The JakartaPost has written an interesting article about alleged link between Democratic candidate Barak Obama and to Islam.

Obama fights false links to Islam, denounces views of Farrakhan

Thu, 02/28/2008 3:46 PM

WASHINGTON (AP): For Barack Obama, it is an ember that he has doused time and again, only to see it flicker anew: links to Islam fanned by false rumors, innuendo and association.
The Democratic presidential front-runner and his campaign reacted strongly this week when a photo of him in Kenyan tribal garb began spreading on the Internet. And the praise he received Sunday from Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the black Muslim group Nation of Islam, prompted pointed questions during Tuesday night’s presidential debate and in a private meeting over the weekend with Jewish leaders in Cleveland, Ohio.

During the debate, Obama repeated his denunciation of Farrakhan’s views, which have included numerous anti-Semitic comments. And, after being pressed, he rejected Farrakhan’s support in the presidential race.

The Democratic candidate says repeatedly that he is a Christian who took the oath of office on a family Bible. Yet on the Internet and on talk radio, and in a campaign introduction for Republican candidate John McCain this week, he often is depicted, falsely, as a Muslim with shadowy ties and his middle name, Hussein, is emphasized.

“If anyone is still puzzled about the facts, in fact I have never been a Muslim,” he told the Jewish leaders in Cleveland, according to a transcript of the private session.

The photo of Obama wearing Kenyan tribal raiment, taken by an Associated Press photographer during his 2006 visit to the country where his father was born, resurfaced on the Internet amid unsubstantiated claims that it was being circulated by members of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign.

Clinton and her aides said they had nothing to do with it. The Obama campaign accused them of “shameful, offensive fear-mongering.”

On Tuesday McCain denounced the introduction he got in Cincinnati that criticized Obama in vivid terms. Talk show host Bill Cunningham referred to Obama three times as “Barack Hussein Obama” and called him a “hack, Chicago-style” politician during Cunningham’s introduction of McCain.

The Obama campaign is closely attuned to the rumors and insinuations. Information on Obama’s Christian faith is prominently available on the “Know the facts” page of his Web site. The campaign has distributed flyers to churches in states with presidential contests. It encourages supporters to flag any attack that may make its way into cyberspace.

“Our campaign is vigilant in quickly responding to any information about Senator Obama that surfaces, be it on the Internet, in the media or from our opponents,” spokesman Bill Burton said Wednesday.

If there is confusion - and opportunity for political mischief - it derives at least in part from Obama’s rich cultural background. His mother was a white woman from Kansas, his father was Kenyan, and he spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, a largely Muslim country.

“My grandfather, who was Kenyan, converted to Christianity, then converted to Islam,” Obama said Sunday. “My father never practiced; he was basically agnostic. So, other than my name and the fact that I lived in a populous Muslim country for four years when I was a child, I have very little connection to the Islamic religion.”

Obama has become careful in denouncing the links, lately noting that some rumors about him also have been insulting to Muslims. Jim Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute, said many Arab Americans are drawn to Obama because of his cultural background.

“It is clear he wants to have a broader relationship with the Muslim world,” Zogby said. “He has a biography that connects him to the Muslim world.”

Obama, though in the presidential limelight now for more than a year, is still introducing himself to voters. An AP-Yahoo poll in January asked people to volunteer the first few words that came to mind about each of the candidates, and 4 percent of the respondents unprompted, mentioned the word Muslim when describing Obama. (*)

Source: the jakartapost.com