Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf: “now it is our turn, as Muslims, to drink from this cup.”

This was in our local paper and what really irritates me is how the imam equates discrimination against American muslims equal to that which has happened to Blacks, Jews, the Irish, Catholics, Italians and many more. There is one big difference here that the imam keeps omitting, perhaps on purpose.
That is the main current of violence, persecution and death to those who refuse to convert to islam or bow down to it and live in a dhimmi state, under islamic sharia law. Over the last 1400 years there is no political ideology that can compare to islam for death and destruction. So how does the imam make islam equal to what the Blacks, Jews, or the Christians of the past, or today in islamic countries are suffering? He cannot successfully do this and he knows this. We don't see other races, religions or cultures refusing to pick up blind passengers with a sight aid dog or for having alcohol in their posses ion. Or Jews refusing to bag and pack pork products at Target stores, or Catholics demanding their own foot baths and prayer rooms in airports and on colleges across our country. You can see where I am coming from. The imam is playing the islamophobia race card and he is not doing it well. Americans are overwhelmingly against what he wants to do at Ground Zero. He is insulting so many Americans by what he is doing, and he does not care. Rauf knows that at the very least he can count on the support of the liberal left who have been brainwashed, duped by several decades of political correctness, diversity and multicultural stupidity at any and all cost to our freedom and liberty.


Please read the article to see what I am talking about. The only solution is for Rauf to completely back down and take this mosque elsewhere. My preference would be someplace far, far away in an existing islamic country. It will interesting to see what sort of deal or bargain is offered to the imam. Better yet, what he and his supporters will offer to do. I do not see him or islam giving much ground on this. If that is the case then islam and muslims in America will have two black eyes and broken nose for their arrogance and ignorance. It is up to US to learn from this as islam will just come back again and again. It is, up to us to put a stop to the islamization of our country and stop the spread of sharia law.

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Imam at center of debate weighs options
By Karen DeYoung / The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said Monday that he and his advisers are considering “every option” for what to do about the controversial Islamic community center they plan to build two blocks from ground zero in New York, including delaying its construction or relocating it.


“We are exploring all options as we speak ... working through what will be a solution that will resolve this problem,” Abdul Rauf said in an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations. “Everything is on the table.”


At the same time, he said, it is “disingenuous” of those who oppose the planned location of the center to say it is “hallowed ground” because of the people who were killed in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks by Muslim extremists. “There is a strip joint around the corner, betting parlors,” Abdul Rauf said. “It is hallowed in one sense, but it doesn’t add up. Let’s clarify that misperception.”


The planned center, he said, has been an important part of his efforts to raise the voices of what he said are “99.9 percent of Muslims in the world” who find terrorism “absolutely abhorrent.” He added: “I want a space where the voice of the moderates can be amplified. It’s not good enough to teach here — no students will hear you.”


Abdul Rauf said the center would be “a place for all faiths to come together as partners, stakeholders in mutual respect. It will bring honor to the city of New York and to American Muslims. The world is watching,” he said. “I offer you my pledge: We will live up to our ideals.”


He placed discrimination against American Muslims and objections to the construction in the context of the historical “rejection” of minorities, including “Jews and Catholics, Irish and Italians, blacks and Hispanics,” and said that “now it is our turn, as Muslims, to drink from this cup.”


Abdul Rauf, who has been the imam of a mosque 12 blocks from the World Trade Center since 1983, said, “I belong to this neighborhood. I am a devout Muslim. I pray five times a day ... and I am also a proud American citizen. Let no one forget that. I vote in elections, I pay taxes, I pledge allegiance to the flag, and I am a Giants fan.”

Original article is here from the Bend Bulletin

islam is not a religion.

I have often commented on the facts that clearly state islam is not a religion. It is a cradle to grave political ideology. It is purely a cunning political system, hidden behind the pious religious mask, intended to conquer the whole world as per the barbaric teachings and methods of Muhammad. No spirituality exists in it, except war and deception. islam tells it brainwashed followers how to live, eat, torture, persecute, kill, subjugate, conquer and dominate the world.


" There is a vast confusion about what a religion is and is not. Currently the operative rule is that anything associated with Islam is a religious affair where all of the freedom of religion is applied to the action or event. Islam's actions are religious and if you oppose it, you are an un-American bigot.


It is time to stop and take a look at what we mean by a religion. There are about as many Buddhists in America today as there are Muslims. When was the last time you remember a Buddhist demand of any kind? Do Buddhists set up councils to shape the textbooks and demand Buddhist finance? Does the government make a big announcement when Buddhists are appointed to high posts? Are there even any Buddhists in any White House appointments? Do Buddhists complain? Never, for these are political actions, and Buddhism has almost no political outreach. Buddhism in America is purely religious, not political at all."


The next post is from Bill Warner's excellent site; Political Islam. I am very late getting this up but it is very relevant to what is going on in regard to the onslaught of global islamic subversion it is a must read.

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Religious Freedom and a Mosque
By Bill Warner

One of the most common arguments of the supporters of the Ground Zero mosque includes religious freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment. Religion is seen as the framework to support building a mosque and community center near the site of the former World Trade Towers. Is this really about religion? Step back and look at the controversy. Do you feel like you are taking part in a religious exercise or a political fracas?


There is a vast confusion about what a religion is and is not. Currently the operative rule is that anything associated with Islam is a religious affair where all of the freedom of religion is applied to the action or event. Islam's actions are religious and if you oppose it, you are an un-American bigot.


It is time to stop and take a look at what we mean by a religion. There are about as many Buddhists in America today as there are Muslims. When was the last time you remember a Buddhist demand of any kind? Do Buddhists set up councils to shape the textbooks and demand Buddhist finance? Does the government make a big announcement when Buddhists are appointed to high posts? Are there even any Buddhists in any White House appointments? Do Buddhists complain? Never, for these are political actions, and Buddhism has almost no political outreach. Buddhism in America is purely religious, not political at all.


Yet the media and the Internet are consumed by talk and argument about Islam. The discussion is never about how many rounds of prayer to do or whether a certain food is halal (religiously proper). No, the focus is always on something that non-Muslims are to do to accommodate an Islamic religious practice.


There is a practical working definition of religion as compared to politics. Religious practices are done by those who follow that religion and are motivated for achieving paradise and avoiding hell. Outsiders are not involved in those religious acts. If it is about going to heaven and avoiding hell, then it is religious. However, if the religion makes a demand on those outside of its own group, then that demand is political.


Most people think that the Koran is a religious text. Instead, 64% of the text (by word count) is about non-Muslims, who are called Kafirs. The Koran is fixated on Kafirs and makes many demands on them. Not the least is that Kafirs submit to the rule of Islamic Sharia law. Ultimately Sharia law is the pure expression of Islamic politics and it completely contradicts our Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Under Sharia there is no freedom of speech, wives may be beaten and apostates murdered.


