Debate Heats Up About Mosque Near Ground Zero

[whocares]

I could care less how a white American responds if he is relating a mosque to terrorism attacks. As far as where the mosque is built it should be built even closer. This is tackling the issue of religious tolerance in a country that is a nation of immigrants and makes it clear that they are for religious freedom and the freedom of speech. I bet these people were totally fine with draw Mohamed day (Which btw i thought was fine) Yet they are against building of a mosque. If these "white Americans" could understand the difference between Islam and Islamic terrorism they would be fine with it. They don't and that specifically is the issue that this is tackling. By saying no they can't build here we go against religious freedom by relating Islam to what the terrorists on 9/11 did.Our founding fathers would be rolling in their graves right now.

i wouldn't want to drag the discussion into details about religion, but lets just say that their are features unique to islam that make it more political and muslims more prone to seditious behaviour than other religions.

won't go further as this is not a forum on religion. i'll intentionally leave the claim unsubstantiated and others are free to regard it as just an opinion.

 

[NWO]

4. that attack was done by Muslim extremists in the name of Allah. . is it wrong????

Yes, it is wrong. Their handlers may have claimed that, but the hijackers themself got drunk, ordered pornographic videos, and went to strip clubs. Don't really sound like extremists. Their handlers, yes, but not the hijackers themselves. They seems more like non-practicing Muslims then anything else.

2. they have used Islam behind every attack. is it wrong?

What about Daata Darbur? Was Islam used for that?

3. ground zero is the place where one of worst attack happened in American history. is it wrong??

What about Gettysburg or Antietam?

1. those terrorists are born Muslims. is it wrong?

Southern slave masters were born Christian? Off course, this must mean Christianity is a oppressive and evil religion. That is the most logical conclusion, right?

If you want to know about Christian terrorists, then look at the KKK. If you want to look at much larger scale terrorism, look at pretty much any history involving the West and imperialism.

 

[amit27]

I dont think the neo cons will allow a mosque on ground zero and id advice american muslims to rethink the location as it will be target for radical extremist to attack.

 

[True_Pakistan_Zindabad]

Muslims have the right to build on Ground Zero as our community has suffered the most globally and in North America with regards to prejudice and ignorant perceptions fueled by an uncontrollable media and two faced policies of insidious governments both local and bara bahi. We have been thrust into the limelight all based on the words and actions of a lone idiot Arab terrorist named Osama bin Laden and his actions have justified governments all over the world to do harm to Islam and Muslims. Erecting a Mosque on Ground Zero will bring closure to this decade of Crusades and it is the West's best way of saying "We are a free country open to all faiths and this discussion should not even be happening."

Build my brothers, make it rain on them ****

 

[EjazR]

Is is not a mosque nor is it at ground zero.

It is a community centre that will be open to allcommunities not just muslims. It will have food court area,swimming pool,a 500 seater audotrium among other things and a memorial to 9/11including the about 200 muslims who died that day. Only one floor will be a prayer area. Also itis about two blocks away from Ground zero.

 

[Tshering22]

Is is not a mosque nor is it at ground zero.

It is a community centre that will be open to allcommunities not just muslims. It will have food court area,swimming pool,a 500 seater audotrium among other things and a memorial to 9/11including the about 200 muslims who died that day. Only one floor will be a prayer area. Also itis about two blocks away from Ground zero.

YouTube - Imam Feisal Press Conference

Won't it be better if this center is simply replaced with a moemorial of some monument sort that addresses to all the victims of all religious backgrounds? A civil one?

Like a statue to freedom of terror or something with a stone comprising of all 3,000 names of innocents who died and where people can place bouquets and flowers in their fond memory?

Communalizing this sort of a tragedy is cheap.

 

[EjazR]

It is will be a memorial for all9/11 victims where did I say it will be only for muslims.There will be another memorial at thesite ofGround zero. This is where the main government sponsored memorial will be. Like I said it is NOT on ground zero.

