“But Pipes and others from America's lunar-right have been suggesting that Obama's nominally Muslim heritage will make him unelectable.”

What Pipes is suggesting is a reasonable reaction to the way Muslim-majority countries practise their Islamic-inspired politics based on persecuting non-Muslims. In Malaysia, many Hindu temples are demolished and non-Muslims can’t use the word “God” in the Malay language!

Radical Islam has become mainstream through the influence of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the rich Gulf-States. They advocate the random killing of non-Muslims like in south Thailand and cutting of their heads.

“And now the largest political party in Pakistan is led by a 19-year-old”

Tactics religious Muslims use is to de-stabilise a country through riot, rape and corruption. They then blame that secular governments won’t work and scheme to bring in Shariah law. These tactics are being used in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

That is why they bombed Ms. Bhutto in Pakistan and now call for pretend democracy to make way for shariah law. The leader of the other main party in the Pakistan scene is an Islamist party, Pakistan Muslim League, headed by Nawaz Sharif, a religious Muslim (Islamist).

He wanted to bring in shariah law when he was the PM of Pakistan

“On August 29, 1998 then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif proposed a law to create an Islamic order in Pakistan and establish a legal system based on the Koran. The intention of the 15th amendment, which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif presented to Parliament on August 28, 1998, was to make the Quran and Sunnah the supreme law of Pakistan.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawaz_Sharif

It is quite clear that the writer of this article is a keen supporter of the Pakistan Muslim League.

What a depressing article. 'Emotional claptrap' doesn't begin to cover it. So you had to go to an American right-wing internet site to find someone to whine about, who wasn't kissing the ?

First, your 'only in America' comment would have been actually right not wrong, because you are quoting the American constitution as the applicable principle; it wouldn't apply elsewhere.

Second, investigating this question is relevant to Obama's election - because people can be fully informed about the candidate without having a legally exclusive test along the lines that 'no British monarch can be Catholic' or 'No non-Muslim may approach Mecca'. Congressman Keith Ellison has proven that a Muslim can be elected in America.

It is woolly-minded indeed to pretend that you can't TALK about a candidate's religion in America, where most candidates make a show of piety to ensure religious voters don't write them off!

As to the idea that there is much in common between cultural commentators in the west and Al-Quaeda, these things may be in common, but for your information Irfan, AQ kill civilian men, women and children, including Muslims, by bullet, by bomb, by disembowelling, by beheading. They do it deliberately, as an expression of their religion.

If you are not in self-deception, you have to admit that when such deaths occur at American hands they are almost always because AQ killers are hiding among the civilians; and many of the deaths we hear about are faked by journalists working for the killers.

Word misuse alert: the word JIHAD refers to Muslims killing for Islam, not Jews writing in newspapers.

So, Irfan, I recommend you go over your pice again, identifying the difference between people with a policy of murder, and people attempting to stop those murders; and identifying the difference between legitimately different opinion, and actual murder as policy.

Bad ideas kill, sometimes accidentally. Evil ideas kill as policy, and the evil done by Al Quaeda's stupid boys and paedophile leaders is great.

Apologies for the poor editing in my piece above; I clicked post instead of preview.

Irfan,
It must be hard for you. Doing your best to whitewash the insanity being perpetrated by fellow Muhammed lovers.

Until you and your co-religionists repudiate the divisiveness and violence toward non-muslims in Quran and Hadith, you will continue to look like a very confused person and be ridiculed for following the rantings of an insane caravan raiding bigot.

ChrisPer,
The author's misuse of "JIHAD", well spotted.

Irfan,

“Pipes spends his entire article exploring whether Obama was a Muslim who apostatised, even claiming that mainstream American Muslims would be angry at Obama for his alleged apostasy”

This is fair comment. Muslims would be very suspicious and aggrieved at a Muslim who apostatised. In some places, Obama’s life expectancy ...!?

I doubt if mainstream US Christians would vote for an avowed atheist. I recall that when John Kennedy was running for president, there were concerns about him being Catholic.

“Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Bernard Henri-Levy speaks of:

... a beautiful woman. A visible, indeed a conspicuously, spectacularly visible woman ... with her face uncovered, unveiled. ...

Does he seriously believe that the most suitable woman to rule a Muslim- majority state is one who makes his imagination run wild?”

Irfan, you have completely misunderstood Henri-Levy’s comments. He wasn’t implying that “lust” be an arbitor for leadership. Henri-Levy is pointing out that
Benazir Bhutto was a modern woman - (undeniably beautiful in many ways - not only in looks, but grace and charm, and humanity), - completely visible, not given to concealing her face following some primitive practice. She also demonstrated her strength and pride in being a woman; also undeniable is the fact that Bhutto was an extremely courageous woman. She had many followers among Muslims; she would have made a wonderful role model for all young women - worldwide.

As far as Margaret Thatcher and “lust” is concerned, I recall Idi Amin making reference, not only to Thatcher’s “allure”, but also to her nickers ... Obviously some men (perhaps women also) found her "hot to trot".

“ ...the kind of Islamists chosen by Turkish voters. They aren't really Islamists at all , but rather cultural conservatives...”

Many devout Turkish Muslims would find this extremely insulting. Are you stating that it is impossible to be both modern and Muslim? If so, then the whole tener of your intended "argument" is turned on its head.

cont ...

“Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi was quoted as making this request of his hosts:

I want my tent to be erected near Elysee Palace. I want to meet 200 attractive French women there.

If this is the calibre of secular leadership the West expects the citizens of Muslim-majority states to put up with ...”

Somehow, Irfan, I don’t think this had anything to do with what the West “expects” of
any leaders. I suspect Gaddafi was expressing a personal observation; not complying to some requirement of Western political protocol.