You’ve read about the plans of a small foundation called the Cordoba Initiative to build a whopping $100 million Islamic center near Ground Zero. There are many reasons to question whether this project for a “Cordoba House” should go forward. Some involve the symbolism of the plan, and the aims of the imam carrying the standard for this project, Feisal Abdul Rauf — Imam Feisal, to his followers — a man of Egyptian descent, born in Kuwait, with offices in New York and Malaysia.
For a good rundown on why New York authorities might want to rethink their approval of this project, here’s a recent article by my colleague, Andrew McCarthy, former prosecutor in the case of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Andy writes on “Rauf’s Dawa from the World Trade Center Rubble,” including a look at a “special non-commercial” version of Rauf’s book on America and Islam, with Muslim Brotherhood connections that Rauf probably did not advertise to the Manhattan community board that approved his Cordoba House project.
New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg has come out in favor of building this Islamic center (well, the Cordoba Initiative is describing it as an Islamic center with “prayer space”; some are describing it as a mosque with a lot of amenities attached). But it’s not clear that Bloomberg has done his homework. For questions Hizzoner really ought to get answers to, another of my colleagues, Cliff May, has written a column framed as an open letter to Bloomberg — it’s summarized and linked on Powerline. There’s plenty more that makes interesting reading, including a Pajamas Media piece posted in March by Alyssa A. Lappen, on “The Ground Zero Mosque Developer: Muslim Brotherhood Roots, Radical Dreams.”
I’m a latecomer among reporters looking into this story, but I recently took a closer look at the amounts of money involved, and the media reports that Rauf keeps stonewalling questions about his funding. On Thursday morning, I called Rauf’s New York office, at the Cordoba Initiative, and was told that until at least the end of August he was “traveling,” that he was “out of the country,” that he was “unavailable,” and that he was “not feeling well.”
I asked for a phone number, and was told that Imam Feisal simply could not be reached — which, in an era of global mobile phones, seemed a pretty neat trick.
So, on a hunch about the erstwhile ailing, traveling, unavailable imam, I picked up the phone Thursday night — morning in Malaysia — and called his office in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. Not to leave you in suspense, but if you want to read more about it, here’s my column on “Where in the World is Imam Feisal?” One thing’s for sure. The more one looks, the more the questions just keep multiplying.
A triumphful, bow-down-infidel-beyatches! mosque at Ground Zero by any other name.
Apologies, Miss Rosett, but your observations are all both valid and irrelevant.
The Cordoba House mosque’s funding sources are irrelevant; many projects are constructed here with foreign funds.
The background of the mosque’s principal promoters is irrelevant; until a man has been convicted of a felony crime, we deny him no rights any other man would enjoy.
Michael “Big Nanny” Bloomberg’s opinions are irrelevant; the mayor of a city, even of New York, is not permitted to exercise discretionary application of the law.
What’s relevant is that Islam is a totalitarian ideology of world conquest, alien to the United States and quite as hostile to its Constitution as Communism, and must not be permitted further access to this nation.
Bravo; and, ditto!
I’ll see your comment and raise you one. Not only should the brakes squeal like a stuck pig; this infiltration should shift into all out reverse.
The silence heard from all the ‘friendly to America’ Muslims is deafening – and, telling.
The Mosque will be a CITADEL OF CONQUEST. That is so obvious to the average common sense American that it takes an effete “elite” like the dolt Michael Bloomberg to pretend otherwise. He is after all, OUR BETTER. He knows better than we in the serf class, we of the human rubble he rules over over day. Don’t you just love it when he preaches to the rest of us about “religious tolerance”? He makes a fetish of “tolerance” and yet….he has less tolerance for an adult who wishes to enjoy a legal adult activity, smoking, or ingesting food loaded up with that horror of horrors, trans fat, than he would for a covert group of intolerant vicious enemies who will erect a monument to their cunning designs and thus attack our spirit and collective psychology, for starters. Bloomberg becomes a street preacher wagging his finger at all and sundry when it comes to unprotected SEX but when faced with something far larger than an unsheathed male organ, well, that form of unprotected “penetration” conjures up fuzzy virtues like “tolerance and religious freedoms.” Yeah right, you jerk-off. Bloomberg is a trans fathead whose cognitive emissions should be locked in a shield of sheepskin. For the protection of the citizenry. I’ll smoke to that.
hello. you are bad talking a building here, you pompous architectural critic. if your delicate spirit and collective psyche are infinitely needing psychoanalysis from a building, you should probably strengthen your own faith: from the inside of the building of your particular tastes. perhaps a huge gold dome atop the mosque would act alike a golden headdress, or crowns of the ancients; shielding peoples needing relief from the coming onslaught of cosmic radiation -melting brains into raging torrents of strife; and you would prefer to take refuge in that building- because you can not buy your own crown made of gold. it could be a good thing, aside from the fact that people kill- not buildings, weapons, nor thoughts. religious freedom means no exceptions. stop harming the American Constitution.