Did you know that 200 muslims lost their livesin the attacks? The centre is about infroming to the world, we are the majority muslims who reject the terrorists attack. These terrorists are criminals irrespective of their religion. Muslims have also been victims of this attack.


Besides the NYC council board which represents the people of New York and the residents living there have supported it overwhelmingly. The vote was 29 for 1 against. The mayor of NY is supporting it. The cultural centre 2 blocks away from Ground zero has support from the local community acorss all faiths includingChrisitans and Jews.

 

[r3alist]

why do we treat 9/11 like some holy event, we have our own troubles

as a consequence of 9/11 afghanistan, iraq and now pakistan have had so many 9/11's that nobody even bothers to put a date to the event

9/11 was over a decade ago in another country, i think its ludicrous to talk about how outrageous 9/11 was when you have hundreds of thousands who have died as a consequence of the decisions made because of 9/11

its truly perverse.

 

[Tshering22]

It is will be a memorial for all9/11 victims where did I say it will be only for muslims.There will be another memorial at thesite ofGround zero. This is where the main government sponsored memorial will be. Like I said it is NOT on ground zero.

Did you know that 200 muslims lost their livesin the attacks? The centre is about infroming to the world, we are the majority muslims who reject the terrorists attack. These terrorists are criminals irrespective of their religion. Muslims have also been victims of this attack.


Besides the NYC council board which represents the people of New York and the residents living there have supported it overwhelmingly. The vote was 29 for 1 against. The mayor of NY is supporting it. The cultural centre 2 blocks away from Ground zero has support from the local community acorss all faiths includingChrisitans and Jews.

It is will be a memorial for all9/11 victims where did I say it will be only for muslims.There will be another memorial at thesite ofGround zero. This is where the main government sponsored memorial will be. Like I said it is NOT on ground zero.

Did you know that 200 muslims lost their livesin the attacks? The centre is about infroming to the world, we are the majority muslims who reject the terrorists attack. These terrorists are criminals irrespective of their religion. Muslims have also been victims of this attack.

Besides the NYC council board which represents the people of New York and the residents living there have supported it overwhelmingly. The vote was 29 for 1 against. The mayor of NY is supporting it. The cultural centre 2 blocks away from Ground zero has support from the local community acorss all faiths including Chrisitans and Jews.

Dude! don't take it so personally. I am not saying that Muslim life is lesser than others. I just mean that total 3,000 human beings died there which included 200 Muslims. There's no need to make a special case out of this. Everyone there the entire lot of 3,000 men, women, kids, elderly, soldiers, communists, Christians, Atheists Jews, Muslims and what not, equally suffered pain of losing loved ones.

You say that it is a cultural center for all, right? But those who live in USA in NYC, they are not happy with it. This thread also titles that it is a mosque. Everywhere it says it is a mosque. Why is it that you are saying something else and the news channels, papers etc say something else?

Those guys who live around the area won't be ignorant as to what it is. That's their place and they must be knowing what exactly it is.

Since you said it also includes centre for Jews and Christians, the people (including Christians and Jews and other Eastern communities) are still opposing it. And even if it included other two communities for your sakes, it becomes impartial to other religious communities like Sikhs, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists that also suffered 9/11, right?

This means that they don't want any cultural centre there. So why so much offense taken when no one wants any monument of any cultural connections at all? The city's theirs; the New Yorkers wanna make it a general monument that denotes humanity in general more than any community(s).

You should be happy that the demand is for a monument that shows all communities as humans that lost lives in that dastadly terrorist attack.

 

[EjazR]

^^I am correcting the wrong perception here.Media is not always right and I am presenting the facts.


Here is an OpEd from a Pastor Welton Gaddy in NewsWeek
A Pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, LA, Gaddy has written more than 20 books and hosts the weekly radio show, State of Belief.


Great irony in outcry over Ground Zero mosque
On Faith Panelists Blog: Great irony in outcry over Ground Zero mosque - Welton Gaddy

Q: The New York City community board endorsed the Cordoba House, a community center and mosque planned for construction near Ground Zero. Significant opposition has emerged against the project. Sarah Palin even weighed in this weekend, tweeting, "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing." Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero?