Mohammed had little success with Islam until he transformed it into a political system. He preached the religion of Islam in Mecca for 13 years and made about 150 converts. He left Mecca and moved to Medina. In Medina he turned to politics and jihad. In the last 9 years of his life, Mohammed was involved in an event of violence on the average of every 6 weeks. The political method persuaded every Arab to convert to Islam. The religion did not succeed; it was politics that made Islam powerful.


Original article is here

Our tax dollars hard at work supporting the sale of Feisal Abdul Rauf's book, What's Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West.

Well, this is not a complete shock to me. The State Dept. might as well be called 'The State Union of Islamic and Sharia Law development Dept.' It is bad enough the islamist sympathizing State Dept. has sent this bum out on his third trip to bash and villefy the United States. We should not be deluded into thinking these are not fund raising trips for that new victory mosque, um I mean mosque at Ground Zero. This is from Jason Mattera at Human Events.

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Tax dollars for Ground Zero Imam
By Jason Mattera

Unbelievable. You're not going to guess what our tax dollars are subsidizing. Actually, in this ObamaNation, maybe you will guess it. It turns out that you and I are funding the State Department to purchase and distribute copies of Feisal Abdul Rauf's book, What's Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West.

Rauf is the imam behind the Ground Zero mosque and is the same imam who won't condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization; the same imam who said on “60 Minutes” that America was an "accessory" to September 11; and, as we reported at HUMAN EVENTS, the same imam who told a college audience overseas that the United States is worse than al Qaeda.

Yep, that dude. And not only has the State Department anointed him as our ad hoc ambassador to the Muslim world, but now they are acting as his personal Barnes & Noble to boot. Good grief! Buried in a recent New York Times article on Imam Rauf's global hopscotch, the paper casually referenced that our government buys and hands out his tome in an effort "to lecture about tolerance" and pursue "interfaith dialogue" with Islamic nations.

Only in the left's strange world does it make sense to support Imam Rauf as a goodwill spokesman for the United States while he's busy trashing the United States. But that aside, did the bureaucrats at the State Department ever take the time to read Rauf's What's Right with Islam? If so, they'll have to justify why they're promoting a book that faults America for stirring up conflict with Muslims, brags that America is "Sharia compliant," and makes excuses for suicide bombings.

Researchers at the American Center for Law and Justice combed through Rauf's 2004 book and found alarming passages. In the Orwellian-named chapter “What's Right with America,” Rauf goes on to—you guessed it—blame America. He writes: "If there is any quarrel Muslims have with America, it is that the United States does not always live up to its own ideal of ethics and values." In the same chapter, Rauf has a section called “America: A Sharia-Compliant State” wherein he contends that the "American political structure is Sharia compliant," especially if it begins to allow "religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves according to their own laws."

As if that weren't bad enough, our bud Rauf goes on to rationalize suicide bombings by blaming societal roots and not the warped Islamic fanatics themselves. Quoth the imam: "The most widely accepted view today in psychoanalysis is that suicide is most often a form of 'displacement.'… the individual inflicts upon himself the result of the frustration and anger caused by the perceived unraveling of the social fabric of his world."

Sounds exactly like the kind of guy best to represent American interests abroad, no? If you disagree, you're probably an Islamophobic racist!

Original article can be found here

It would be an obscenity: The mosque at Ground Zero

The mosque at Ground Zero...Sigh. It is just wrong and the majority of New Yorkers get it, the rest of the United States gets it. But JINO Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the nine Dhimwits on The Landmark Preservation Commission did not get it, Obama the first muslim potus, gets it because he is a muslim and is doing all he can to pave the way for islam inside the United States. This is a horrible injustice and mark my words; this is seen as a major victory in muslim countries around the world. To have islam build a mosque near the ground where almost 3,000 people died in cold blood murder, at the the hands of muslims is one of the goals that islam seeks. This will be no community center. It will not matter if this recruitment center for terrorists, I mean mosque has an 'interfaith' prayer room, or a swimming pool. Nothing can change it for what it is planned to be, a mosque at Ground Zero. A place where one message will be delivered for us infidels. Filled with taqiyya, lies and deception, preached to fool and put us infidels 'at ease' with islam. Another service most likely filled with the hateful rhetoric that fills the mosques around the world exhorting terrorism against infidels, calls for the implementation of sharia law and the establishment of a global islamic caliphate. A place where the islamic 'zakat' of offering will be taken and a portion of that will go to fund terrorism, support 'charities' that launder the money to terrorist organizations. And like Alan Caruba who does Warning Signs states it: It would be an obsecenity. In so many, many ways.

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Saying No! to a Ground Zero Mosque
By Alan Caruba

In the August 3rd edition of The Wall Street Journal, in the Greater New York section, the lead article was “9/11 Memorial Pledged as Part of Mosque Plan.”

There already is a 9/11 memorial. It is called Ground Zero and will be incorporated into whatever structure that eventually gets built on the site.

If one continued to read the story, however, you had to jump to page A21 where side-by-side with the mosque story was one titled, “Verdict in JFK Bomb Plot”, subtitled “Jury Finds Two Guilty in Conspiracy Charges for Plan to Ignite Fuel Tanks.”

The two men found guilty were Abdul Kadir and Russell Defreitas. A third defendant, Kareem Ibrahim, was ill and didn’t go to trial with them and a fourth, Abdel Nur, took a plea deal and faces up to 15 years in prison. At no time in the body of the article is there any mention that these men are Muslims though that fact was critical to their plot.

It was noted that “the men tried to get help from al Qaeda operative Adnan Shukrijumah who was recently indicted in federal court in a plot to attack the New York City subway system with suicide bombers.”

How many Muslim plots to kill thousands of New Yorkers does it take before the plotters are identified as Muslims?

The reason why there should be no mosque built where the debris and dust of the Twin Towers showered down on the very spot is obvious to any American. It would be an obscenity.

It is obscene to wish to build a mosque within sight of where 2,700 people lost their lives in an act of Islamic terrorism, an act of war, a jihad.

How this simple fact escapes the notice of Mayor Mike Bloomberg defies understanding, but this same Mayor originally thought the failed Times Square bomb could have been placed by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

No, it could not be “anything”! Of the many plots hatched since 9/11, it is likely that 99.9% have been by Muslims, whether native born or immigrants.

This is not about tolerance. In New York, every Friday in several locations through the city where there are mosques that cannot accommodate all who wish to enter for prayers, the overflow fills the surrounding streets between 2 PM and 4 PM. They block traffic in ways no other group of religionists would ever be permitted. It is surreal.

