IRVING, Texas: Encouragement poured in from across the nation for a 14-year-old Muslim boy whose homemade electronic clock led to his detention and suspension from school, with President Barack Obama, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and a NASA scientist among those offering support.

By Wednesday, it had brought him an invitation to the White House, support from Hillary Rodham Clinton and a moment of head-spinning attention as questions arose whether he had been targeted because of his name and his religion.

As a result, a 14-year-old freshman at MacArthur High School in Irving, Texas, who is partial to tinkering, technology and NASA T-shirts and wants to go to M.I.T., found himself in a social media whirlwind that reflected the nation’s charged debates on Islam, immigration and ethnicity.

“Cool clock, Ahmed,” President Obama said on Twitter. “Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.” Obama’s staff invited Ahmed to the White House for Astronomy Night on Oct. 19, an event bringing together scientists, engineers, astronauts, teachers and students to spend a night stargazing from the South Lawn.

The president’s spokesman said the episode was a case study in unreasoned prejudice in an era when the country is fighting terrorism at home and in the Middle East.

But on some conservative sites, he was the subject of slurs and vitriol and suggestions that he and his family did not belong here.

In a post to his site, Zuckerberg said, “Having the skill and ambition to build something cool should lead to applause.”

“Ahmed, if you ever want to come by Facebook, I’d love to meet you,” Zuckerberg posted. “Keep building.”

Bobak Ferdowsi, a science planner engineer on NASA’s Cassini space probe to Saturn, joined in. In a tweet, Ferdowsi said, “I can’t imagine if be working @nasa today if anything like this had ever happened to me.” He later tweeted, “Hey Ahmed, give me a call in a couple years. We could always use smart, curious & creative people.”

Ahmed’s father, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, said at a press conference in front of his family’s home that he was moved by the support for his son. He said Ahmed is an electronics whiz who repairs the family’s clocks and phones.

“I am grateful to the United States of America,” he said, attributing the widespread support to “something that was touching the heart for everybody.”

Ahmed was pulled from class Monday and taken to a detention center after showing the digital clock to teachers at his school in Irving.

Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said the clock looked “suspicious in nature,” but said there was no evidence the boy meant to cause alarm at school. Boyd considers the case closed. He said the reaction to the clock “would have been the same regardless” of Ahmed’s religion.

“We live in an age where you can’t take things like that to school,” Boyd said.