Well, that’s creepy. Not that surprising, though, I suppose. I would object to that mosque being built at Ground Zero or to ANY attempt to allow sharia law into the court system as they are discussing or have implemented in other countries. From my point of view there is nothing at ALL “just” about sharia law, which automatically denies women custody of their children if they are past a certain age or if they refuse to raise them as Muslims. Sharia law is utterly barbaric when it comes to punishment of criminals too, since people can have their hands or legs cut off or be stoned for adultery, etc., in its most extreme form. Even the more moderate countries are unfair to women in Islamic courts. Sharia law can never be legally binding in the United States. This fellow is delusional if he thinks Americans will ever accept such a thing.

Rod, you say:
“It is absolutely par for the course for American Muslim leaders to speak out of both sides of their mouths on the question of peace, tolerance and their intentions, and to get angry when anybody points that out (you really should read this transcript), and tries to draw them out on what they really believe.”
I understand your concern, and I am sure that some Islamic leaders have been duplicitous. But please watch the over-generalizations.
Since 2001, many Christian leaders could be accused of the same things, whether that is being duplicitous, or simply changing their minds over time, or trying to speak sympathetically to different audiences.
One of the most helpful lectures I ever heard was when Sam Wells, Chaplain at Duke University, presented ahead of time some of the sermons/messages he had delivered, and then walked us through how he had worked to craft them for public, Christian and Duke University audiences. That gave us in campus ministry a great deal of guidance in how to speak faithfully to these various audiences.
Peace,
Randy G.
Read more: http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/#ixzz0pEBxQE2w

I predict Manning’s Corollary within 20 comments.
Seriously though, I think this is a phenomenon that we see in all sorts of parts of the West where Muslims seek to integrate into society.
Designing and building large religious complexes in the centre of world cities like NY is very expensive, with the result that financial assistance is often required from rich members or institutions of that religion.
Not to put too fine a point on it, in the Islamic world, many such individuals and organisations are morally compromised, through connections with religious extremism, terrorism, the arms trade, and despotic governments. Those who seek their largesse may therefore have to either ingratiate themselves with the donors, or hold their nose and take tainted money.
I say this not to excuse the unpleasant views of men like Rauf – I have big doubts about this project going ahead – but to indicate a serious problem even for Muslim moderates. Islamic moderates, of course, also have the problem that there are severe limits to how they can interpret away the difficult bits in the Qu’ran and the Hadith.

Sourcewatch has some interesting comments about AIFD. If money is a concern with the mosque, I wonder if it is also a concern with AIFD and its cohort organizations?
American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) a right-wing lobby group, founded in 2003 by M. Zuhdi Jasser.
AIFD claims to battle “Islamo-facsism” and to be “a leading voice for liberty-minded Muslims in America in the war on terror.” [1] In the “members” section on its website, it lists only one individual — its founder, Zuhdi Jasser [2], who is also “one of the founding members” of CIP, by his own account. [3] The emergence of groups such as AIFD, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in January 2006, has Pipes’ broad endorsement. “”I see the emergence of these new groups as vital to present an alternative view to Muslims,” he said. [4]
The group seems to have no support at all beyond right wing publications such as National Review Online, or the New York Sun. AIFD’s raison d’etre seems to be the targetting of mainstream Muslim organizations, such as CAIR. In his critique of CAIR, Zuhdi Jasser writes:
“We need to create organizations — high-profile, well-funded national organizations and think tanks — which are not afraid to identify al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah by name, and by their mission as the enemies of America.”
The conflation of al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah is interesting, as two of them have nothing to do with the United States; their adversary is only Israel.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Islamic_Forum_for_Democracy
Associated with AIFD is the Center for Islamic Pluralism, which also claims Mr. Jasser as a member.
One of its founders was Stephen Schwartz, who is its Executive Director and, based on its 2005 annual financial return, its only full time employee. Another of the founding members of the group is M. Zuhdi Jasser who also founded another group with the same agenda, American Islamic Forum for Democracy[1].
In its 2005 annual return to the Internal Revenue Service, CIP discloses that its total income for the year was just over $107,000. The source of the funds is listed as “direct public support.” In the same year its total expenses were just $53,467, of which $30,000 was Schwartz’s salary.
Now, granted, the data here is old, and things may well have changed over the years. So conclusions should be lightly drawn from this data. But it is interesting that there seems to be such narrow support for this allegedly “moderate” Muslim leader. Could it be that most Muslims in this country see more neo-con theology in his writings than Muslim theology?
More importantly, is this yet another snow job by a neo-con group? We’ve seen what happens when we take neo-con propaganda at its face value. Hopefully journalists have learned from their completely bamboozling in 2001 that anything a neo-con suggests should be verified at least twice. It would be a shame if they let the wool be pulled over their eyes again by the same sleight of hand.