So you’d have no problem with a Catholic Church in, say, Medina? (and allowing any and all Christian Arabs and converted Muslims to worship there unmolested?)
People keep bringing up this lousy argument…”why can’t I build a church in Saudi Arabia?” If anyone did a bit of reading, you would realize that S.A. is a “RELIGIOUS STATE”. Compare apples to apples!! Let’s break it down for the ignorant: Vatican City is a religious state exactly like S.A. Does anyone want to build a mosque in Vatican City? No! Wouldn’t be permitted to even build a synagogue in Vatican City. So, not churches in S.A. for the same reason there are no synagogues in Vatican City. Both are religious states that represent their respective religions. If you would like to build a church in another predominantly Islamic country like, say…UAE, then go right ahead. Build a church in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, etc. Not problem.
Whoa! Time for the meds, bro!
It’s too much, the symbology of establishing a permanent waqf in lower Manhattan.
A waqf is permanent in Muslim cosmology, can never be removed or destroyed. That’s why Islamists are so intent on returning to the original Cordoba.
If Bloomberg mutters words in support of this Islamic center, that asininity is consistent with his absurd speculative remarks on the Times Square bomber immediately following that incident.
Rauf’s father was a close associate of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, which organization describes its “work in America” (1991) as “…a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
What better way to effect that sabotage than a mosque at Ground Zero ? The achievements of 911 are still celebrated all over the Muslim world.
In an interview with 60 minutes, Rauf issued numerous anti-American statements and stated that the “United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” and that “in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”
Rauf, like the crowd heading up CAIR these days, refuses to name Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations.
In the spirit of taqiyaa (sanctioned lying to the infidel) Rauf has claimed…”Our purpose is to interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society.”
In March 2009, Rauf said that “Islamic law and American democratic principles have many things in common,” and he claimed that sharia’s endorsement of “political justice” and “economic justice … for the weak and impoverished” is a creed that “sounds suspiciously like the Declaration of Independence.”
This sort of transparent verbiage as well as all the yakking about better relations between Islam and the west are so much blowing in the wind. It’s pretty easy to “understand” Islam, its policies of stealth infiltration as well the agenda for the planet promulgated at its radical fringes.
This “Islamic center” (read mosque) would not only establish a permanent waqf in lower Manhattan but would be a permanent blot on the landscape of America.
Yeah, “political and economic justice for the weak and impoverished” under Sharia law as long as you are not a woman, Jewish, Christian, homosexual, non-believer of any stripe, I could go on for hours. The only justice in Sharia is for true believer Muslim males. Why does America have a problem with recognizing this? Because of mush minded progressivism that spurns the Constitution until they have a way to use it against people who believe in it. Islam is not a religion! It is a 7th century ideology wrapped in a delicious candy (religeous) coating that sucks weak minded violent men in. Why else would all the power and all the rewards here and in the afterlife go to the men?
Why don’t people also ask why the group is named the Cordoba Initiative? Cordoba in Spain was the capital of Moorish Andulusia. Most of our local elected officials either endorse this plan or are very quiet about it. There are mosques all over NYC, including a very large one on the Upper Eastside. It isn’t the mosque which is so alarming, it is the location. A little “sensitivity training”
about the sensibilities of New Yorkers, and Americans in general is needed here, don’t you think? Or doesn’t anyone think that we deserve the same consideration
Muslims demand as they use our freedoms to undermine those very freedoms.
There’s no “cosmology” in Islam. Strictly forbidden.
Next, a waqf is similar to a charitable trust – like an endowment fund – used strictly to benefit those less fortunate. Wondering…do you even know a Muslim where you can get answers to these simple questions? Or are you just filled with hate and ignorance against anything that you don’t attempt to understand?
a Symbolic VICTORY MOSQUE at Ground Zero is the IDEAL TRIBUTE of success for the perpetrators of 9/11
yeah he just wants to make believe, he’s just a regular guy from the Jersey shore.