There is something especially abhorrent about Mayor Bloomberg’s dazzling ignorance because as a Jew he seems to have not absorbed the lessons of history and, in particular, the Holocaust that killed six million Jews and five million Christians; nuns and priests, Lutherans, gypsies, and others swept up by the Nazi death machine.

Hannah Arendt attended the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi charged with rounding up and killing Europe’s Jews. Her book, “Eichmann and the Holocaust”, was published in 1963 and enshrined the phrase, “the banality of evil” in our modern lexicon.

For Arendt, Eichmann was a “new type of criminal, who commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or feel that he is doing wrong.” Not so new because the crimes of Islam against all who are not Islamic (and some who are thanks to the Shiite-Sunni schism) are very old and fill the headlines of today’s newspapers.

The Muslims who flew commercial airliners into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did not think they were doing wrong. They were doing what the Koran and almost every imam with the breath to preach told them to do; they were killing infidels.

This is why a mosque within steps of Ground Zero is so inherently wrong. It says that the intended victims of Islamic domination are simply too blind to envision their fate, too fearful to confront evil, to ready to get on the next train to Auschwitz.

Link to original article at Warning Signs can be found here

Two faced Imam of the proposed mosque at Ground Zero

This is right from Shoaib Choudhury's Weekly Blitz. It is a bit long but so worth your time. Weekly Blitz is the only anti Jihadist newspaper of it's kind!

The mosque and media conquest of Islam
By Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Two face indeed! The Imam, who is behind the controversial mosque at Ground Zero dreams of Islamizing United States. And, exactly such dream has been exposed in his book, which he has written on 9/11.

Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf's 2004 book had two different titles – one in English and the second in Arabic. In the U.S., his book was called, 'What's right with America is what's right with Islam."

The same book, published in Arabic, bore the name, "The Call from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Da'wah from the Heart of America Post-9/11."

Here we get exactly the two faced Imam, who actually is assigned to "spread Islam right from the WTC rubble".

Now, let us have some glimpse over the funders and backers of this mosque project. According to information, a scholar and charity head appointed to President Obama's White House Fellowships Commission is closely tied to the Muslim leaders behind this proposed controversial Islamic cultural center to be built near the site of the Sept. 11 attacks. The White House fellow, Vartan Gregorian, is president of Carnegie Corp. of New York.

Gregorian also serves on the board of the Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum. The museum is reportedly working with the American Society for Muslim Advancement, whose leaders are behind the mosque, to ensure the future museum will represent the voices of American Muslims.

"[The Sept. 11 museum will represent the] voices of American Muslims in particular, and it will honor members of other communities who came together in support and collaboration with the Muslim community on September 11 and its aftermath," stated Daisy Khan, executive director of the society.

The future Sept. 11 museum's oral historian, Jenny Pachucki, is collaborating with the society to ensure the perspective of American Muslims is woven into the overall experience of the museum, according to the museum's blog.

Daisy Khan's husband, Feisal Abdul Rauf, is the founder of the society as well as chairman of Cordoba Initiative.

With Gregorian at its helm, Carnegie Corp. is at the top of the list of society supporters on the Islamic group's website. Carnegie is also listed as a funder of both of the society's partner organizations, Search for Common Ground and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations. Gregorian was a participant in the U.N. body's first forum, as was Rauf.

Rauf is vice chairman on the board of the Interfaith Center of New York, which honored Gregorian at an awards dinner in 2008.

Gregorian, born in Tabriz, Iran, served for eight years as a president of the New York Public Library and was also president of Brown University. He is the author of "Islam: A Mosaic, Not a Monolith."

According to a book review by the Middle East Forum, Gregorian's book "establishes the Islamist goal of world domination."

A chapter of the book, "Islamism: Liberation Politics," quotes Ayatollah Khomeini: "Islam does not conquer. Islam wants all countries to become Muslim, of themselves."

Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is quoted stating it "is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its laws on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet."

Gregorian himself recommends for Muslims a system he calls "theo-democracy," which he defines as "a divine democratic government" that, according to the book review, "would have a limited popular sovereignty under the suzerainty of Allah."

Just last week, WND reported Rauf refused during a live radio interview to condemn violent jihad groups as terrorists. Rauf repeatedly refused on-air to affirm the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization or call the Muslim Brotherhood extremists.

The Brotherhood openly seeks to spread Islam around the world, while Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction and is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, shootings and rocket attacks aimed at Jewish civilian population centers.

During that interview, Rauf was also asked who he believes was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"There's no doubt," stated Rauf. "The general perception all over the world was it was created by people who were sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. Whether they were part of the killer group or not, these are details that need to be left to the law-enforcement experts."

Rauf has been on record several times as blaming U.S. policies for the Sept. 11 attacks. He has been quoted refusing to admit Muslims carried out the attacks.

Referring to the Sept. 11 attacks, Rauf told CNN, "U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. We [the U.S.] have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. Osama bin Laden was made in the USA."

Madeline Brooks, a regular contributor of Weekly Blitz and anti-Jihadist columnist, who attended a sermon this year by Rauf, quoted the Islamic leader as stating "some people say it was Muslims who attacked on 9/11."

An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building with US$ 4.85 million cash steps away from where the World Trade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques or Islamic Mecca right inside USA.

The Imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, told the New York Times — which put the story on its front page — that he has assembled several million dollars to turn it into "an Islamic center near the city's most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero's more unexpected and striking neighbors."

The 61-year-old Imam said he paid $4.85 million for it — in cash, records show. With 50,000 square feet of air rights and enough financing, he plans an ambitious project of $150 million, he said.

Most US mosques, including many in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx are funded directly or indirectly by Saudi Arabia the country to which 15 of the 19 hijackers who bombed the World Trade Center belonged. The UAE, Qatar and Iran are other major sponsors across the USA.

The source of money matters as a significant part of the hundreds of mosques being built and already erected in this country double up as cultural Islamic centers for distributing literature– Islamist propaganda in fact—from Bay Ridge Brooklyn to Detroit, and for schooling growing Muslim minorities. They house Imams of unknown origin and education, many of whom do not speak a word in English but preach in Arabic and Urdu — radical messages, it often turns out.

While Imam Faisal is gradually moving ahead with his master plan of constructing the Mecca of Islam in NYC, unknown patrons are continuing to put huge amount of cash in gradually having a strong Islamist grip over world media.

In United Kingdom, newspapers like Islamic Times, The Muslim News, The Muslim Weekly, or radio stations like Radio Apni Awaz, Radio Dawn or TV channels like Islam Channel, Muslim TV are only few examples. According to information, Muslim 'entrepreneurs' are gradually buying shares in several news outlets in UK with money received from unknown sources. Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing into such project with the ultimate goal of virtually waging Islamic Jihad over global media.

There are a few dozens of Islamic TV channels already on air. Peace TV [run by notorious Zakir Naik], ARY TV, Q-TV, Islamic TV, Muslim TV etc.

