Obama attended an Indonesian public school

An anonymous e-mail makes a number of specious claims to promote its Manchurian Candidate-style conspiracy theory, including, "Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world."

Like many Internet smears, the e-mail starts with a bit of truth before lurching wildly into fantasy. It's true that Obama's father was from Africa, and Obama has said his father was born a Muslim. Obama's stepfather was from Indonesia, raised a Muslim. But there's no evidence that either man was particularly religious as an adult — Obama's father is sometimes described as an atheist, while his stepfather drank alcohol, forbidden in Islam. Obama's American mother, Ann Dunham, rejected organized religion, according to several accounts. Obama has summed up his own faith history by saying he didn't grow up in any particular religious tradition. (Obama's mother, father and stepfather are all deceased.)

Obama lived in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather from 1967 to 1971, approximately from the ages of 6 to 10. In 1971, he returned to the United States and graduated from high school in Hawaii.

"Madrassa" is an Arabic word for "school," but Americans generally understand the word to mean a school where anti-Western Islamic ideology is taught. The e-mail says the school taught Wahabism, a "RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world." Westerners typically understand Wahabism to be an austere form of Islam based on a literal reading of the Koran. So is that the type of school Obama attended?

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Kristi Noem

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