Well over a year ago, I condemned those who insisted that Barack Obama was a Muslim and that should disqualify him for office. I stated then, and I state now, that by the words of his own mouth he is a Christian, and that absent some indication to the contrary we must take him at his word. Even if the theology of Obama's church is dubious, I stand by that position.

However, I also pointed out that there is reason to wonder about the Illinois Senator's upbringing and whether or not he was, in his childhood and youth, at least nominally a Muslim -- and the impact upon US relations with Muslim countries. After all, given his father's faith and that upbringing, he might well be seen as a apostate Muslim.

Today, the New York Times offers up a column that raises that issue -- including some implications that I didn't consider when I wrote those earlier posts.

As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.

Of course, as most Americans understand it, Senator Obama is not a Muslim. He chose to become a Christian, and indeed has written convincingly to explain how he arrived at his choice and how important his Christian faith is to him.

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 (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).

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. (Some may point to cases in which lesser punishments were ordered — as with some Egyptian intellectuals who have been punished for writings that were construed as apostasy — but those were really instances of supposed heresy, not explicitly declared apostasy as in Senator Obama’s case.)

* * *

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. This would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad.

Thus, we have an entirely different question from that of whether Barack Obama is a crypto-Muslim who will betray America to his supposed co-religionists. Rather, as i have said before, we are facing serious questions of whether Obama's religious conversion will have a deleterious impact on our relations with the Muslim world. And while I agree with Luttwack that it should not be the end-all and be-all of the campaign, I think it is a factor worth considering.

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