Islam Channel – UK:

Commenting on Britain's most popular Islam Channel, OFCOM in a report found that a number of presenters with extremis tendencies were regularly given the opportunity to air their opinions on the network.

The report also condemned the channel, which is headquartered in London, for being demeaning to women, saying that programmes instructed women that they could not refuse to have sexual relations with their husbands. Under British law, a husband who forces his wife to have sex with him can be charged with rape.

The report added that on one program, women were told that they should not leave their homes without their husband's consent and should always have a male escort. Another suggested that women who used perfume were prostitutes. Concerns were also raised in the report over a religious advice programme in which viewers were told that "the majority of people in hell will be women" because they are the cause of "calamities, hardship and suffering" in western society.

The channel was accused of promoting the speeches of Anwar al Awlaki, an extremist preacher who has been linked to al Qaeda, and the views of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a fundamentalist organisation the former Prime Minister Tony Blair had tried to ban.

The Islam Channel is watched by an estimated 59 per cent of the UK's two million Muslims. It is also available as a satellite channel across Europe and Africa.

New Islam TV – Africa:

In Africa, a company named Multichoice has launched a channel named New Islam TV, which is added in DStv bouquets, reaching millions of people. The channel offers choice news and current affairs, children and women's programs, as well as Quran recitals in Arabic with English subtitles, Islamic values and doctrine.

Azhari TV – Egypt

Egyptian Al Azhar University is set to launch a satellite based television channel in months targeting "1.5 million Muslims and non-Muslims alike in the world".

Head of Al Azhar, Sheikh Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, commenting on this channel, which is funded by a Libyan businessman named Hassan Tatanaki said, "in the Age of Obama we realized it was time to look at new ways to deliver our message."

Hassan Tatanaki placed an initial investment of US$ 2.7 million in this project. Several news sources claim that the real amount of investment in the channel is much higher than shown in the document. The channel will feature a daily sermon from Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, documentaries relating to al-Azhar, talk shows and an animated series on the Koran. The channel will broadcast 75 percent of its output in Arabic, with the rest initially in English and French. Other languages will be added in 2011.

Another Islamic TV channel named Al Sufiya Wa Atasawaf will also be launched from Egypt in several months.

Al Falah TV – Malaysia

An Islamic television channel named Al Falah TV has been launched by Malaysian company named World Islamic Television Network. Its chairman Khairuddin Abu Hassan said, "This channel will act as a hub for the collection of television programs from Islamic nations and export the same to Europe, the United States and East Asia."

Original article can be found here

A Shrine to Sharia

The title says it all. This mosque, if built will indeed be a shrine to sharia law and Islam. As is stated in the qur'an, any mosque that is built on the site of an Islamic site of 'victory or conquest' must be as large as possible, and as offensive to the native population as possible. If one looks back through Islamic history, we will find that this is a tactic of sharia and in my opinion, jihad. The ignorance of our political leaders about Islam, sharia law is disgusting and shameful. If built, can we expect the mullah Obamaham to come and kiss the ground and proclaim its glory and wonder? If this keeps up we will be needing the weapons allowed for now, under the 2nd amendment of the Constitution.

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A Shrine to Sharia
By Frank Gaffney

From Townhall.com

The supremacist program authoritative Islam calls Shariah is big on symbols. Arguably, none is more effective than its practice of building mosques on its conquests' most sacred sites.

In Jerusalem, triumphant Muslims built the Al-Aqsa mosque on top of the Jews' revered Temple Mount. They transformed what had been for a thousand years the largest cathedral in Christendom, Constantinople's magnificent St. Sophia basilica, into a sprawling mosque complex. And the Moorish Ummayad dynasty in Spain, made the city of Cordoba its capital, and installed an immense mosque on the site of an ancient Christian church there.

SHARE THIS: Share40 1800diggsdiggSign-Up Now, an imam in New York, who has suddenly come into $100 million from undisclosed sources, wants to build a 13-story Islamic Cultural Center adjacent to the site of Shariah's greatest triumph to date in America: Ground Zero, the place where the World Trade Center's twin towers proudly stood until they were destroyed by Shariah-adherent jihadists on September 11, 2001. It is not a coincidence that the imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf, has called his project "the Cordoba House."

Such a mosque on 9/11's hallowed ground would not only constitute a durable, symbolic taunt by our enemies about their bloody victory. In accordance with Shariah, once ground has been taken for Islam, it can never revert to the non-Muslim Dar al-Harb, literally the House of War.

In other words, the Ground Zero mosque is designed to be a permanent, in-our-face beachhead for Shariah, a platform for inspiring the triumphalist ambitions of the faithful and eroding resistence to their demands for separate and (for the moment, at least) equal treatment in America.

So why, one might ask, have Mayor Michael Bloomberg, various other elected officials and clergy and community leaders expressed support for the Cordoba House?

In part, it is a function of local considerations: Who wouldn't welcome the prospect of an infusion of $100 million into the still-suffering economy of lower Manhattan? What is more, if the mosque serves as a magnet for new Muslim residents, depressed housing prices could rebound.

The larger problem is that too few of our leaders understand the nature of Shariah and its implications. Even when an imam like Rauf explicitly says he favors bringing Shariah to America, officials at every level of government seem untroubled by the fact that such an agenda necessarily is anti-constitutional and incompatible with our freedoms.

To be sure, Imam Rauf is a skilled practitioner of the Shariah tradition of taqqiya deception for the faith. It turns out, he was to the manner born: As ace researcher Alyssa Lappen has documented, Rauf has family and other longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

So, in a page taken straight out of the Brotherhood taqqiya playbook, the imam and his wife and collaborator on the Cordoba House project, Daisy Khan, have been much in evidence of late, professing their commitment to interfaith dialogue and the dedication of their new facility to serving the non-Muslim as well as Muslim communities.

As it happens, similar assurances about mosque complexes built elsewhere by other Shariah adherents have amounted to the old "bait-and-switch" scam. A group called Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) has monitored, for example, the Islamic Society of Boston's Saudi-funded, city-enabled mega-mosque in Roxbury, Massachusetts. Despite professions of tolerance, the mosque has ties to Hamas and other terrorists. According to APT, the mosque's imam, "Abdullah Faarooq, has told his followers to ‘pick up the gun and the sword' and supported local terror suspects Aafia Siddiqui and Tarek Mehanna." Continue reading here

Original article is here

Shoaib Choudhury: Stop the Imam Now!

