Imam Says NYC Mosque Site Is Not 'Hallowed Ground'

Sept. 13: Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, addresses the Council on Foreign Relations in New York (AP). 

NEW YORK -- The imam leading the effort to build an Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero says there is a "misperception" that the proposed site is sacred ground.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said Monday that the location where the center would be built, two blocks from the World Trade Center, has a strip joint and betting parlors nearby. He says it's "absolutely disingenuous" to suggest that it is "hallowed ground."

He also says the location is important, because it will serve as a platform where the voice of moderate Muslims can be amplified.

Rauf make his remarks before the Council on Foreign Relations.

Rauf says the center will be a place for all faiths to come together. He says "the world is watching what we do here" and that it is important to "live up to our ideal."

Meanwhile, there's this from Atlas Shrugs:

The world's leading scholar on Islam, Ibn Warraq, author of five books on Islam and Koranic criticism: Why I Am Not a Muslim, 1995; The Origins of the Koran, 1998; What the Koran Really Says, 2002, has a must read piece on the stealth jihadist behind the Ground Zero Islamic supremacist mega mosque, Imam Feisal Rauf,  in today's NRO, One Imam, Multiple Messages:

Rauf praises the tyrants in Iran and is apparently ready to accept their money for the Islamic center at Ground Zero, but he fails to explain the term vilayet-i-faqih to American audiences. The term, literally “the guardianship of the jurist,” was developed by Ayatollah Khomeini in a series of lectures in 1969, and became the guiding principle of the government of Iran after he came to power in 1979. The concept is but an extension and slight modification of the Shia idea of walī, in which Ali and the imams succeeding him were considered guardians of the community, acting on behalf of God himself. Under this concept, the people of Iran are the wards of the ayatollahs, and the people of Iran owe the guardians absolute obedience in accordance with Sura IV verse 59 (“O you who believe, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority from among you . . .”). Secondly, the exclusive right of interpretation of Islamic law belongs to religious scholars. Thus there is nothing democratic about it — its totalitarian character should be evident. Rauf’s endorsement of this principle makes him the unequivocal defender of totalitarian Khomeinism.

Rauf says one thing to Western audiences and another to Muslim audiences. He is quite capable of writing reassuring things, as in the New York Daily News earlier this year: “My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists. We are the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric. Our purpose is to interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society.”

But when presented with actual opportunities to “interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society,” Rauf and most of his fellow Muslims decline. Nearly ten years ago, I was the guest of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies (PISAI) of Rome. PISAI is dedicated to interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. But as the director at the time said to me, “There is no real dialogue, since Muslims never reciprocate the goodwill gestures made by the Christians. The result is we sit down together, and the Christians say what a wonderful religion Islam is, and the Muslims say what a wonderful religion Islam is.” Rauf was invited to give a sermon in a church and did so, but he never reciprocated by inviting a Christian to give a sermon in a mosque. This, for Rauf and his ilk, would be unthinkable.

Go read the whole thing.