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet”, usually spoken in Arabic. We can’t prove that Obama has said the shahada, but we also can’t prove that he hasn’t, so let’s just skip this one.
2. Salah. Muslims must pray facing Mecca five times per day: at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening. As the President of the United States, much of Barack Obama’s life is in the public eye, and I’m pretty sure that if he was praying five times a day, someone would have noticed and it would be all over the news. Also, Barack Obama has, many times, had meetings and the like when Muslims are normally supposed to be praying, for example, the White House Easter Egg Hunt. If he had stopped the meeting partway through to pray, someone probably would have said something.
3. Zakat. Muslims must give 2.5% of their wealth to charity every year. In 2008, Obama’s tax returns were released, and it was revealed that between 2000 and 2004, an average of less than 1% of he and Michelle’s joint annual income was donated to charity. It wasn’t until 2005 when Obama’s book was published (thus increasing his income) that he and Michelle started donating around 5% of their annual income to charity.
4. Sawm. Muslims must fast (abstain from food, drink, or even sex)  from dawn till dusk during the month of Ramadan. As I mentioned in point #2, much of Obama’s life is in the public eye, and that counts eating. So it should be no surprise that Obama has been seen eating pretty much every day, regardless of whether or not it’s Ramadan.
5. Hajj. Muslims must make a pilgrimage to Mecca at some point in their lives (if they are able to do so). Barack Obama has not made this pilgrimage (and believe me, he is able to do so). In fact, because the Saudi government only lets Muslims into Mecca, it is unlikely that he will ever do so.

So although we cannot prove or disprove whether or not Obama has said the shahada, we can disprove the other four, meaning that either Barack Obama is not a Muslim, or he is a really, really bad Muslim. So at this point, we really don’t need to get into all the other things like eating pork that Obama does that Islam doesn’t allow. Sure his middle name is Hussein, but that’s really just an unfortunately coincidence. I mean, we’ve had a vice president named Hannibal Hamlin, and that didn’t make him a cannibalistic serial killer.

But what does it really matter anyway? Barack Obama could be Protestant or Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, or an Atheist. Regardless of religion, they all have the same basic ideas of being nice to each other, an idea that Barack Obama clearly believes in. And really, we’ve had some horrible presidents who were Christian, so just like being Muslim doesn’t make someone bad, being Christian doesn’t make someone good either.

Advertisement