Stop the Imam Now!
By Shoaib Choudhury

Despite series of protests, Kuwait-born Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf is silently getting set in erecting the ‘Tower of Terror’ under the garb of a mosque at Ground Zero site in New York City in United States. The prospective developer of the US$ 100 million 13-story mosque, which will be located just 600 feet from the Ground Zero, projects himself as a moderate Muslim. But, it is recorded that, Faisal Abdul Rauf inherits the notion of Muslim Brotherhood from his father, Dr. Mohammed Abdul Rauf [1917-2004], an Egyptian contemporary of Muslim brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna. Dr. Rauf conveyed to his family a long tradition of radicalism which he acquired at Islam’s closest equivalent to Vatican, Al Azhar University in Cairo.

Imam Abdul Rauf, the man behind this controversial mosque is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea several weeks back. Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysia based Perdana Global Peace Organization. Perdana is the single biggest donor [US$ 366,000] so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organization of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break into Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza strip.

In the ultimate act of Islamic conquest and callous insensitivity to the victims' families and all Americans who were attacked by Islamic jihad on 9/11/01, the Free Gaza, Jew-killing supporting Imam and his Islamic supremacist wife are ignoring the pleas and cries from millions of Americans, and intend to build their Islamic supremacist mosque. The imam, at Friday prayers two weeks ago, said he didn't understand the hostility of the opposition to the monster mosque, especially since our "children and our grandchildren would be Muslim."

These pro-Jihadist Imam and his deceitful wife speak of "building bridges" and "outreach," yet completely ignore the pain and the pleas of patriots and Americans asking them to stop this divisiveness, this insult, this slap on the national face America.

Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf refuses to describe notorious terrorist group Hamas as a terrorist organization, though according to US State Department’s assessment, "Hamas terrorists, especially those in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have conducted many attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets."

Walid Shoebat, an Arabic speaker who says he found an Arabic-language interview in which Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to make a statement about religious tolerance and reconciliation, and to spite radical Islam - advocates turning America into an Islamic state.

Recently - in fact on May 26 2010, one day after his Daily News column - Abdul Rauf appeared on the popular Islamic website Hadiyul-Islam with even more disturbing opinions. That's the same website where, ironically enough, a fatwa was simultaneously being issued forbidding a Muslim to sell land to a Christian, because the Christian wanted to build a church on it.
In his interview on Hadiyul-Islam by Sa'da Abdul Maksoud, Abdul Rauf was asked his views on Sharia [Islamic religious law] and the Islamic state. He responded:

Throughout my discussions with contemporary Muslim theologians, it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more than just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern. It is known that there are sets of standards that are accepted by [Muslim] scholars to organize the relationships between government and the governed.

When questioned about this, Abdul Rauf continued: "Current governments are unjust and do not follow Islamic laws." He added:

New laws were permitted after the death of Muhammad, so long of course that these laws do not contradict the Quran or the Deeds of Muhammad ... so they create institutions that assure no conflicts with Sharia.

In yet plainer English, forget the separation of church and state. Abdul Rauf's goal is the imposition of Shariah law - in every country, even democratic ones like the U.S.

Imam Rauf is dreaming to construct this mosque with his ultimate goal of Islamizing America. But, he possibly forgets one point. When Americans are attacked, they come together as one, under one flag, under one law against a common enemy that they are not afraid to identify. Religious freedom is central to America as a nation - and that is why the location of this project is so misguided. Ground Zero is purely about being American. And, there is no room for anyone to let this sentiment be anyway ignored by anyone.

I precisely understand the reason behind such huge flow of fund for this Tower of Terrorism at Ground Zero site. Many of the radical Muslim nations in the world are willing to give a ‘proper lesson’ to Americans by planting a so-called mosque at the very wound of those family members of the martyrs as well as patriotic Americans.

Secondly this very mosque, like many other large mosques and so-called community mosques in United States will turn into epicenter of Tablighi Jamaat activities. It is well documented that, Tablighi Jamaat preaches Jihad and encourages deceitful conversion of non-Muslims to Islam. Due to decade-long activities of Tablighi Jamaat in Bangladesh, the percentage of religious minorities, including Hundus, Christians and Buddhists are on fast decline. It is feared that, if Tablighis will be able to continue its activities inside Bangladesh for another decade, the country may witness a complete elimination of religious minorities from its population.

While Tablighis are actively working inside United States for Islamizing America, rogue Islamists like Abdul Rauf are not sitting silent. This man is moving ahead with his agenda of constructing the mosque at Ground Zero. Americans need to wake up now. Because, their silence will put America into further risk.

Shoaib Choundhury:  Weekly Blitz, the only anti jihadist newspaper confronting religious extremism and promoting interfaith harmony

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A letter from a mother who lost her son on 9/11

Here is a heart filled letter from Rosemary Cain. She lost her son George, a Firefighter on 9/11. She wrote this letter in response to the proposed mosque to be built at Ground Zero, sacred and hallowed ground. This was sent to Gadi Adelman by Mrs. Cain.

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Rosemary Cain clutching a picture of her son, George Cain

Received this letter and had to share it. This is in memoriam to George C. Cain.

From Gadi Adelman

Dear Mr. Adelman,

I just read your article and wanted to thank you for opposing the despicable plan to erect a mosque at the Sacred area of Ground Zero. Please keep up the information to as many people as you can and spread the word about these cowardly, murdering people.

Are you aware also, that they plan on having the opening of this mosque on the 10th Anniversary of the attacks? If that isn't a deliberate, well planned slap in the face....nothing is.

Bad enough they pulled off their cowardly attacks, now we are letting them walk all over the graves of our loves one.

Right you are, Mr.Adelman, we've lost our minds, along with our freedoms and our way of life that we've know up to now, and we are laying out the red carpet for them threw it all.

Peace to you,

Rosemary Cain,

Mother of Firefighter George C. Cain, Ladder 7, 35 years old, died 9/11, Twin Towers

Here is one of the comments to Mrs. Cain's letter:

 

Rosemary,
You have been an inspiration to many, including me. Even though you suffered an unimaginable loss, you volunteered to tend to the rescue and recovery workers, including my husband and his father.
For them to build this mosque 600 feet from hallowed ground where our loved ones were murdered, is an affront to all Americans and people around the world who were devastated by the attack on America.

Mr. Adelman, thank you for keeping us updated on the subversive activities of the enemies of America and global terrorists.

The mosque at Ground Zero. A Must Read.

I have put up a couple of posts in regard to the mosque at Ground Zero and I am 100% against this. You do not reward a dog that has constantly attacked you over and over, time after time, by exposing your body, or someone else's to repeated attacks by that same dog. That is what we are doing with Islam. Mayor Bloomberg should be ashamed of himself for allowing this to happen on his watch. If one knows Bloomberg then this is really no surprise at all. I think you could interchange him with the mullah obamaham and not notice any difference. What an insult to those who died on 9/11 and those who have given their all fighting Islamic Terrorism.

