Juan Cole: Is Obama the Apostate, or is Bush? A Reply to Luttwak

[n2doc]

I've been traveling again and so only just saw Edward Luttwak's ridiculous column about Barack Obama being considered an "apostate" in the Muslim world.

It is just so discouraging that such an ignorant and illogical comment was made by a prominent American pundit, and that the New York Times leant its pages to this complete drivel.

Of course, this column is a stealth way of bringing back up the myth of Obama being a Muslim, and it is profoundly dishonest.

The argument is that Obama's father was a Muslim and therefore Obama would be considered a Muslim apostate by fundamentalists, even though Obama's mother was a Christian; even though his father abandoned them and Obama did not really know him; even though Obama never practiced Islam; and even though his father was himself a secularist who was known to like a stiff drink. Luttwak even alleges that the law of apostasy is in the Qur'an (Wael Hallaq has argued convincingly that it is not).

So here is what the academic literature has to say about Islamic law on this issue (Rudolph Peters and Gert J. J. De Vries
Die Welt des Islams, New Series, Vol. 17, Issue 1/4 (1976 - 1977), pp. 1-25 ):

"Not only the act of apostasy is subject to certain conditions in order to be legally valid, but also with regard to the perpetrator (murtadd) specific qualifications have been laid down. He can perform a legally effective act of riddah only out of free will (ikhtiyar) at an adult age (bulugh), being compos mentis (`aqil ), and, as emphasized by the Malikite school, after his unambiguous and explicit adoption of Islam." <- p. 3> and `amal ; a person who embraced the faith by merely pronouncing the shahadah would not be considered qulified to perform a legally valid act of apostasy-- Cf. Mawwaq in the margin of Hattab, Mawahib al-Jalil, VI, pp. 279-80]"

Barack Obama never accepted or practiced Islam as an adult (which would be age 15 in Islamic law) and therefore according to classical Islamic jurisprudence cannot be an apostate. Peters and DeVries are Arabists and are among the foremost scholars on Islamic law, unlike Luttwak, who does not have the slightest idea what he is talking about.

more at link:

http://www.juancole.com/2008/05/is-obama-apostate-or-bush-reply-to.html

[Bread and Circus]

1. Let's not let logic and reason get in the way of the GOP/Clinton campaign of fear and doubt

[n2doc]

2. The last lines are the best:

An American president might be in danger in the Middle East. But it would be because of the hatred for the United States provoked by the brutal military tactics of the Bush administration and by its blithe unconcern for the welfare of Palestinians and other local people.

It would be because Bush is the apostate, since he was born under the US constitution but he left it for a faith in torture, killing innocents, neo-colonialism, and mass murder (as at Fallujah).

That's the apostasy that Middle Easterners most mind.

[n2doc]

3. kick n/t