After years in the spotlight and two years in the White House a media outlet is finally reporting on Barack Obama’s Muslim youth.
Malik Obama, older Muslim brother to Barack Obama, holds an undated picture of Barak, left, and himself, middle, and an unidentified friend in his shop in eastern Kenya. (Karel Prinsloo, AP)
The Australian reported, via Free Republic:
AS a schoolboy in Jakarta, Barack Obama attended Muslim prayer sessions with his classmates against the wishes of his mother.
The US President’s former grade three teacher said that Mr Obama – who was known as “Barry” when he attended the Menteng One school in Jakarta – studied the Koran and went to classes on Islam, despite the objections of Anne Dunham, a Roman Catholic.
The teacher’s recollections will add to speculation about Mr Obama’s links to Islam during his much-anticipated visit to Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, as part of his ten-day tour of Asia.
His middle name, Hussein, and the fact that his stepfather was a Muslim, have combined to perpetuate rumours about Mr Obama’s religious leanings. The number of Americans who think that he is a Muslim has grown since his inauguration to one in five.
Mr Obama moved to Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, when he was 6, and lived there for four years. In his memoirs he recalled his time in the country as the “bounty of a young man’s life” and there is affection and pride among Indonesians for the boy who ended up as President of the United States.
The teacher, Effendi, who taught at Menteng One for 29 years, remembers Mr Obama as a “fat, curly-haired, curious boy”. The school had an international mix of pupils, including Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims.
Mr Obama attended classes on Islam while the Christians attended classes on Christianity, said Effendi. Barry, he said, was alone among the pupils in that he insisted on attending both.
“His mother did not like him learning Islam, although his father was a Muslim. Sometimes she came to the school; she was angry with the religious teacher and said ‘Why did you teach him the Koran?’” said Effendi.
“But he kept going to the classes because he was interested in Islam. He would also join the other pupils for Muslim prayers.”
Both Barack Obama’s father and step-father were Muslim.
Obama is visiting Humayan's Tomb. Nasir ud-din Muhammad Humayun was a sixteenth-century Mughal emperor, whose empire encompassed modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and parts of northern India.
He is visiting, in other words, a Muslim shrine. He has no plans to visit any holy places of the Sikhs (such as the Golden Temple, Amritsar), or any Hindu holy places, Buddhist holy places, or Jain holy places. Nor does he plan to visit Nariman house, the Chabad house in Mumbai that was the chief target of the jihad mass-murderers who killed 173 people in November 2008.
Once again, Obama manifests a solicitude for Islam that he wouldn't dream of extending to other faiths.
An entry from our If-People-Think-Obama-Is-A-Muslim-He-Has-No-One-But-Himself-To-Blame Department: from "Maurya, Humayun await Obamas," in Rediff, November 7 (thanks to George):
Scores of policemen have also been posted outside the 16th century Humayun's Tomb, which the Obamas are expected to visit later today.
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