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The Ground Zero Mosque - First You Bomb And Then You Occupy
By Daniel Greenfield

Eurasia Review:  Did you know that downtown Manhattan has a huge Muslim population. That's right, a Muslim population so huge that it can only be serviced by a 100 million dollar mosque to be constructed in a 13 story building.

With that kind of project, you would have to assume that there's a local Muslim community in the tens of thousands that need to be served by a Muslim center. In fact there is no such community. The existing local mosques, including a nondescript metal door stamped Masjid, 5 blocks from Ground Zero, mainly cater to vendors selling burned meat from stores and carts, the "Halal Mafia" who insist on sending waves of foul smelling black smoke everywhere in their vicinity and are known to violently assault other vendors who want to do business in their vicinity.

Then there are the employees of closeout and discount stores selling everything from items bought up from stores that have gone out of business to used clothes and pirated movies in the vicinity of City Hall. These are being gentrified out of business as the neighborhood continues attracting a better class of businesses. Also the majority of those who work there are women. There are a few Muslims working at financial firms on Wall Street, but they are a minority, and they are also not neighborhood residents.

Unlike Park Slope or Boerum Hill or that ugly part of Midwood lined with rundown shops selling phone cards and cheap beads, Lower Manhattan is not home to a large Muslim community. No one seriously claims that it is. Manhattan's storefront mosques are largely used by Pakistani and Afghan Muslims who work nearby but who actually live in Brooklyn, Queens or New Jersey. None of this is seriously in dispute.

Imam Feisal himself admits in an interview that the majority of the worshipers at his mosque in Tribeca are not local members of the community.

The people who come here for jum'a [prayer] come from within the New York tri-state area. Of course, the majority work around here, but a number of them come from Uptown, Brooklyn or New Jersey , specifically to participate in the Friday prayer here and to hear my sermon.

Feisal doesn't even mention any actual Lower Manhattan residents attending his mosque. Only Muslims who work in the area and some who travel just to hear him preach. Which means that contrary to what Feisal told the Community Board, his proposed mosque is not similar to local Jewish and Christian community centers which serve local Jewish and Christian populations. Instead this will be a mosque that may serve something like a 100-200 committing Muslims at a cost of approximately 1 million dollars per Muslim.

The question then is who is this Ground Zero mosque actually for? If there aren't thousands of Muslim families in need of a 100 million dollar Mosque/Islamic cultural center-- why is it actually being built?

The number of mosques in New York City has increased dramatically in a generation, going from under 10 in 1970 to over a 100 in 2001, including 17 in Manhattan. That number is much higher today and many of the mosques have gone from storefront operations to occupying large buildings and using outreach programs to find converts. Those mosques have also begun to muscle in on local businesses, trying to shut down nearby bars. This establishes the mosque as not just a building where Muslims enter and do what they do, but as a foothold for controlling and remaking entire neighborhoods on a street by street basis.

A number of Manhattan liquor stores have already lost their licenses as the New York Muslim brethren of the Taliban use the municipal bureaucracy to drive them out of business, and if they can't do it legally, then they use threats and intimidation. These are not isolated incidents. Like the Minnesota Muslim cabbies who refused to transport passengers carrying alcohol and instead tried to impose two lines, one for those obedient to Sharia and one for the infidels, or the Target cashiers who refused to scan pork products, this is about imposing Islamic law on Americans.

Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan once wrote, "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." Erdogan's vision of Islam is the same as that of the Saudis, which awarded him the "King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam". And it is Saudi money that is behind the Islamist groups in the US such as CAIR which serve as the public face of Muslims in America.

What does building an Islamic "barracks" near Ground Zero really mean? What does taking over a building that was made defunct by the 9/11 attacks, buying up property for a fraction of their real price in a neighborhood whose commercial property values were destroyed by Islamic terrorism... in order to build one of those "barracks" really say? It's the next phase of the invasion. First you bomb and then you occupy.

After Al Queda "cleared the ground" in the attacks of September 11. This not only killed 3,000 people, but it also poisoned large numbers of rescue workers and damaged a number of nearby buildings, such as the Deutsche Bank building and the old Burlington Coat factory building-- which the proposed Mosque is taking over. And thanks to the massacre and devastation staged by their co-religionists, the 18 million dollar building was instead sold to a Muslim company for under 5 million dollars.

Quite a discount, wouldn't you say? Kill 3,000 infidels and you get to buy the building that your co-religionists devalued at less than a third of the price. Now that is what real Sharia economics looks like.

But occupation forces do this all the time. When the US occupied Germany, it used the IG Farben building, formerly the keystone of the Nazi industrial war machine as its military government headquarters. When the US occupied Baghdad, it took over and used Saddam's palaces as ops centers. First you bomb, then you occupy the headquarters of the enemy. The proposed mosque will be built on property that was hit by Muslim terrorism. Now it will serve as the staging ground for the next phase of the invasion.

As I have demonstrated, this proposed mosque is not meant to serve local Muslims. For one thing there are hardly any. For another thing, Imam Feisal has repeatedly emphasized that the mosque will be an educational and cultural center in order to promote Islam. It will have a swimming pool, a restaurant, a theater, a basketball court and all the trappings of Jewish and Christian community centers-- which makes perfect sense since it is really only aimed at Jews and Christians (and any other assorted infidels that may wander in). Its real model however is that of the Scientology centers which seek to lure in people so that they will join up. And this is just the beginning.

“From a programmatic point of view, this has never been done before,” Feisal added. “If we do this right, we want to franchise this concept, and build other Cordoba Houses like this in other American cities, and cities around the globe.”

Like McDonalds, except for Islam. One billion served. Or is that really one billion serving.

Remember those mosque barracks again? The barracks train the faithful in the way of Islam. And since the days of Mohammed, the way of Islam has been Jihad. And converts to Islam have proven to be extremely reliable terrorists.

The name Cordoba House is a popular one among Muslims operating in the West, because gullible Westerners can be convinced that it's about looking back to a golden age of tolerance between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Spain. In reality however, the use of Cordoba references the Muslim domination of Christians and Jews under the Caliphate of Cordoba which invaded and occupied Spain and parts of France.

The mission of Feisal's Cordoba Initiative; "to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relations within the next decade, bringing back the atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago"... can be read in one of two ways.

There is the gullible Westerner reading, which is thrilled by the idea of everyone living in peace. And then there is the informed reading which understands that in the Muslim cultural worldview, co-existence and harmony is the product of living under Islamic law. In the Muslim reading of history, there was general tolerance and prosperity under Islam, which can only be restored when the "tipping point" of a global Caliphate is reached and everyone once again is living happily under Islam. Just like in the good old days of Al Andalus and the Cordoba Caliphate.

Is this what Imam Feisal means? Let's consider his explanation of what the Cordoba Initiative is named for.