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the spiritual leader of Masjid Al-Farah mosque in lower Manhattan, has gained a reputation in New York for his interfaith work and his progressive practice of Islam. Together with his wife Daisy Khan, Imam Feisal envisioned devotees to Islam sharing space with other communities to enjoy arts, culture and dialogue. Inspired by the struggle of other religious communities seeking acceptance in America, they set out to establish Cordoba House, named for the Spanish city where Muslims, Jews, and Christians together created one of the most fertile and creative civilizations in the world.

What Feisal and Daisy did not envision was the firestorm their vision would create. For some, the idea of a cultural center located two blocks from Ground Zero has proven unacceptable. For others, such an Islamic institution would represent the best traditions of religious freedom and tolerance in America.

Last week, Daisy Khan joined me for a conversation on State of Belief, my weekly radio show. She expressed concern that critics of the Islamic cultural center have deeply misunderstood its creators' intent. The center will not function primarily as a mosque; New York City is already home to more than 200 mosques. Rather, modeled on the success of religiously based establishments like YMCAs and Jewish Community Centers, the Islamic center will serve the larger community to become an institution for learning, collaborating, and sharing knowledge across faiths and cultures.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a supporter of the Islamic cultural center, framed the issue in terms of the right to the free exercise of religion, saying, "Government should never - never - be in the business of telling people how they should pray, or where they can pray." Still, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, Imam Feisel and Daisy Khan's defense of the center has focused not on religious freedom but on the diversity of resources it would bring to lower Manhattan - space for inter-community cultural events and multi-faith prayer, community services such as gym facilities and cooking classes, and yes, even a memorial to those who died on September 11. They are very sensitive to the continuing grief and other emotions that remain with people who lost loved ones on that tragic day.

Some critics claim that the establishment of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero will somehow hinder America's healing process following September 11. The truth is that the people wanting to establish the center are themselves Americans, wanting to aid the healing process. No one holds exclusive rights to Ground Zero, a place that holds deep and painful meaning to all Americans.

A great irony disturbs me. For years, public discourse (sometimes unaware of a plethora of the sounds for which it pleads) has called for a great moderate Muslim voice to counter extremism. Now, when such a voice is seeking to be heard in meaningful and helpful ways, it faces severe backlash and strong opposition - indicating a continued fear and ignorance of the Muslim faith, even at its most peaceful.

I commend and admire Daisy Khan for being so hopeful. "We always take comfort is knowing that Islam's struggle in this country is the same as the struggles of those that came before us," she told me last week. "It's one of acceptance. America remains shining example of religious freedom and acceptance." I, for one, hope she's proven right - starting in New York City.

 

[EjazR]

Details from the offcial website. Note that the centre is called PArk51 now.It is nolongerCordoba House

Cordoba House - New York City | Cordoba

Why the Cordoba House?

Cordoba House is a Muslim-led project which will build a world-class facility that promotes tolerance, reflecting the rich diversity of New York City. The center will be community-driven, serving as a platform for inter-community gatherings and cooperation at all levels, providing a space for all New Yorkers to enjoy.

This proposed project is about promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture. Cordoba House will provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all.

The site will contain tremendous amounts of resources that otherwise would not exist in Lower Manhattan; a 500-seat auditorium, swimming pool, art exhibition spaces, bookstores, restaurants - all these services would form a cultural nexus for a region of New York City that, as it continues to grow, requires the sort of hub that Cordoba House will provide.

 

[Iggy]

People are making unnecessary issues on simple matters..people become more and more intolerant to other religion now a days..Why cant they just mind their own business??

 

[EjazR]

And a Jewish rabbi writes in support of the intiative here


Guest Voices: A symbol of progress in Lower Manhattan - On Faith at washingtonpost.com

By Joshua M. Z. Stanton and Zeeshan Suhail
Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue
Muslim Consultative Network

In the rabbinic tradition, it is said that if you bring color to a person's face by upsetting them, it is as though you have physically struck him. If so, the Cordoba House and its leaders have endured a true assault.