Ha, excellent, Manning’s on the second comment, before my comment was even published!

Ha, excellent, Manning’s on the second comment, before my comment was even published!
Given yesterday was based solely on a Godwin’s Law comparison, I think it’s okay to allow the occasional breach of the so-called Manning’s Corollary.

We’ve had this discussion here before.
If you believe that Islam is the most true faith, that it is just and good in and of itself, and many Muslims do (not all – there are cultural Muslims who don’t really believe the tenets of their faith just as there are nominal Christians) then you believe that it would be best if everyone eventually came to the faith. Islam shares this concept with Christianity.
Islam has in common with Judaism and Christianity a prophetic or forward-looking hope. The theme of a Messiah, or the return of a great Prophet, is very common in all strains and sects of each of the three Abrahamic religions. But there is more to the story than a longed for figure coming or coming back. For instance, in Judaism, there is the concept of Tekkun Olam. Literally translated it means repair of the world, but it’s more at restoring the wholeness of the world. Christianity speaks of the entire world becoming reconciled and restored.
Islam posits that a perfectly just government is possible under Islamic principles. And it may well be true, the problem is that human beings are not perfectly just, and so will not manage to actually make a perfectly just government happen. There is a tension between believing as a Muslim in Islamic law and living in democratic plural society. I think that if you buy into the basic concept of our government, that government being left to the people is the best protection against unjust rulers, it’s not a problem to live as a Muslim under U.S. law. But you still might believe that in the fullness of time it would be better if prophecy was fulfilled and everyone and everything became Muslim. If questioned, you would have to answer honestly that that is your belief.
The problem is that Salafis and Wahhabis want to push Muslims to choose between their current government and Islamic law right now. And if they choose Islamic law, they want their followers to take up a fight against those they see as aggressors against it (that would be us Westerners of course.) Never mind that there is no end game but death or imprisonment or exile to yet another unjustly run country. Islamic extremism is not a positive ideology, but a negative one. They may talk of a Caliphate or Islamic law, but they have no real plans to implement it. Look what they produced in Afghanistan – opium farming and blowing up little girls because they dare go to school. Hardly a beautific vision of the future to strive for. (This is why a lot of people, including myself, argue that Islamicists fall entirely outside the traditions of Abrahamic faith.)
Our only hope is that potential followers of Islamic extremism will come to understand that the movement cannot deliver any end game worth the fighting for, that in fact it has no intention of it. It just aims to destroy.

A few quick points:
1) Two blocks is a lot farther in NYC than it is elsewhere. You won’t even be able to see the building from the memorial.
2) There’s already a mosque closer to Ground Zero.
3) This guy said he wants laws that do not conflict with sharia, or Muslim religious law. How many Christian leaders fight laws that they say conflict with Christian religious law? All of the politically-inclined ones.
4) If you’re actually worried about the implementation of Sharia in America, you’re crazy. No exceptions, you’re crazy. There is no other way to put it or to be more generous about it. It’s not going to happen. Ever. The people who say so do so either because they have an agenda to push (endless war in the Middle East) or they’ve been scared by people who do.

2) There’s already a mosque closer to Ground Zero.
Really? Haha. Figures.