During its peak in the tenth and eleventh centuries, Cordoba was the most enlightened, pluralistic and tolerant society on earth, one where Muslims and Jews enjoyed a special relationship. My own organisation, the Cordoba Initiative, draws upon this legacy to once again shift Jewish-Muslim relations towards collaboration around our common values and interests

This of course sounds perfectly innocuous to Western ears. Except that one minor detail has been left out. The 10th and 11th centuries were the period of the Cordoba Caliphate. This "special relationship" that Imam Feisal is speaking about consisted of Jews living under Muslim rule and being tolerated by Muslim rulers.

What did this wonderful "special relationship" in Cordoba really look like?


In 1011 in Cordoba, Spain, under Muslim rule, there were pogroms in which, according to various estimates, from hundreds to thousands were murdered.

Meanwhile last month, before wowing gullible Community Board members, Imam Feisal was busy whitewashing Sudan's election where Sudan's El Bashir, who had presided over the genocide of Animists and Christians, was reelected by a sizable majority. The actual election was hopelessly corrupt. How bad was it really? So bad that even the Carter Center panned it. And the Carter Center had previously endorsed Chavez's and Hamas' elections. But that didn't stop Imam Feisal from giving it the green light in numerous articles posted on his Cordoba Initiative site and on Al Jazeera, urging "constructive engagement" with the genocidal Sudanese regime.

Because Cordoba can be anywhere. Anywhere at all that Muslims rule over non-Muslims. So long as Islamic law rules. And what's a little genocide between "believers"? And speaking of Islamic law, another project of the Cordoba Initiative, is the Shariah Index which measures the "Islamicity" of a state that determines how well the country complies with Islamic law. And that is where we are now. The next phase of the invasion. Occupation.

Imam Feisal has already said that terrorism won't end until the West acknowledges the harm it's done to Muslims. This of course is always the starting point at which the cycle of appeasement begins with terrorists. Acknowledge the harm you've done to us. Stop drawing cartoons of Mohammed. Give over some of your civil rights, your women's rights and your rights period. Accept the Medina Charter under which all conflicts are to be resolved by Islamic law. Submit.


The Ground Zero mosque is an obscenity and an abomination. It is no better than raising the Swastika over Auschwitz. Like the Crescent of Embrace, it symbolizes the Islamic dominance even over the graves of its victims. It is a despicable crime against the living and the dead, against the memory of an atrocity, by those who have profited from it.

The Prophet Elijah's rebuke to Ahab, "Have you murdered and also inherited?" would ring in the ears of any civilized person who sees such a terrible thing done. Who watches as the religion of the murderers seeks to erect a monument to its own self-glorification over the incinerated bodies of its victims. Not victims who happened to be killed by people who just happened to be Muslims. But who were murdered in the name of Islam. So that, in the words of the Koran, Islam may be, "victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist". (Koran 61:9)

So where will the next Times Square bomber come from? Perhaps he will be an ordinary American college student who stops by to look over Ground Zero and is puzzled over the beliefs of those who did this. And so he takes a free tour at the nearby Cordoba House. He is given the heavily whitewashed version of Islam, and he accepts it. He stops by whenever he's in the area and eventually he converts to Islam. As he goes through the stages, he's given more and more of the real beliefs of Islam. And by now he accepts those too. Soon he has no more use for the watered down preaching of Imam Feisal, who has served his purpose by bringing him and so many others through the door. Instead he grows a beard and begins attending a real mosque. Where they talk about the resistance in Palestine and Chechnya and Iraq. Where the Believers are really doing their part to make the world a better place by forcing everyone to live under Islamic law.

Three years later he is standing in front of a Manhattan bar wearing a heavy vest. Underneath it is a bomb. He enters the bar, and cries out, "Allah Akbar." Two years later, the burned remains of the bar finally find a buyer at a fraction of its original price. There is an Imam who wants to open a mosque there.

Daniel Greenfield is a columnist born in Israel and currently living in New York City. He is a contributing editor at Family Security Matters and writes a daily blog column on Islamic Terrorism, Israeli and American politics and Europe's own clash of civilizations which can be found at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.

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Protest growing against mosque at ground zero. This is a travesty to those who died on 9/11

All I can really add is this: If I lived back there or could afford to get back east, I would be at this protest in a heart beat! I can think of nothing that is more insulting to those who lost loved ones, family, friends and co-workers in the horrific and cold blooded attacks on 9/11. To allow a mosque here on what I and many Americans consider 'Sacred Ground'is reprehensible, insensitive and against what America lost on 9/11/2001. It would not matter if the mosque was only a 100 square ft. room. A mosque of ANY size is a perversion and should not be allowed. This is all part of Islam's plan, to do things like this. This would be a victory in the eyes of many Muslims and crowned a major victory throughout the Islamic world that the POTUS has apologized and bowed down how many times? Do not be fooled by this and the sickly soothing words that you read from the Muslim 'stealth jihadists'who are behind this sinsiter plot. I am posting the entire article as it is one I am calling a MUST READ. Please read the entire artcile. If you live close by then go to the protests that are planned.

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Islamic mosque at 9/11 Ground Zero sparks protest

'Any decent, American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn't dream of such an insult'
By Chelsea Schilling

WorldNetDaily; A human-rights group is calling on Americans – especially family and friends of loved ones who were lost when Muslim terrorists murdered 2,751 people in the name of Allah on Sept. 11, 2001 – to fight construction of a 13-story Islamic mosque to be built just steps from Ground Zero.

The five-story building at Park Place, just blocks north of the former World Trade Center site, was the site of a Burlington Coat Factory. That was, until a plane's landing-gear assembly crashed through the roof on the day 19 Muslim terrorists hijacked the airliners and flew them into the Twin Towers in 2001.

Now Muslim worshippers currently occupy the building, and they plan to turn it into a major Islamic cultural center called the Cordoba House.

The group Stop Islamization of America, or SIOA, led by Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs blogger and columnist, is hosting a "No 9/11 Mosque" rally at Ground Zero June 6 at noon to protest the construction.

"What could be more insulting and humiliating than a monster mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Center buildings that were brought down by an Islamic jihad attack?" asked Geller, executive director of SIOA. "Any decent, American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn't dream of such an insult. It's a stab in eye of America."

As WND reported, the building – previously vacant since that fateful day when time stood still as millions of Americans grieved the loss of loved ones, friends, family members, co-workers and strangers – was purchased last July by real-estate company Soho Properties, a business run by Muslims. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, founder of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, or ASMA, was an investor in that transaction.

Rauf has announced his plans to turn the building into a complete Islamic cultural center, with a mosque, a museum, "merchandising options," and room for seminars to reconcile religions, "to counteract the backlash against Muslims in general, " Speigel reported. The project may cost as much as $150 million. Plans for the facility also include a 500-seat performing arts theater, fitness center, swimming pool, library, public conference rooms, basketball courts and restaurants, according to the Tribeca Tribune.