This past month has seen a flurry of protests from extreme opponents of the Cordoba House, a proposed community center in Lower Manhattan that would be founded by Muslims but serve all New Yorkers. While dissenters comprise only a small minority of voices, they have drowned out the large and growing number of the center's supporters, as well as those who simply want to learn more about its overarching aims.

Individuals, like tea party leader Mark Williams, have mislabeled the Cordoba House a potential breeding ground for fundamentalism and tried to smear its sponsoring organizations, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, both of which have a strong record of promoting interfaith dialogue and improving Muslim-Western relations.

Sadly, these protesters have failed to distinguish between the mainstream Muslim majority and the tiny minority of militant Muslims.

Opponents say that building a Muslim-led community center near Ground Zero, a site of profound American loss and pain, would be a "victory" for militant Muslims and a loss for Americans. In fact, it is the undermining of Cordoba House that would be a true loss for Americans. One need only look as far as its name - inspired by the medieval city in Spain, Cordoba, where Christians, Jews and Muslims co-existed and thrived for 800 years - to realize that these critics are misguided.

In fact, Cordoba House is poised to become a gathering place for the enemies of militant Muslims: mainstream Muslims. It will be a sign of internal resistance to the tyranny that a small group of terrorists has tried to impose on the broader community of Muslim believers, whose ultimate goal is peace.

We, a lay Muslim American and former New Yorker, and a future rabbi and current New Yorker, are proud to stand behind this initiative. It sends a clear and profound global message that Muslims will not tolerate extremism and instead seek to collaborate with followers of other faiths and work for the common good.

Global significance aside, just imagine the local impact of Cordoba House: the community center would provide, in its creators' words, a "cultural nexus" for New Yorkers to come together for education, performances, sports and person-to-person interaction.

New York is one of the most religiously diverse cities in the world. Where better to create a space where Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Hindu New Yorkers, among others, can learn from each other through art classes, poetry readings, film screenings and interfaith dialogue? By investing in the larger New York community, Cordoba House is poised to become an incubator of social progress and haven of tolerance.

In many respects, fringe opponents of the Cordoba House have already failed - even before they rallied in protest against it on June 6. New York's Community Board recently endorsed the community center with a vote of 29 to 1, with 10 abstentions, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed his support for its construction.

Yet for Cordoba House to achieve its true potential, particularly in the face of such radical critics, people of all backgrounds must support this initiative and others like it - politically, socially, financially and, most importantly, personally. For it to truly bring together people of all religions and even those of no particular faith, New Yorkers - and indeed all Americans - should voice their support for Cordoba House and speak up about what they would truly like to see within its walls.

By participating in this effort together, New Yorkers can reclaim Cordoba House from its detractors and help it come to fruition as a symbol of progress.

Zeeshan Suhail is a Board Member with the New York City-based Muslim Consultative Network. Joshua M. Z. Stanton is co-editor of the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue and a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College in New York City. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service.

 

[EjazR]

And if you are looking at the reasons at why people are protesting some of them don't even make any sense.

For example the tea party leader said derisivley that this will be a monument to worship their "Monkey God". Indians will straightaway know that how wrong this is and anyone who has an inkling of knowledge of Islam will know how wrong this statement is.

Like I mentioned before the NYC board which represents the local community has approved it, so they don't have any problem. The Mayor of NY who is himself jewish has supported it fully. This shows that the locals support the community centre.

What is happening nowis people who are notknowledgable on Islam or people like Sarah Palin are trying to weigh in on the issue. Hencethe move to bypass the local NY development board meetings and lodging a case in the landmarks tribunal.

 

[Ras]

The ADL has shot itself in the head with this move...first the mosque is not at ground zero. It is 2 block away. So if you cannot build a mosque there then how far away is it acceptable..5 blocks,10 blocks...

All Americans have the right to practice their religion.And this nonsense will end.