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Islam is a religion one can embrace but never leave. If one is born to a Muslim father, or becomes a Muslim by conversion, forced or otherwise, one is a Muslim for life; and should one convert to another faith, the crime is considered capital -- above all others in Islam -- and the punishment is severe.

Thus, Barack Obama, who was born a Muslim to a Muslim father and later formally converted and was baptized as a Christian may be a Christian to all the rest of the "infidel" world -- but is a Muslim apostate to Muslims.

As Edward Luttwak explains in an op-ed in today's New York Times:

His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is "irtidad" or "ridda," usually translated from the Arabic as "apostasy," but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder...

With few exceptions, the jurists of all Sunni and Shiite schools prescribe execution for all adults who leave the faith not under duress; the recommended punishment is beheading at the hands of a cleric, although in recent years there have been both stonings and hangings. [....]

It is true that the criminal codes in most Muslim countries do not mandate execution for apostasy (although a law doing exactly that is pending before Iran's Parliament and in two Malaysian states). But as a practical matter, in very few Islamic countries do the governments have sufficient authority to resist demands for the punishment of apostates at the hands of religious authorities.

While assassination of Obama by Muslim fundamentalists here or abroad, should he accede to the presidency is not very likely for a variety of reasons, an American president who is regarded as a reviled criminal in much of the world and in many countries where it is both religiously and politically forbidden to guard his safety can cause considerable problems, as Luttwak further explains:

Because no government is likely to allow the prosecution of a President Obama - not even those of Iran and Saudi Arabia, the only two countries where Islamic religious courts dominate over secular law - another provision of Muslim law is perhaps more relevant: it prohibits punishment for any Muslim who kills any apostate, and effectively prohibits interference with such a killing.

At the very least, that would complicate the security planning of state visits by President Obama to Muslim countries, because the very act of protecting him would be sinful for Islamic security guards. More broadly, most citizens of the Islamic world would be horrified by the fact of Senator Obama's conversion to Christianity once it became widely known -- as it would, no doubt, should he win the White House.

Perhaps some Obamessiah cultists who care not for his empty record of expereince and accomplishment, not his ultra-liberal philosophy, nor his record of odious personal associations, would be well off to put his unbreakable bond to Islam into their hookahs and smoke it -- especially the mealy-mouths who are so worried about what other countries think of us and our leaders.

Obama as 'apostate'