This is getting a little tiring. How many mosques are there in NY already? How many throughout the nation? A lot. So much for diversity…it’s never enough is it?
This “Islamic Center” will never see the light of day…game over Islamists. “Taqiyaa” is nothing more than deliberately lying to get what you want. Islamists are simply using our own rules against us; there’s a specific word used for this type of stealth jihad, (maybe someone could enlighten me) and of course it has been working marvelously, so they’re encouraged even more; especially as multiculturalists and PC promoters have allowed them access to the highest levels of our government and our national security staff. These people have but ONE goal: the expansion of Islam. We also happen to be the only country standing in the gap for Israel…
We are at war with Islam; it’s that simple and it’s about time our leaders and every one of us takes it seriously.
NO MOSQUE AT GROUND ZERO
I am not a Jew but I would be against the building of a building whose purpose was to revitalize the German-American Bund of the 30′s somewhere in the vicinity of a holocaust memorial or a concentration camp. That would be extremely insensitive and I am hoping that a moderate Islamist would take a secret poll of moderate muslims to learn the true feelings they have of the Cordoba dilemma.
Dear Steve,
There’s no such thing as a “moderate Islamist”. Not in the sense you mean, anyway.
If ‘they’ did exist; you would have heard an understanding, compassionate, and supportive statement from ‘them’ by now. And, that statement would include beginning a movement of their own to retreat from this purposely insulting plan with profound apologies to all.
The truth of Islam can not exist as the American true Americans know – EVER. They are fundamentally mutually exclusive.
time people started calling this holy war a freaking HOLY WAR
For further establishment of mush mindedness of the progressives, have a look at the Flight 93 Memorial now being discussed at Newsrealblog.com. Because Muslim undercover work (taqiyaa) managed to get their shrine to the terrorists off the ground in Pennsylvania they are emboldened to get this trash built in New York.
If any sort of pork products or pork parts were to be dispensed upon the property or the building itself, if it gets that far, would that make it so this waqf thing would become invalid? Would an encounter with something that is haram, especially on a mosque invalidate the validity of being a religious building? And since when do religious buildings have cultural centers and art gallery’s? Just wondering whilest I enjoy some good sausage gravy and biscuits.
That the mosque has gotten this far also illustrates the appalling corruption of America’s ruling class. It is also some sort of ‘jizya’ so the West can assuage ‘Muslim feelings’ over Iraq, Afghanistan and ‘Palestine.’ That is why Barry went to Cairo, Ankara, etc.
I don’t think there is any way out of this – the elites are corrupted beyond repair. It’s not about political parties. Bush was as bad on this subject. And nobody has ever found Osama bin Laden. Before she was murdered by unknown parties, Benazir Bhutto said that the ISI had killed OBL, the agent being the Syeed character who is apparently linked both to the horrendous Pearl murder and 911, through money wiring to Atta. It is all stupefyingly stupefying.
Then name Cordoba has real significance here because the Caliphate De Cordoba represented the greatest penetration of the western world by the Muslims. At one point during the 10th century AD the Caliphate De Cordoba dominated and controlled over 3/4ths of the Iberian Peninsula and the Muslims ran a very profitable state, were poised to attack and conquer the rest of Europe when the west woke up to the threat and beat them back. Go to this site to see the extent of the Caliphate in the 10th century:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Califato_de_Córdoba-1000.png
what millions of americans need to do is print something like;this mosque is a shrine dedicated to osama bin laden,the 9/11 hi-jackers,and all other terroist;who murdered 3000 innocent americans,incold blood.brought to you by;sponsors of terrorism,and the new recruiters of terrorism,and sharia law,against theamerican people,especially the christians here and the jewish people in israel; your newly recruited islamic gihadist”mayor bloomberg,the city council of n.y.c. and all american,christian,and jewish hating progressive liberals; print them on t- shirts ad’s etc.
Like the battleground at Gettysburg, some plots of American ground require different treatment. This is a large country. There’s plenty of room for a mosque….elsewhere.
