NYSlimes article - Dec. 2009-Jan. 2010
“We like Imam Feisal, the way he presents the philosophy of the true Islam that I call it,” said one of the congregants, Mohammed Abdullah, an investment banker who traveled from Washington for the service.
[...]The location is not designated a mosque, but rather an overflow prayer space for another mosque, Al Farah at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa, where Imam Feisal is the spiritual leader.[...]
[...]Kukiko Mitani, whose husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the building at the time, tried to sell it for years, at one time asking $18 million. But when the recession hit, she sold it in July to a real estate investment firm, Soho Properties, for $4.85 million in cash, records show. One of the investors was the Cordoba Initiative, an interfaith group founded by Imam Feisal...]
“It’s really to provide a place of peace, a place of services and solutions for the community which is always looking for interfaith dialogue,” said Sharif El-Gamal, chairman and chief executive of Soho Properties.
The patched-up roof was easily visible on a recent tour of the building, along with evidence of its sudden evacuation: food bags still in a fifth-floor staff refrigerator and, most eerily, a log sheet for the testing of the emergency alarm system that shows a sign-in signature for 9/11 but no sign-out.
Records kept by the city’s Department of Buildings show anonymous complaints for illegal construction and blocked exits at the site. Inspectors tried to check but were unable to gain access, so the complaints, though still open, were listed as “resolved” under city procedures, according to an agency spokeswoman, Carly Sullivan.
But worshipers are legally occupying the building, where retail space is offered for lease, once a week under temporary permits of assembly through December, Ms. Sullivan said.
With 50,000 square feet of air rights, Imam Feisal said, the location, with enough financing, could support an ambitious project of $150 million, akin to the Chautauqua Institution, the 92 Street Y or the Jewish Community Center.
Joy Levitt, executive director of the Jewish Community Center, said the group would be proud to be a model for Imam Feisal at ground zero. “For the J.C.C. to have partners in the Muslim community that share our vision of pluralism and tolerance would be great,” she said.
Mr. El-Gamal agreed. “What happened that day,” he said, “was not Islam.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ref=nyregion
An investment banker travels from Washington specifically for the service - interesting. Who is this guy and is he the individual who financed it? One wonders if this is really about an el-grande building to house Sharia Banking on Wall Street. What a double victory for Islam that would be...
We’re also told they’re occupying it legally via leasing but one wonders if it is actually legal as it doesn’t appear to be up to city code.
Exclusive: Are We Financing Our Own Demise?
March 2, 2010 - Gadi Adelman, Joy Brighton
[...]Just as Sharia is not about religion, but rather politics and power, Sharia banking is not about banking: it is about politics, economics, and power – which explains why Iran was the first and remains the only one of two countries in the world today (Sudan being the second) that mandates 100 percent Sharia banking. When Khomeini deposed the Shah in 1978, secular law and human rights went out and Sharia law, oppression and zealot mullahs came into every aspect of life, including the banking system. Prior to 1978, the entire world including the Middle East practiced traditional, Western banking. Today, Iran remains the market leader in Sharia Finance and the market leader in terror finance and terror in general.
Would AIG, Citigroup, Dow Jones, HSBC, UBS, Visa and Mastercard have become involved with something called Apartheid Finance? Or Nazi Finance? Of course not. So why are they involved with Sharia Finance? Have these firms stopped reading the newspapers? Don’t they know that Sharia-driven Iran is building nuclear weapons and funding the Sharia-driven Taliban who is killing our own young men and women soldiers? Or that our President is putting economic sanctions on Sharia-driven Iran?[...]
[...]Four of the most sought-after “Sharia authorities” in the industry, listed below, reads like a Who’s Who of Terrorists. They all sit on the board of the AAOIFI (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions) or the board of IFSB (Islamic Finance Standards Board).
And guess who sits on these boards? IFSB members include the central banks of Iran, Sudan, and Syria (all designated state sponsors of terrorism) and the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA), which is widely documented since its inception to be a funder of terrorism.
Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawiis on the Board of AAOIFI, the Bank Al-Taqwa (shut down in 2001 by the U.S. Treasury for terror funding) and many other Middle East banks. Qaradawi, has been banned from entering the United States of America since 1999 and the United Kingdom since 2008 because of his ties to terrorism. He created a 57-member network of charities called the “Union of Good,” which is designated as a sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. Government.
In July 2003 in Stockholm, at a conference arranged by the Muslim Association of Sweden, he expressed his support for suicide attacks against Israeli civilians which he called a “necessary Jihad.” Perhaps this is why he described Sharia charity dollars as “Jihad with Money” in an interview with the BBC in 2006. During an address to the Journalists Syndicate in Cairo (Associated Press, September 2, 2004) he stated, “Fighting American civilians in Iraq is a duty for all Muslims… Americans in Iraq are all fighters and invaders. There is no difference between a civilian and a military American in Iraq”. Lastly, just to show how ‘charitable’ he really is on July 7, 2004, in an interview with BBC TWO’s Newsnight he said, “Allah Almighty is just; through his infinite wisdom he has given the weak a weapon the strong do not have and that is their ability to turn their bodies into bombs as Palestinians do.”[...]
[...]Funny how our government seems to be talking about sanctioning Iran while, at the same time, stopping the Taliban (with the blood of our own young people). The SEC is urging stricter regulations to avoid another sub-prime disaster. The U.S. Treasury and 32 central banks are considering stopping business with the shady Iranianbanking system which doesn’t comply with global banking standards of transparency and money-laundering. Yet Sharia Finance, the financial system of Iran, is rolling full speed ahead right into neighborhoodbranches of AIG, Citi, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, Prudential and UBS.
As I have said and written many times before; enough is enough, open your eyes, get involved, tell your friends, family and colleagues and your Congressmen and Senators too. Sound the alarm![...]
Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmaniis the Chairman of AAOIFI and is, or has been a paid Sharia Sheik on the Board of HSBC, Dow Jones, Citigroup and Guidance Financial. He is the Founder and Director of Jamia Uloom madrassa, the second largest madrassa in Pakistan, which “boasts close ties to the Taliban” according to International Crisis Human Rights Group. He was the Deobandi Cleric to the Taliban in 2001. According to a comment piece in The Times (UK), September 8, 2007 Usmani “believes that aggressive military jihad should be waged by Muslims ‘to establish the supremacy of Islam’ worldwide.”
Imran Ashraf Usmaniis on the Boards of AAOIFI; AIG, HSBC, Citigroup, Lloyds TSB Bank (UK) and Credit Suisse Bank. Imran is the son of Sheik Taqi Usmani, schooled in the same Jihadist Pakistan madrassa. Banks are replacing Taqi Usmani with his son, Imran, as his father’s Jihadist background is being publicized.
Sheikh Yusef Talal DeLorenzo is on the boards of AAOIFI; IFSB, Barclays Capital, Dow Jones, Guidance International, Sharia Capital and Blackrock. He is an American convert to Islam who dropped out of Cornell and was educated at the same Jihadist Darul Uloom madrassa as the Usmani father and son team.
He was also an advisor to Pakistan President Zia al-Haq 1981–1984 during the creation of the Taliban. He is the past Director of Education for the Islamic Saudi Academy, which has been condemned for its hate curricula by the Congress-appointed U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom. DeLorenzo was the secretary of the Fiqh Council of North America (FCNA) which The Investigative Project has linked to Islamist extremism and terrorism. It was Sheikh DeLorenzo who said using the word “ethical” was a better description than “Sharia” for Western bankers to understand.
So what do these sheiks actually do? One of their jobs is to ensure that somehow money from Sharia investments gets sent off to charity. The problem is that their definition of charity and the definition of charity according to most Americans are polar opposites...
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5632/pub_detail.asp
Excellent article in it’s entirety.