Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Confrontational Islamist Plan for 911 Mosque Mired in Chaos
Confrontational Islamist Plan for 911 Mosque Mired in Chaos
May 17, 2010
By WILLIAM MAYER and BEILA RABINOWITZ
May 17, 2010 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - According to a study done by the New York Post - published in its Sunday edition - an increasingly controversial plan to build a $100 million dollar, 13 story mosque just two blocks away from the epicenter of the Muslim terrorist attacks of September 11 is seriously short of funding and engulfed in questions regarding the motivation of its proponents.
The newspaper's story goes on to show that the organizations which are publicly leading the effort - the American Society for Muslim Advancement [ASMA] and the Cordoba Initiative - together have assets of less than $1 million.
"The American Society for Muslim Advancement, which proposed the center, has assets of less than $1 million...[and a] sister organization, the Cordoba Initiative, listed assets of less than $20,000 in 2008. Its tax filings do not disclose at least $60,000 in private contributions, a Post analysis found, raising questions about where the money went."[source, New York Post, Short on Allah Dollars, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/short_on_3UhQftAjXfFZq1fNURK3BM?sms_ss=email]
Kuwait born imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is at the helm of this effort and runs both groups. He is listed on ASMA's website as, "Founder of ASMA and Chairman of Cordoba Initiative." [source, http://www.asmasociety.org/about/p_people.html]
This lack of funds raises additional fears that the shortfall will be made up from the deep pocket fundamentalist Wahhabis and Salafists of the Middle East who will use the erecting of a mosque at ground zero as a means of extending cultural and religious hegemony.
In his public utterances and activities Imam Feisal has demonstrated skill in building a non-threatening persona, having created a media friendly image of moderation despite a record of extremist and plainly bizarre statements.
For example, during the second segment of the CBS News show 60 minutes broadcast on September 30, 2001, Feisal Abdul Rauf - the alleged moderate - engaged host Ed Bradley in the following manner:
Bradley: "Are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?"
Faisal: "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened, but United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened."
Bradley: "You say that we're an accessory? How?"
Faisal: "Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense Osama bin-Laden is made in the U.S.A."
[source transcript available at the "Islam for Today" website - http://www.islamfortoday.com/60minutes.htm]
Feisal has also claimed that the essential elements of Shari'a - Islamic religious law - are embodied in the American Constitution which seems to be a naked attempt on his part to create a moral equivalency where none exists.
"Islamic law and American democratic principles have many things in common...The framers of the Constitution wrote that they were establishing justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty. In the same way, Islamic law believes that God has ordained political justice, economic justice, help for the weak and impoverished. These are very Islamic concepts."
[source, Washington Post, Obama vs. Osama in Muslim World, http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/feisal_abdul_rauf/2009/03/why_obama_should_speak_to_the_muslim_world.html]
Imam Feisal has assured critics that the building of a mosque - on sacred ground, soaked in the blood of innocents - is neither insensitive nor intentionally antagonistic. However when seen clearly, it's an outrageous and blatant act of Muslim domination...a concept dredged up from the 7th century.
That the takiyya laden Feisal and his murky group of backers are so blind as to be unable or unwilling to see the offensive nature of such a move - perhaps the most singularly insensitive and indeed warlike move that any Muslim could propose - speaks with elegant testimony to the assertion that advocates of radical Islam will not stop until both their violent as well as the stealth jihad - of which Feisal could be the poster child - is defeated.
If this is what moderate Islam is all about perhaps a rethinking on our part of the religion's capacity to coexist at any level with the West is in order.
©2010 PipeLineNews.org LLC. William Mayer, Beila Rabinowitz. All rights reserved.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=feisal5.17.10%2Ehtm
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