“The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Sharia that are required to govern. It is known that there are sets of standards that are accepted by [Muslim] scholars to organize the relationships between government and the governed.”
An imam who says this is not a Muslim liberal, in the sense of believing that religion should be a completely private matter. However, it does not necessarily follow that he believes in the imposition of curent-type Shariah in the USA (BTW, I don’t agree with rj that that’s a crazy suggestion, but it’s obvious not in the near future). There is the third alternative; that he thinks Shariah is open to interpretation as being compatible with secular liberal law, or at least that secular liberal law should only be changed in the sorts of ways that fairly mainstream Christians would like to change it. I realise that is very much a minority Muslim position, but there are jurists who say that, for example, any country that does not persecute Muslims is part of the Dar-al-Islam, that the jizyah is covered by income tax, that thieves do not have to have their hands cut off but merely to be subject to civil penalties, and so on.
I agree that journalists, etc., should be much more effective in finding out what imams, etc., have actually said. Influential people have to be held to task for their statements and actions.

RJ, you’re wrong about the distance in that neighborhood. New Yorkers know that lower Manhattan blocks are irregularly sized, and typically shorter than blocks in the grid part of the city (north of Houston). Look at a map and you can see that this planned mosque is a long stone’s throw from Ground Zero. I don’t care if there was a mosque there prior to 9/11, or if, in the normal course of events, Muslims who live in lower Manhattan establish a mosque there. That’s not what this project is about. It was conceived as a response to 9/11, and to make a statement. I find that inappropriate and even offensive. To be sure, I wouldn’t particularly want to see a $100 million Christian church and community center built so close to Ground Zero as a statement about Ground Zero. I think it’s a bad idea for Ground Zero to be captured for any particular religion or sect. Of course there were churches near the site before the attack, and they should remain. I don’t care if any church wants to establish itself near the 9/11 site, as a place of ordinary worship. I think the grandiosity of a $100 million religious site built with specific reference to 9/11 is inappropriate, and, given that the mass murder was carried out by Islamic religious fanatics in the name of Islamic jihad, deeply insensitive. But I’ve said that a hundred times.

To be sure, I wouldn’t particularly want to see a $100 million Christian church and community center built so close to Ground Zero as a statement about Ground Zero.
You probably wouldn’t have written about it two days in a row, though, citing anti-Christian activists to support your position. Your issue is with Muslims. At least be honest about that and don’t try to be ecumenical in your concern.

