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“We like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance,” Yousef explained.

Senator Obama is the first candidate for the presidency who not only has studied Islam as a religious student but has recited the shahada to the New York Times in an interview as recently as 2007:

"I was a little Jakarta street kid,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in his office (excerpts are on my blog, www.nytimes.com/ontheground). He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them.
Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

Since a sincere recitation of the shahada is by itself *all* that is required to be considered a Muslim, one would think this would certainly encourage other Muslims as to how receptive Mr. Obama might be to their worldview.

Mr. Kristof notes about Mr. Obama that "... a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them."