(Photo by Atlas Shrugs)
This weekend, between 5-10,000 people turned out at Ground Zero to protest the building of a mega-mosque near the site of the World Towers. The principal person behind this mosque is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, a Kuwaiti-born imam in New York. Rauf portrays himself as a moderate Muslim and claims that the mosque would represent a symbol of reconciliation.
Feisal Abdul Rauf
I am not so sure. From checking into this guy, I am unconvinced about his intentions. Here is his profile on Discover the Networks:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2462
For one thing, if Rauf has any connection whatsoever to Hizb-ut-Tahrir, he is no moderate in my eyes. That organization is based on a vision of the total Ismamization of the world. (They have a base in Chicago.)
Even if Rauf's intent is honorable, he obviously has no concern for the feelings of many in New York who see the mosque, rightfully or wrongly, as rubbing our noses in 9-11. Many consider it a sacrilege that Ground Zero should be the site for a religion in whose name 9-11 was carried out.
Those feelings should be respected.
That is also the opinion of a couple of true moderate Muslims, Stephen Suleyman Schwartz of the (Sufi) Center for Islamic Pluralism and Zuhdi Jasser, of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, both of whom are open opponents of Islamic radicalism. Both of them feel the mosque in that location is not sensitive to the public in the face of 9-11. They are absolutely correct. Here is an editorial by Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe, which describes their feelings:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/06/06/a_mosque_at_ground_zero/
Below is an interview with Jasser by Fox News:
If Rauf and his cohorts in this mosque project have any feelings for the sensitivities of 9-11 victims' families (or Americans in general), they would find another location for their mosque.
13 comments:
And I'm sure there are just as many (or more) New Yorkers and families of 9/11 victims that are either okay with the mosque or simply don't care.
Oh and wait, didn't Ann Coulter tell us a while back that we should stop giving 9/11 widows carte blanche? She must have only meant when they disagreed with conservatives.
Oh and by the way your numbers on how many showed up are way off.
Another take
Islamophobia? What Islamophobia?
Anonymous,
That "other take" sure looks like an unbiased source.
A couple of hundred? If you look at the picture, I think my figure is closer.
And "Discover the Networks" is an objective source of information?
The blog of Pamela Geller is anything more than the ravings of a lunatic shrieking harpy?
Come now.
Anonymous,
Compare the prose and the adjectives by Discover the Networks and your source. The question is whether DtN is accurate.
Anonymous,
PS-
What exactly is your definition of Islamophobia?
Here's an example off the top of my head from the very picture in this blog post: holding a sign that says "Islam hates women."
That is an Islamophobic attitude.
So is running off some "Islamic-looking" people who are actually on your side (the story is in my link).
I can't speak for your sources, but neither myself nor LoonWatch.com claim to be "objective" in their views, plus you say that all that matters is that the facts are accurate, so why bring up bias in the first place then??? Make up your mind.
Anonymous ( I don't know if you are all one and the same)
My mind is very much made up.
I'm sorry that poster in the photo is offensive to you. You might ask why someone would have such a poster in the first place. What inspired that poster?
Rather than give me an example of what you consider Islamophobia, you should begin by giving me a definition of the term (which obviously can be defined in different ways). Then we can discuss it and also discuss who is or is not Islamophobic.
As for the "Islamic-looking" people on my side, I would invite you to check into Zuhdi Jasser and Stephen Schwartz and what they say and stand forbefore you dismiss them.
Finally, if you don't like Discover the Networks, I invite you to show me where their facts are wrong on their statements about Rauf.
I think it is probably not a good idea to build the mosque at that site. I note that if the mosque privately raises funds to buy private property near the site, even right across the street, it is none of the government's business, or the public's business. However, if we are talking about deliberately including a mosque on public land as part of a planned memorial, it is legitimately a public issue.
I'm a First Amendment fundamentalist. If the plan includes a religious or spiritual presence, it should be broadly inclusive, somewhat like the military providing chaplains. Early in our history, chaplains were virtually all Protestant. By the Civil War, Catholics were also prominent, and some Jews, but not much else. Today, there are a variety of faiths represented in the armed forces, including Muslims, and the military doesn't pick and choose which religions deserve to be represented, it recognizes that it is good for morale for soldiers to have access to whatever spiritual counsel their upbringing and faith inclines them to seek.
So, we could have a series of chapels, RC, Greek O, Prod, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist. This could run amuck, shall we include every brand of neo-pagan? Well, let's restrict it to those faiths represented among the dead of 9/11. That definitely includes Muslim.
But, it would be better to avoid that degree of entanglement. Islam should not be singled out for a special place, any more than Islam should be condemned as the cause of the devastation.
Siarlys,
As I understand it, they have the legal right to build it and it has been approved by the City Council 29-1.
Yet, while Muslims like CAIR are always talking about how we should respect them and their sensitivities, they don't seem to show much regard for our sensitivities. Ground Zero is a sensitivity.
Our country has a damn good record when it comes to respecting minority religions. It's a two-way street, however. A mosque at this site will be perceived by many as rubbing our nose in it.
While you may be right about the sensitivies, you are wrong to talk about "the Muslims" respecting anything. Every individual Muslim is entitled to their own opinion, and has one.
You might do better to contrast THIS Muslim's past statements, if any, about respecting HIS sensitivities, rather than refer broadly to CAIR. Incidentally, I made the mistake of buying a DVD of a PBS program called Islam: Empire of Faith, which is supposedly approved by CAIR. It was awful watered-down pablum. I don't say that as a critic of Islam, but as a student of history -- it left so much out, and tripped lightly over some perfectly neutral but highly relevant facts and interludes.
he obviously has no concern for the feelings of many in New York who see the mosque, rightfully or wrongly, as rubbing our noses in 9-11. ... Those feelings should be respected.
So in other words, Cordoba House should bow to the "feelings" of the Islamophobes, regardless of whether those feelings are "right or wrong"? I suppose blacks in the Jim Crow south should have bowed to the feelings of the Ku Klux Klan too -- because whether the Klan was right or wrong, they sure had them some deeply held feelings.
Roderick,
A rather dopey response, I would say, but what should I expect from a self-described anarchist philosophy professor (at Auburn University). After perusing your website, please explain to me who your friends at the Center for a Stateless Society are.
As to the mosque issue. I don't think there was anything in this thread that would paint me as an Islamophobe though it depends on what the definition is you care to use. If you are talking about Muslim people, definitely not. If you are talking about not wanting an Islamic takeover of this country under shariah law or being opposed to Islamic terrorism-I proudly plead guilty.
Your analogy to blacks and the KKK is ludicrous. The KKK was not subject to terror at the hands of southern blacks in that era. You are simply arguing that 9-11 should not engender any sensitivities at all.
Your side refuses to recognize the legitimate doubts about Rauf, his agenda and where the $ is coming from. You also seem unable to admit that there is a strain of Islam that is radical, violent, wants to destroy us, and is incompatible with western democracy, freedoms and tolerance.
This site and I invite decent, peace-loving American Muslims to join us in rejecting and standing up to this menace. Spend some time perusing this site and will see it.
Yet people like you (who infest our universities, unfortunately)have one tired old argument-
Islamophobia.
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