“4) If you’re actually worried about the implementation of Sharia in America, you’re crazy. No exceptions, you’re crazy. There is no other way to put it or to be more generous about it. It’s not going to happen. Ever. The people who say so do so either because they have an agenda to push (endless war in the Middle East) or they’ve been scared by people who do.”
I would tend to believe the latter, that fearmongering has been used to scare people into a belief that does not align with facts. Logical inconsistency is often the child of such fear-based beliefs. We see this in many arguments from the right.
- We must fear Sharia law here because of how it is being handled in other countries.
- We must not institute hate crime legislation at the federal level because such laws are used to throttle freedom of religious expression in other countries.
These are two recent memes we have seen on Beliefnet blogs in the past months. Yet, contrast them with the following argument heard in conservative circles against the current Supreme Court nominee:
- We want judges who do not look to other nations in interpreting our Constitution or the laws passed by Congress.
- We do not want international law or practices in other countries considered when we are determining policies here in the US.
It’s strange how folks making these latter two arguments often, when the issue at hand calls for it, flip the coin and make one of the former two arguments. If religious freedom issues must be decided solely by our laws and our governmental structure in one case, then they should be decided by those standards in ALL cases, shouldn’t they?
Our nation has the First Amendment. Conservative Christians are among the first to grasp this amendment in justifying their attempts to model civil and criminal policy after their interpretation of the Bible. Opposition to GLBT civil rights and same-sex marriage is made based on Biblical interpretation and Christian tradition, with the insistence that our national laws MUST adhere to these conservative interpretations of scripture. Likewise the notions of covenant marriage laws, and making it more difficult to get a divorce, or preventing same-sex couples from adopting children are all drawn, at their root, from the same conservative interpretation of scripture.
Yet these same individuals and organizations rail at the notion of granting to other religious groups the same protection, freedom and opportunity to influence public policy that they themselves enjoy. When the Obama administration discontinued the practice of a Presidential audience being granted to conservative Christian leaders there was an outcry about the administration taking an anti-Christian position (as if only these conservative leaders were true Christians). Yet when the same administration sends low-level staffers to meet with the heads of several non-theist groups you would think that the President himself had professed atheism. The screams and howls coming from many on the religious right was deafening, and still resounds in arguments such as “well, if it were atheists they would…” or “of course, since it’s a Christian concern they will ignore it like they did when…”
Sorry folks, but you cannot have it both ways. You cannot hold out the First Amendment as a shield for the political activities of groups that reflect your interpretation of Christianity and then seek to withdraw it from other religious groups who wish to exercise the same rights you take for granted.
Yes, there were attacks made against this nation by individuals and organizations claiming to be Muslim. These attacks killed several thousand people over the years. We’ve also seen attacks in this country from people claiming to be Christian. While the body count on their side comes nowhere close to the count on the Muslim side, the motivation and effect on the public psyche is identical. Whether it is a plane slamming into the side of a large building, a truck exploding and taking down a large building, or an individual walking into a church or military base and shooting people (either randomly or as a targeted assassination), the effect is the same.
Is the proposed Mosque too close to Ground Zero? Should we be concerned with the mindset and thoughts of those behind the construction of the Mosque? Should we be digging into the financial backing of this project?
Let’s shift this a bit. Let’s say the Catholic Church wanted to build a new 13 story community center in Boston, a community that has been rocked by the child abuse scandal in that church. The stated claim of the Church in wanting to construct this center would be to try to offer healing and understanding, and perhaps restore some comity between the Church and the community.
Imagine further that a group of Unitarian-Universalists, Humanists, and others in the community (maybe even some *shudder* liberal Christians) objected, saying that the center was too close to the epicenter of the Scandal, or that it was simply too soon for such an effort. Suppose they questioned the funding source for this center, or started looking into the background of those heading up the effort. How quickly would the phrase “Catholic bashing” come from conservative Christians? Would statements such as “we are not blaming all Catholics for the abuse, or suggesting that all priests are abusers” carry any weight with them? Or would all opposition to the Catholic community center be considered hate-based and bigoted?
Yeah, I know…Manning’s corollary. But while you are trotting out that label to slap on my post, do try to take a moment and explain how you concerned, conservative Christians are any different from those Catholic-bashing, bigoted liberals I offer in my example.
Interesting captcha: remote teapots

Of course my main issue is with the fact that this is an Islamic center of worship. I have never hidden that fact. I just added the Christian thing because Zuhdi Jasser’s column made me reflect on how I wouldn’t really want any religion to capture 9/11 for itself, so to speak. But as I have always made clear, and I made clear in this post, I object specifically to the Islamic character of this project. One of the great irritants of running this blog is people who do not read what I’ve actually written, and then get on their high horse accusing me of having said things, or having not said things, that are actually in the text. You still haven’t said how far away a mosque should be built! Uh, yeah I did.

*shakes head*
Good day, Mr. Dreher. May your Memorial Day weekend be a time of joy and rest with your family.

The growth of Islam in the United States will follow the same course it has followed in Europe, in Southeast Asia, and every other part of the globe (very pridictably I might add).
It is inevitable there will be simultaneous growth of Militant Islamists right along with the general growth. Some of those will become radicalized, resulting in the unrest (coupled with terrorist events) and general devolvment of our the culture.
Wherever Islam grows, slippage of quality of life, religeous freedom, and Judeo/Chrisian values are pressured into submission, followed by outright rejection and ultimate persecution.
All people of good conscience must fight this threat (this scourge of Islam) with every fiber of their being.

“Wherever Islam grows, slippage of quality of life, religeous freedom, and Judeo/Chrisian values are pressured into submission, followed by outright rejection and ultimate persecution.”
Is there even one example of this happening in a western country in recent history? Sure, Islam is growing in parts of Western Europe, but is there a single European country whose “quality of life, religious freedom, and Judeo/Chrisian values” have suffered due to increasing numbers of Muslims?

The transcript from the Dallas Morning News site is redirecting to its homepage. I’d have liked to have read it.

the words that come to mind re this, are . . um, . . desperate, incitement, cowardly, and . . um, obsessive.

