There’s been so much information that’s come out about Feisal Abdul Rauf and his plans for the mosque at Ground Zero, I figured I gather all the evidence and put it here in one place for people to digest.
As you may know, a massive $100 million dollar, 13 story mosque and Islamic center is scheduled to go up at Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center was brought down in the name of Islam. And yes, I consider a place where landing gear from one of the planes went through 2 stories of the building to be a part of “ground zero”, so please don’t bring the argument that it’s not actually “ground zero”.
After you see everything here, it will be pretty hard to deny that the Imam behind this mosque project is nothing but an Islamist supremacist.
Now let me first say that I do believe Muslims if obeying the law, have the right to build this mosque at or near ground zero even if it’s done in disgustingly bad taste. The point is not about the “right” to build here though. The point is to expose the people behind the project. In this case Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf who is also the Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a New York City mosque. Rauf is also the leader of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), a New-York based nonprofit run by Rauf and his wife, Daisy Khan, since 2005. ASMA is the group behind the Cordaba House. (httip: JoshuaPundit)
Let’s start with his views about the terrorist organization, Hamas. He was interviewed by Aaron Klein and when asked to acknowledge that Hamas is a terror organization, he refused to comment on his position.
Listen to his own words here.
NY Post — The imam behind plans to build a controversial Ground Zero mosque yesterday refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.
According to the State Department’s assessment, “Hamas terrorists, especially those in the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, have conducted many attacks, including large-scale suicide bombings, against Israeli civilian and military targets.”
Asked if he agreed with the State Department’s assessment, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf told WABC radio, “Look, I’m not a politician.
“The issue of terrorism is a very complex question,” he told interviewer Aaron Klein.
[...]
Asked again for his opinion on Hamas, an exasperated Rauf wouldn’t budge.
“I am a peace builder. I will not allow anybody to put me in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy,” Rauf said, insisting that he wants to see peace in Israel between Jews and Arabs.
He also thinks America should be more “sharia compliant”. This is from a sub-chapter of his book:
In sub-chapter America: A Sharia-Compliant State, Rauf states “(w)hat I am demonstrating is that the American political structure is Shariah compliant, for a „state inhabited predominantly by Muslims neither defines nor makes it synonymous with an Islamic state. It can become truly Islamic only by virtues of a conscious application of the sociopolitical tenets of Islam to the life of the national, and by an incorporation of those tenets in the basic constitution of the country.‟ By the same token, a state that does incorporate such sociopolitical tenets has become a de facto Islamic state even if there are no Muslims in name living there, for it expresses the ideals of the good society according to Islamic principles. For America to score even higher on the „Islamic‟ or „Shariah Compliance‟ scale, America would need to do two things: invite the voices of all religions to join the dialogue in shaping the nation‟s practical life, and allow religious communities more leeway to judge among themselves according to their own laws” 86).
Also 11 days after the 9-11 attacks, he said on 60 minutes that the USA’s policies were an accessory to the 9-11 attacks and that Bin Laden was “made in the USA”
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 USA.
He also said according to an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, that the USA and the West, in order to stop terrorism, must acknowledge the harm they’ve done to Muslims.
The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end, says an Islamic cleric invited to Sydney by Premier Bob Carr.
“The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.”
In 2009 at the Huffington Post he wrote a post claiming that “Muhammad has been known as the first feminist” and that “Gender equality is an intrinsic part of Islamic belief.” In the same article he also said that Islam supports democracy and that “religious freedom is at the core of Islam”. Of course all of this we know is false and an outright lie when you take a closer look at the Muslims world, how they treat apostates, women, adulterers, etc.
But yea, there’s still more…
via Walid Shoebat
On March 24, 2010, Abdul Rauf is quoted in an article in Arabic for the website Rights4All entitled “The Most Prominent Imam in New York: ‘I Do Not Believe in Religious Dialogue.’”
Yes, you read that correctly and, yes, that is an accurate translation of Abdul Rauf. And Right4All is not an obscure blog, but the website of the media department of Cairo University, the leading educational institution of the Arabic-speaking world.
He’s also directly tied to the Islamist flotilla that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza:
The imam behind a proposed mosque near Ground Zero is a prominent member of a group that helped sponsor the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea this week.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a key figure in Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, according to its Website.
Perdana is the single biggest donor ($366,000) so far to the Free Gaza Movement, a key organizer of the six-ship flotilla that tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip Monday.
Nine passengers aboard the largest ship died in clashes with Israeli commandos, and a new confrontation loomed today, when another Free Gaza Movement ship was due to reach Gaza waters in defiance of Israel.
Here’s a direct link to the Perdana Global Peace Organization’s website highlighting Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.
There’s even more, if you want to keep going. Check this out from National Review’s Andy McCarthy to see his relationship with other radical organizations.
So what can further be said?
Should we just roll over and allow this Imam to build his massive mosque at Ground Zero?
hattip WeaselZippers and JoshuaPundit for the references