Pakistan: Obama ’seems to know more about Islam than our own leaders’

President Obama’s speech was broadcast live on Pakistan’s plethora of private TV channels (there are dozens) and dissected by analysts throughout the night. The morning’s newspapers, both Urdu and English, carried previews as their lead stories.

The TV speech attracted a mostly educated, middle- to upper-class audience, and it wasn’t exactly the show-stopper in the tea shops and bazaars that it might have been had he been speaking from Pakistan, but the US president’s words were widely followed nonetheless.

Pundits and politicians alike welcomed Obama’s quotations from the Koran, references to Islamic history, and the conciliatory tone. Though Obama made a few direct references to Pakistan, much of the talk focused on Obama’s declaration of an “unbreakable” bond with Israel.

One taxi driver was particularly impressed when Obama quoted the Koran on how killing one person is equivalent to killing humanity. “He seems to know more about Islam than our own leaders,” said Imtiaz.