The 1st Islamic Center Of NYC – Flashback

We almost missed this detail about the Ground Zero Mosque’s Imam, from the Associated Press:

Islamic Cultural Center of New York

Imam behind NYC mosque faces divisions over center

August 30, 2010
… Rauf was born in Kuwait, the son of an Egyptian imam and noted Islamic scholar, Muhammad Abdul Rauf, who came to New York City in the 1960s and helped lead efforts to establish the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the city’s first building designed as a mosque. The multimillion-dollar project took more than 25 years and opened in 1991. The elder Rauf also led the Islamic Center of Washington before taking a job in Malaysia…

This reminded us how much the claims for the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ match those that were made for the building of the first mosque in New York City, back in the early 1990s.
We were also reminded of some of the ‘controversies’ that were later associated with the ‘Islamic Cultural Center’ that Mr. Rauf’s father helped to build, especially immediately after the attacks on 9/11.
The Islamic Cultural Center of New York City’s first Imam was Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha. (In fact, Mr. Gemeaha, had lived in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, until he left the country shortly after the following interview.)
Here is a transcription of Mr. Gemeaha’s (aka Al-Gamei’a) October 2001 interview for his university, via MEMRI:

If the Americans Knew That the Jews Carried Out the September 11 Attacks They Would Do to Them What Hitler did

Go read the whole thing at Sweetness and Light.