I recall hearing somewhere (possibly here on the Dope) that some (or all) Muslims consider the child of a Muslim man to be a Muslim, regardless of the child’s own faith and practices. What’s the Straight Dope on this one? Is this a widely-held conviction, something believed by only a subset of Muslims, or complete fringe-loony baloney?
Well, a Muslim, in a nutshell, is one who submits to Allah according to the teachings of the Islamic religion, right?
Last time I checked, Obama doesn’t do this.
If you want an almost unrelated morsel of truth in this, there are countries (I’m thinking of Malaysia as one example) where the parent can decide the religion of the child. The child would have to make an explicit conversion away from Islam. This is certainly not without controversy, and probably has more to do with the difficulties involving religion and government in general as it has to do with Islam specifically.
Middle Eastern Muslims generally consider that children of a Muslim father are Muslim. I do not know if this is a Muslim tradition, or more rooted in older traditions of the Middle East. I also don’t know if it extends to other Muslim cultures, such as Malaysia.
Obama’s grandfather converted to Islam from Catholicism, so Obama’s father would probably have been considered to be a Muslim by conservative Muslims, but perhaps not by all Muslims. Those same Muslims would consider Obama to have been born Muslim, though based on his religious practices today I would suppose they would consider him an apostate, which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia.
IIRC, Obama Sr. himself was a lapsed Muslim and identified as atheist/agnostic when Obama II was born. As an “apostate” himself, would that have any effect on his ability to transmit Muslim-ness to his son?
Anyone can consider Barack Obama a Muslim, as we know all too well, for whatever reason they want. That doesn’t make him one.
No, a person must make the declaration of faith to be a Muslim. Some fellow at my dining table makes this case all the time. I accuse him of turning his back on baptism as a central guidepost in Christianity and that usually shuts him up.
Can that “person” be a child? Obama did, as a child, attend Mosque from time to time with his step-father in Indonesia. It’s possible he said that magic words in the mosque, and if so, does that count?
Did you miss what Paul in Qatar wrote about baptism?
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Christianity is not transmitted parent-to-child, but by rituals each Christian undergoes: most typically baptism, as Paul points out. That would supersede any “magic words” in a mosque, in the view of most Christians.
Emphasis added. Did you even read the OP?
Yes, I did. I also read the post by Paul which you replied to. He wrote
to which you replied
In your post, you ignored Paul’s point about the centrality of baptism to Xtianity and the inconsistency of being both Xtian and Muslim.
Moreover, we don’t know that Obama ever made a confession of faith as a child; we DO know that he was baptized as an adult.
To the OP. No. And No. Islam is not Judaism. What you are born as is irrelevant.
CookingWithGas, Paul in Qatar, and **AK84 **all make interesting points, informed as they are by different perspectives on Islam as it is practiced in different contexts. Could any of you be troubled to supply a citation? I realize this is trivia, but I’d like to be able to say I knew about this with some confidence. (Paul, I realize that in your case you may be getting your info “right from the horse’s mouth”, but I’m sure you understand why I’m asking.)
Completely disagree with this. While nominally Islam requires more than being born into it, it is very very common (at least in the Muslim parts I’m familiar with, that is Maghreb and Egypt) to consider the child of a Muslim to be Muslim him/herself (not that different from Christianism). The added factor is that of the apostasy thing, which can be quite overblown by Western Islamophobe nuts, but still does exist (though the possible backlash for abandoning Islam is more varied than what same Islamophobes would lead you to believe).
Skald, I thought John was asking about the ‘person’ aspect of making the declaration, not saying he is still is or is both or anything near that. Kind of like asking if it makes a difference if the person signing a contract is over 18.
I am actually muslim. And I know of no reasonable muslim who seriously Obama a muslim.
Being born into the faith is one thing, being a muslim is something else entirely as is leaving said faith.
But this thread isn’t about what Christians think. The OP is asking us what Muslims think.
Well, we’re trying to establish if there is some scenario in which some Muslims might consider Obama to be one of them. We know he went to Mosque from time to time as a child. My question was quite clear, in response to what Paul was saying a “person” must do: can that “person” be a child? I’ll wait for Paul or someone knowledgeable to answer that.
And just to be clear, I (and now most Americans) think Obama is a Christian. But that is not the question being asked by the OP.
Would any “reasonable” Muslims think Obama is an apostate? That was a meme circulating on the internet during the election.
On a related note to the OP. Which religions count you as a member even if you don’t believe in any of their principles/dogma/claims/faith? Which ones can you claim to be a member of without shared beliefs?
My understanding is that Judaism fits both questions. If your mom is Jewish, you can be an athiest and call yourself a Jew and be admitted as one by those faithful in Judaism.
Which other religions fit one or both of these criteria and are any of these branches of Islam?
If you’re baptized a Catholic, you’re a Catholic. Even if you’re excommunicated, that just means you can’t take communion, but you’re still a Catholic.