Muslims all over the world are mystified by presumptive President Barack Hussein Obama's denial of being a Muslim and his claim to be a born again Christian.

Islamic leaders are pointedly resisting Obama's repudiation of being a child of Islam because under the rigid tenets of Islamic law, a baby born to a Muslim parent is a Muslim forever. Obama's Kenyan grandfather, father and Indonesian stepfather were Muslims. Barack Hussein Obama Sr. named his boy Barack Hussein Obama Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein."

When Obama was 6, his mother divorced Obama Sr. and married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim. Soetoro moved his new family from Hawaii to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. He enrolled his stepson in one of Jakarta's Muslim schools where he was required to study the Koran (Muslim holy book) and pray to Allah. Obama's school record from Indonesia shows he enrolled as a Muslim. At age 10, he returned to Hawaii to live with his maternal grandparents.

Obama adamantly denies ever having been a Muslim. He asserted in December 2007, "I've always been a Christian . . . The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country [Kenya]. But I've never practiced Islam."

Obama's loud protests that he was never a Muslim is irrelevant to Osama bin Laden, founder of Al-Qaeda and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 suicide attacks against the United States.

Bin Laden sees Obama as a murtad fitri, the worst type of Muslim heretic (apostate) because Obama was blessed by Allah to be born into the faith of Islam. Al-Qaida has prominently featured Obama's statement, "I am not a Muslim."

Shireen K. Burki, an adjunct professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Va., says Obama is "bin Laden's dream candidate." If elected president of the United States, she believes, Al-Qaida would likely "exploit his background" to galvanize supporters into action against America by arguing that an apostate is leading the global war on terror.

Burki, the daughter of a Muslim father and a Christian mother, wrote in a May 2008 issue of the The Christian Science Monitor, "Once branded as an apostate, President Obama would face enormous difficulties in the foreign policy realm, especially in the fight against terrorism.

"He's caught between a rock and a hard place. If he softens the U.S. strategy against Al-Qaeda and its ideologues, his apostasy might be an afterthought for Al-Qaeda. But if he acts firmly in America's national interest to defeat the terrorist threat, he'd be vilified in an Al-Qaeda propaganda campaign for reneging on his 'true identity.'"

Sharia (Islamic law) and the Hadith (reported words and deeds of Islam's prophet Muhammad) describe two types of apostates. One is murtad milli, a person who converted to Islam and later renounced the faith. The second, and most deplorable is murtad fitri, a person born of a Muslim parent who renounced his birthright.

Muslim caliphs consider a murtadd fitri as an unnatural person whose apostasy is a willful and obstinate act of treason against God. They maintain that the murtadd is a traitor to the Muslim community and disruptive to the teachings of Islam.

Caliphs have made it uncompromisingly clear that under Islamic Law an apostate must be put to death. Islamic jurisprudence dictates that "if a sane person who has reached puberty voluntarily apostatizes from Islam, he deserves to be punished. In such a case, it is obligatory for the caliph (or his representative) to ask him to repent and return to Islam. If he does, it is accepted from him, but if he refuses, he is immediately killed." There is no dispute on this ruling among traditional Muslim scholars.

Recent examples are Magdi Allam, a male Egyptian who converted to Catholicism in Italy, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born woman who's now an atheist. Both now are forced to live a life peppered with Islamic death threats.

Muslims all over the world appear to be willing to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. They are hoping that his rejection of Islam is only for the purpose of getting elected president and that after the election he will "repent and return to Islam." An Egyptian newspaper, Al-Masri al-Youm, refered to Obama's "Muslim origins."

Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi said in a public address aired by Al-Jazeera (Arab television network) on June 11, 2008: "There are elections in America now. Along came a black citizen of Kenyan African origins, a Muslim, who had studied in an Islamic school in Indonesia. His name is Obama. All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency."

An Al-Jazeera analysis described Obama as a "non-Christian man." A second referred to his "Muslim Kenyan" father. Naseem Jamali, writing for Al-Jazeera Magazine, noted that "Obama may not want to be counted as a Muslim, but Muslims are eager to count him as one of their own."

Obama compounded his Muslim problem when he promised that if elected, hunting down bin Laden and other top terrorists will be a priority. "We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I will not," Obama said in May 2008. "We must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

Burki wrote, "Furthermore, his [Obama's] administration would struggle to positively engage the Muslim world, where Islam isn't just a religion, it's the way of life. Conservative Muslim populations that are riddled with poverty and low literacy rates can be more readily swayed to join the cause against the 'Great Satan' (the U.S.) if their imams and mullahs shout that it is led by an apostate.

"Diplomacy is highly personal. The leaders of America's Middle Eastern allies - such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar - already feel besieged by jihadists and disgruntled citizens who see their governments as toadies of the West. The murtad card could intensify that pressure, so leaders of these countries might be compelled to distance themselves from Washington.

"In short, an Obama presidency - which might be fine domestically - could have serious repercussions for U.S. foreign interests at a time when it is especially vulnerable in a tight global oil market," Burki concluded.