Candidates for the Republican Nomination Seize on the Issue of Islam

On Sunday, Sept. 20 on NBC, Ben Carson, candidate for the Republican nomination, expressed his opposition to the prospect of electing a Muslim president in the United States. A conservative Christian, Mr. Carson was asked the question of whether the faith of a candidate in the presidential election was important. The former neurosurgeon initially responded by saying that it all depended on the faith in question before clarifying, at the request of the interviewer, that he deemed Islam “inconsistent” with “the values and principles of America,” and adding that he could, however, vote for a Muslim candidate for Congress.

The host of the popular NBC program, Chuck Todd, raised the subject in the wake of criticisms that were launched at Donald Trump, the Republican candidate who is currently the best placed in terms of voter intentions. Trump did not correct a person who came to one of his campaign meetings in New Hampshire on Thursday, Sept. 17 and insinuated, repeating a well-known conspiracy theory in the United States, that President Barack Obama, who is Protestant, was in fact born overseas — which would have made him ineligible for the presidency — and was Muslim. Mr. Trump himself, in 2011 and 2012, heavily fueled these types of doubts about the president’s birthplace.

‘Muslims’ or ‘Radical Muslims’

Interviewed on the same subject on Sunday on CNN, the real estate magnate, unlike Mr. Carson, stated that the election of a Muslim president was possible, distinguishing “Muslims” from “radical Muslims” that pose, according to him, “a problem” in both the United States and around the world. More obliquely, another candidate for the presidential election, Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, has refused to state on many occasions whether he considers Mr. Obama to be a Christian, claiming that he doesn’t know enough about him.

A few days earlier, another news item attracted the attention of the American public: the arrest of a young student named Ahmed Mohamed, in Texas. He was briefly detained for having created an electronic clock that he brought to class, which raised the suspicions of one of his teachers. Mr. Obama subsequently invited the young boy to the White House, raising the ire of a young supporter of the fourth Republican candidate, Ted Cruz. In a message posted on YouTube, this teenager deplored the lack of attention shown by the president with regard to the family of a victim killed by an undocumented immigrant, or of policemen killed in the course of their jobs. “When a Muslim kid builds a clock,” he stated, he is welcomed.