The Syncretic Hypothesis

Submitted by John in Michigan, USA (United States), Sep 14, 2012 at 15:01

I recall an earlier discussion on danielpipes.org regarding the name Barack Hussein Obama. The gist of that discussion was, although the name has clear Islamic overtones, the fact that father and son had the exact same name (i.e. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. and Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.) was actually a departure from the Islamic tradition. This lends support to the syncretic hypothesis, which Dr. Pipes defines as "the inconclusive but intriguing possibility that Obama, even at the tender age of six through ten, sought to combine his maternal and paternal religions into a personal syncretic whole, presenting himself as both Christian and Muslim". I will try to find a link.

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