Rauf said the mosque is expected to be a major step forward in the Americanization of the Muslim community and that if everything is done correctly, his group intends to franchise the concept and build more Cordoba Houses in other American cities and around the globe.

The Cordoba Initiative website states:

Cordoba Initiative aims to achieve a tipping point in Muslim-West relation within the next decade, bringing back that atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect that we have longed for since Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in harmony and prosperity eight hundred years ago.

Solving some of the most intractable conflicts in the world today requires innovative strategies for cross-cultural engagement. Cordoba Initiative tackles this mandate with forethought, expertise and the ability to leverage contacts in influential positions within the Muslim World and the West. ... [Bold in original text.]

He told the New York Times that purchasing the building "where a piece of the wreckage fell sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11."

"It was almost obvious that something like this had to arise from the ashes of 9/11," Daisy Khan, the Cordoba Initiative executive director, told Spiegel. "In some way, this has the hand of the divine written over it. It's almost as if God wanted to be involved."

The move is supported by the city. The Manhattan Community Board 1's Financial District Committee gave the plans a round of applause during a May 5 presentation, according to the Tribeca Tribune. The committee voted unanimously in favor of the center's construction.

In its list of business associations, Community Board 1 includes Masjid al-Farah, another mosque located at 245 West Broadway, where Rauf is spiritual leader. The mosque near Ground Zero, and future site of the Cordoba House, currently serves as an overflow building for Masjid al-Farah.

The mayor's director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Fatima Shama, told the Times just last year, "We as New York Muslims have as much of a commitment to rebuilding New York as anybody."

Aerial photo of World Trade Center Ground Zero following Sept. 11 attacks. Red square to right

 of Ground Zero marks former Burlington Coat Factory and proposed location of Cordoba House.

Imam Rauf, born in Egypt, has written three books: "What's Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West," "Islam: A Sacred Law" and "Islam: A Search for Meaning."

WND reported in 2003 when, at least four times that year, the FBI's New York field office held all-day sensitivity training sessions, not far from Ground Zero, featuring Rauf.

Speaking for about two hours each session, "he gave an overview of Islamic culture and some of the differences between what fundamentalist terrorist groups say are the teachings of the Quran and what he believes, as a student of religion, the Quran actually says," said special agent James Margolin, spokesman for the FBI New York office.

Rauf asserted that the Quran "certainly doesn't counsel terrorism, murder or mayhem," Margolin said. And he said terrorists have misinterpreted the Quranic term "jihad" to mean violent, or armed, struggle against nonbelievers. Rauf claims it means internal struggle.

Rauf was invited to speak in Sydney, Australia, by Premier Bob Carr in 2004. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he said the U.S. and the West must acknowledge the harm they've done to Muslims before terrorism can end.

He said the West must understand the terrorists' point of view – and he blamed Christians for starting mass attacks on civilians.

"The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets," he said.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (center) poses in a photo with attendees at a 2006 Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. On the far left is Sultan Muhammad, communications coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Chicago.

(photo: CAIR Chicago)

According to the report, Rauf said there would be little progress until the U.S. acknowledged backing dictators and the U.S. president gave an "America Culpa" speech to the Muslim world.


On June 4, 2009, President Obama gave a speech to the Muslim world from Cairo, in which he stated:

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles – principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings. … So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

Rauf praised Obama for "embracing Islam in the peacemaking process" in his speech. He wrote in the Washington Post:

The historic significance of President Obama's speech to the Muslim world in Cairo cannot be overstated. Never before has an American president spoken to the global Muslim community. His speech marked a major shift in American foreign policy. … In just a few sentences he demolished the phony theory of the 'Clash of Civilizations,' which insists that Islam and the West must always be in conflict. Instead, he declared the United States is not at war with Islam and outlined a plan for how the conflict can be resolved. … He captured the attention of Muslims because, unlike most politicians, he was willing to critique both his own country and Muslims where they fell short of their ideals.

In an interview with BeliefNet on Islam and America, a reporter asked Rauf, "Some Islamic charities are being investigated for terrorist ties. Have you seen what you consider to be reputable Islamic charities being financially damaged?"

"We believe that a certain portion of every charity has been legitimate," he responded. "To say that you have connections with terrorism is a very gray area. It's like the accusation that Saddam Hussein had links to Osama bin Laden. Well, America had links to Osama bin Laden – does that mean that America is a terrorist country or has ties to terrorism?"

In 2004, Rauf participated in a 30-second advertisement, broadcast on Arabic television, in which he apologized for alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.


The Times reported Rauf said he believes "Islamic terrorists do not come from another moral universe – that they arise from oppressive societies that he feels Washington had a hand in creating."


Scheduled speakers at the "No 9/11 Mosque" rally include:

Nonie Darwish, former Muslim, founder of Arabs for Israel and author of "Now They Call Me Infidel" and "Cruel and Unusual Punishment"

Simon Deng, Sudanese ex-slave and campaigner for human rights for Sudanese Christians

James Lafferty of the Virginia Anti-Shariah Task Force

Anders Gravers of Stop Islamisation of Europe, or SIOE

Geller will host the event with SIOA Associate Director Robert Spencer, best-selling author and director of Jihad Watch.

"The only Muslim center that should be built in the shadow of the World Trade Center is one that is devoted to expunging the Quran and all Islamic teachings of the violent jihad that they prescribe, as well as all hateful texts and incitement to violence," Geller said in a release announcing the protest.



As WND reported last year, readers of various blogs have been outraged at the news of the mosque. Comments included the following:

Muslims are doing this only to see if they get away with it. It's the way Islam spreads in every country these days, like a cancer – through incremental totalitarianism. In this case, they'll quietly open the mosque, then, as they get away with it, they'll ramp up their outrages until someone finally points it out. At that time, their lawyers, backed by the ACLU and various liberal organizations, will pounce.

This is not different than allowing the Nazis to establish their headquarters and propaganda office in NYC in 1938. How come people could tell right from wrong then and not now?

What bonehead allowed this to happen?

That's disgusting. That truly is low. I feel bad for the people who lost family members.

This is outrageous. I just don't have words.

You've got to be kidding me. If this is true, our beloved country is already gone. We no longer have the America I know and love.

Who wants to bet this place becomes a "tourist attraction" for Muslims? This mosque will become one of Islam's holiest shrines as it sits upon the site of their greatest modern military victory.

Good idea. Maybe terrorists will be less likely to bomb this area if there's a mosque there.

(Note: Concerned individuals may e-mail Mayor Michael Bloomberg, call his office at (212) 639-9675 or fax (212) 788-8123. Manhattan's Community Board 1 may be reached by e-mail, by phone at (212) 442-5050 or by fax at (212) 442-5055.)

Link to original article is here