Ample make this bed
Make this bed with awe
In it wait til judgment break
Excellent and fair
Be it’s mattress straight
Be its pillow round
Let no sunrise’s yellow noise
Interrupt this ground
-E. Dickenson
If the Muslim world wants to prove that islam is about peace and tolerance, they will fund and build a non-denominational CHRISTIAN church at ground zero, as a sign of respect for a primarily Christian country. Alternately, they could build a Christian church a few yards away from Mecca.
Don’t hold your breath.
Claudia Rossett: PLEASE keep digging. I am gravely concerned that this story now is completely defined as a partisan divide, especially since the ADL statement became the story. That is when I did just a little digging, and alarm bells went off about Feisal Abdul Rauf and the Cordoba Initiative.
Personally, as a lifelong student of New York City architecture, I object to the scale and facade design of the proposed Cordoba House, in addition to believing the location has already defeated any prospect of being part of a ‘healing process’. 45 Park Place is also a terrible location for a community or cultural center since very few people actually live there.
One of the curious aspects is that so many bloggers are citing Greg Sargent of the WashPo that the conclusion of the ADL statement is the key passage of the ADL Statement. Anyone who remembers the construction of a persuasive essay knows that, usually, one of the developed points in support of the conclusion becomes the “key passage”. THIS is the key passage in my eyes:
“The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process. Therefore, under these unique circumstances, we believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found.”
Yet one side of the partisan media echo is following Greg Sargent’s inaccurate read in lockstep, citing the same conclusion as the ‘key point’.
Anyway, it may be that only the architecture critics will be able to stop the political correctness pile-on. Calling on Ada Louise Huxtable! “the continuing barrage fired from [her] Sunday column… had New York developers, politicians, and bureaucrats, ducking for years.” Costonis, John J (1989). Icons and Aliens. University of Illinois Press. p. 53.
After all, NOTHING gets New Yorkers more excised than out-of-scale, out-of-context architecture, a truly non-partisan, non-ideological battleground.
My guess is Bloomberg has done his homework, he is being bribed or threatened. No honest American would support this.
No doubt Obama would be a speaker at the groundbreaking.
What on earth have americans done with their legendary perspective and commonsense?
A gentle, judicious “no, it would not be appropriate” is all that is required.
The fact that they wanted to call it “Cordoba House” tells two stories–
one, they consider building this mosque equivalent to seizing the territory they attacked on 9/11, just like the building of the mosque in Cordoba a few hundred years ago after conquering it.. it’s all symbolism with them..
and two, they think we’re so stupid that we won’t KNOW what the significance of “Cordoba House” is.
they didn’t stay with the name. We weren’t that stupid. But their symbol of having attacked and conquered Manhattan, a mosque around the corner from WTC, is still a very significant goal for them.
The first thing the Mohammedan ARABS did when the conquered the Holy Land was to build a MOSQUE right on top of the Dome of the Rock the JEWS most holy site TRIUMPHALIST you bet your life it was and they called it Al Aqsa the FANTASY Mosque that the LIAR Mohammad said he visited on a FLYING WOMAN FACED DONKEY LOL. Similarly with Istanbul the first thing convert the Sofia CHURCH with the world then biggest DOME in to a MOSQUE . They also want to call this Graond Zero Mosque CORDOBA a reference to Mohammedan ARAB CONQUERED Spain.
So any gullible , naive fools who THINK!!!! that this Ground Zero Mosque is not an act of Mohammedan TRIUMPHALISM are just fooling themselves Mohammedans have a long HISTORY of doing it.
Overstepping: Part One–The Insult that Is the Monster Mosque
Now that Chelsea and Marc’s nuptials are over and I can take a deep breath and my heart can stop excessively pittypatting from the excitement, we can all sit back and wait for news on whether a ketuba was signed, a canopy used, and a glass broken as is all traditional in Jewish wedding ceremonies.
It’s hard to imagine after that star-studded multi-million dollar event staged by luminaries of the Democrat Party of the Common People that other things were actually happening in the world, things that reflected an obtuseness, an ignorance of the fact that one can push just so far before people will push back, things that showed people were overstepping their bounds.
Examples of recent overstepping involve the Monster Mosque at Ground Zero, the sneaky shenanigans on amnesty on Capitol Hill, and the future king of England, never the brightest color in the royal crayon box, once more making a complete ass of himself.
