Obama’s Islamic Speech

There was a time when Barack Hussein Obama wasn't eager to highlight his ties to Islam. Just a year ago, he was a presidential candidate trying to counter false Internet rumors that he was a Muslim as he sought the support of American voters.

Today however, Hussein Obama is the U.S. president and his audience is bigger and more diverse: a world that includes 1.5 billion Muslims.

On Thursday, Obama sought common ground with Muslims by tracing personal links to Islam throughout his life as he laid out his vision for a strengthened relationship between America and followers of that faith.

President Hussein Obama delivered his landmark speech to the Islamic world quoting the Koran and emphasizing his Islamic roots by mixing religion and policy to bring great words of appeasement to the Islamic world.

He said "I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the Azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith. . .That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear."

And, he quoted from the Quran as he issued a greeting of peace, saying "Assalaamu alaykum."

President Obama finished his whirlwind tour of Islamic dictatorships. He received golden gifts and gave, in exchange, golden complements, saying of Saudi King Abdullah, "I've been struck by his wisdom and graciousness" as well as "his generosity". The President spoke with reporters before touching down in Saudi Arabia, declaring that he "thought it was very important to come to the place where Islam began and to seek His Majesty's counsel". – Remember, this president of the United States just recently bowed to the Saudi King in England?

Hussein Obama’s Islamic ties go back to his schooling in a Jakarta “Madrassa.” Both his father and stepfather are Muslim, and Sarah Hussein Obama of Kenya, Obama’s step-grandmother, is a lifelong Muslim. According to Islam, anyone who willingly submits to the will of Allah is a Muslim. And while Obama may not identify as a Muslim, he may not know not how the Arabs and Muslims see it. - In Arab culture and under Islamic law, if your father is a Muslim, so are you. And once a Muslim, always a Muslim. You cannot go back. In Islamic eyes, Obama is certainly a Muslim. He may think he's a Christian, but they do not.

You may object that millions of Muslims today leave Islam and convert to the Christian faith. But according to Shariah law, whoever critiques Muhammad is an enemy of Islam, and thus deserves the death penalty. Regardless of whether the Muslim embraces Christianity (as is happening today with millions of the Indonesians) or becomes an atheist, Islamic law declares that he must be killed. Also, anyone who rejects any of the basic ordinances of Islam or insults the prophet or the Qur'an (as Salman Rushdie did) will be regarded as an apostate and must be killed. – Have you ever asked yourself why do Muslims not object to Obama’s Christianity????

Obama went on saying during his speech, that all of us have a responsibility to work for the day when "the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer." This man claims to be a Christian, yet promotes a Quranic story that Moses, Jesus and Mohammed were together in prayer.

Sura Al-Isra (Arabic: سورة الإسراء, Sūratu al-Isrā, "The Night Journey"), also called Sura Bani Isra'il (ie Children of Israel), is the 17th chapter of the Qur'an, with 111 verses. This Surah takes its name from the first verse, which tells the story of the Isra and Mi'raj, the transportation of Muhammad during the night to what is referred to as "the farthest Mosque". The location of this mosque is not explicitly stated in the Qur'an, although in Islamic Hadith this is commonly taken to be the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

The story of Isra begins with Muhammad (570–632) resting in the Kaaba in Mecca, when the archangel Gabriel comes to him, and brings him the winged horse Buraq, the traditional lightning steed of the prophets. The Buraq then carries Muhammad to the "farthest mosque". Muhammad alights, tethers Buraq, and leads other prophets in prayer. He then re-mounts the Buraq, and in the second part of the journey, the Mi'raj, is taken to the heavens, where he tours the circles of heaven, and speaks with the earlier prophets such as Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and then is taken by Gabriel to Allah. Allah instructs Muhammad that Muslims must pray fifty times a day; however, Moses tells Muhammad that it is very difficult for them and they could never do it, and urges Muhammad to go back several times and ask for a reduction, until finally it is reduced to five times a day.

This story has however no evidence. It was established by other companions of Muhammad. Although some accounts describe the Prophet as having visited Al-Aqsa mosque, this is an anachronism since Al-Aqsa was only built many years after the ”Prophet's” death.

After Muhammad returned to Earth and told his story in Mecca, the unbelieving townspeople regarded it as absurd. Some went to Muhammad's companion Abu Bakr and told him, "Look at what your companion is saying. He says he went to Jerusalem and came back in one night." Abu Bakr in reply, told them, "If he said that, then he is truthful. I believe him concerning the news of the heavens — that an angel descends to him from the heavens. How could I not believe he went to Jerusalem and came back in a short period of time — when these are on earth?" It was for this that Abu Bakr is said to have received his famous title "Us-Siddiq", The Truthful.

Ahmad Muhammad 'Arafa, a columnist for the Egyptian weekly Al-Qahira, which is published by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, wrote an article rejecting the established Islamic belief that the Prophet Muhammad's celebrated "Night Journey" (Koran 17:1) took him from Mecca to Jerusalem. 'Arafa, presenting a new analysis of the Koranic text, asserts that the Night Journey in Surat Al-Isra' (that is, "the Sura of the Night Journey") in the Koran does not refer to a miraculous journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, but to the Prophet's emigration (Hijra) from Mecca to Medina.
This would seem more logical to me also, since Mecca and Medina were always were Islam’s holy places.

Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Qur'an,

yet, it is mentioned 823 times in the Bible, and Zion (which usually means Jerusalem, and sometimes "the Land of Israel"), appears 161 times. Of the 823 mentions of Jerusalem by name in the Bible, 669 of them are in the Old Testament, and 154 times in the New Testament.

Please tell me how Jerusalem became a holy place for Islam?

- Lilo