Obama reaches out to world’s Muslims

Associated Press

JAKARTA, Indonesia

From the most-Muslim nation on Earth, President Barack Obama is reaching out to the Islamic world, declaring that efforts to build trust and peace are showing promise but are still clearly “incomplete.”

Today Obama was to deliver one of the most personal and potentially consequential speeches of his presidency, reflecting on his own years of upbringing in Indonesia and giving an update on America’s “new beginning” with Muslims that he promised last year in Cairo.

For Obama, the journey is a cherished, fleeting and twice-delayed homecoming in Indonesia. Obama was born and first raised in Hawaii and finished high school there, but he lived for years in between in Jakarta after his mother remarried an Indonesian man.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, who are Christian, paid a visit today to Indonesia’s largest mosque.

The couple walked in stockinged feet along a carpet laid across the sprawling courtyard of the Istiqlal Mosque. Along the way, the mosque’s imam explained that a Christian church visible in the distance uses the mosque’s parking lot during Christmas celebrations because it doesn’t have enough parking.

A smiling Obama relayed that story to reporters. He called it an example of cooperation between the different religions in Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim country.