The Mosque: In an interview with NY1, New York Republican candidate for governor, Carl Paladino, who has as much chance of being elected as Mayor Bloomberg would have being elected mayor of Riyadh, was free to speak his mind. His mind, soul, and body are viscerally committed to preventing the erection of a huge mosque, cultural center, library, restaurant, gymnasium, auditorium two and a half blocks from Ground Zero. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1816)
Even if tons of information were available about why Muslims want to build a mosque near Ground Zero it is unlikely that any of it would make much difference to a PC politician like Bloomberg.
Information about what the followers of Islam want for this country and the world is readily available here and wherever the Internet is not censored. Admittedly, much of what Islam wants is pretty harebrained. But this does not lessen its danger to us (and to Muslims, by the way). And it certainly does not give any politician the right to be complaisant about this religion’s followers. It is a dereliction of responsibility for any US politician to accept at face value assurances of Islam’s peaceful intentions.
But if certain American politicians cannot help but think along the lines of what is best for Muslims—perhaps because they are overly sensitive to the fact that they are seen as a despised group—it might be profitable for them to consider what would happen to Muslims here in the aftermath of another, more serious terrorist attack. One would think the Ground Zero mosque would be a very obvious target of American wrath, as in it would be burned to the ground.
A precept in Islam: Lie when necessary to the “infidel”, and build a mosque on or near what is conquered. History has proven this to be true over and over again.
All you need to do is go to Jerusalem and look at the Temple Mount upon which Muslim conquerers built a Mosque so that a Jewish Temple will never rise again on the site. In many ways the Islamists considered the World Trade Center our Temple. QED
Never say never.
Enough with the sanctimonious hand-wringing over the “mosque” already. Where is the outrage over Saudi influence over American media? Does no one remember it was the Saudis who attacked us? That their state religion, the 18th century Wahhabi cult, is cousin-in-law to the Taliban and al-Qaeda? It is painfully obvious that the Saudis – the very worst of “allies” – use their fabulous wealth to bend American journalism to their will. Surely their 7 percent ownership of FoxNews is not unrelated to that network’s obsession with raising U.S. hostility towards Iran to the level of a “shooting war.” Witness CNN’s firing of Octavia Nasr, the correspondent who lamented the death of Shi’ite cleric on her Twitter account. Who hates the Shia as much as they hate Christians and Jews? The Saudis, that’s who!
For shame that Bloomberg or anyone else would agree to allow this Islamic BS to be built anywhere in the continental US, let alone in NYC near ground zero. What are all these AH Politicians thinking? Geez, from Washington to NY we Americans are being sold down the river on large barges, not piecemeal. Is any of the so called “silent majority” going to stand up and scream NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO? Dear God in Heaven what tripe do we have to endure to make all realize we are living in the “last days” and had better prepare ourselves. We have only ourselves to blame. Our greed for the lies and promises we use to justify putting such vile AH’s into office is beyond belief. Starting from the President on down, I am so disillusioned with this country and all that the masses do without consideration for our country and population as a whole. First, elect a black man without any credentials to warrant him as a leader, GIVE him a Nobel Prize for nothing and then slap everyone in the face with a huge mosque to rub our faces in it. Let me say that when the real backbone of America decides to say “that’s enough”, I pity those nearby. We should all be outraged at all of the political clap trap going on since the fiasco of a corrupted ACORN election took place in 2008. I am glad my dear father, a veteran of WWII has not lived to see any of this. He would not care if the President were purple, if the election was legal and those who voted could even read, write and understand that you do not vote anyone to lead your country only because he is of your race, not caring if he is going to socialize the entire country whether YOU like it or not. Bloomberg apparently is just another one to callously go against common sense. May God have mercy on our souls!
A mystery? Maybe there is Saudi money placed in the right hands or should I say pockets. End of mystery.
Praise Allah!! The Martyr’s Memorial Mosque WILL be built in the shadow of their ultimate victory. The brave Saudi Martyrs will always bathe in the glorious memory of their strike at the great Satan. The Martyr’s Mosque will become the most sacred Muslim site in the whole western hemisphere, at least for now. Blessing be unto the Saudi faithful who provide most of the funding to revere the sacred memories of the glorious Saudi Martyrs who will now always be revered in their memorial. We all pray for the day when the true nature of the Martyrs’ Mosque can be known.
IN spain they slayed and buried a pig in the ground intended for the building of a mosque and made it very public , as a result the mosque was not built as it could not be built on <> .so you now what to do if you doent want a mosque at that site.
Who is going to build this thing??