Does this surprise anyone? I mean really?
Look, the problem is that all the Abramaic faiths formed in what we would identify as totalitarian societies with ZERO concept of democracy or politician freedom.
Now, Christianity is largely unique in that it came through the Reformation and the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. The faith adapted itself to expanding sphere of democracy to the point that when one talks about what makes the west different from the rest of the world we have three things to point to: democracy, science and Christianity. I often find myself agreeing with Sam Harris when he says that, yes religion is not that good, but given the choice better to be living among Christians in the democratic west than anywhere else.
Islam never had a reformation. Was never exposed the political changes brought by the return of democracy to the west. It has continued to exist in totalitarian societies. Sharia itself is, in my view, a totalitarian system of laws incompatible with western political philosophies and we should not be afraid to say so.
When you see a plan to build a mosque at Ground Zero, the only sane reaction is to say it is utter perverse. American, and the west more broadly, was attacked because of a radical, although sadly far too wide spread, religious view. A view that, even in its most liberal forms, still contains anti-democratic ideas.
I find it incredible that anyone thinks this is a good idea, that building a shrine to the faith in whose name thousands were murdered, at Ground Zero.

This is for AC!
Woow! I m so choked of your comments I cannot even blink!
Do u want examples of Western European countries who had problems in recent years with islam???? Where do I start?
France, the vail,riots in the suburbs, Spain terrorist attacks everywhere, England, metro suicide bombs. Did u know that there are 2 mil arabs living in France as we speak? Germany. Neiborhoods with Arabs and lots and lots of problems. Is all this ruining the quality of life of this Christian civilizations???? YES! YES! YES!
Read the newspapers in europe and u ll find out by yourself. I feel sorry for u if u dont see the problem after so many years! I personaly do not want to pray 5 times a day and wear a sheet instead of a nice pair of jeans. Do you?????

Wariness of Islamic intolerance is not just a factor of conservative values. There are many liberals who view Islamic fundamentalism with alarm, but maybe not for the same reasons. Yes there are examples of quality of life issues deteriorating under Muslim influence. Simply ask women now subject to Sharia tribunals in Britain whether their quality of life has suffered. That is of course unless they have alreasdy been victimized by an honor killing. Of course we won’t even mention the systemic intolerance toward gays in every muslim culture.

I personaly do not want to pray 5 times a day and wear a sheet instead of a nice pair of jeans. Do you?????
Hysterical much???? There’s nowhere in the West that is at the risk of reaching that point. Calm down.

Rather than launch into this thread, I am going to take hlvanburen’s lead an say so long and enjoy the long weekend.
As we enjoy this Memorial Day weekend, let’s remember why we celebrate. In the words of President George W. Bush: “I am humbled by those who have made the ultimate sacrifice that allow a free civilization to endure and flourish.”
Would that we all work to keep ourselves free.
Captcha: “now excuses” – Agreed Captcha AI, agreed

Sure, Islam is growing in parts of Western Europe, but is there a single European country whose “quality of life, religious freedom, and Judeo/Chrisian values” have suffered due to increasing numbers of Muslims
Obviously you’ve haven’t spent much time in Europe. As someone widely travelled in Europe, and who used to live within a 10 min walk of London’s infamous Finsbury park mosque, I can tell you the areas of mass Muslim settlement are ugly, dirty and poor , and by all accounts uglier, dirtier and poorer than they were before the Muslims got there. And as many countries have passed laws making criticism of Islam illegal, it is easy to make the case that freedom has been damaged also.

I have traveled extensively in Europe (as a US Naval Officer and as a civilian), and I agree that Europe is changing, and Islam is part of the changing characteristics of Europe, and immigration is a large part of that. But no objective measures of “quality of life” have significantly declined, religious freedom for Europe’s citizenry has not changed, and while traditional “Judeo-Christian values” have probably declined in Europe, secularism has been FAR more important to that than Islam and immigration.
And in Europe, as I understand it both statistically and anecdotally, the number of Muslim immigrants who convert to a more liberal, European attitude FAR outnumbers the number of native Europeans who convert to a conservate attitude (and probably far outnumbers the number of immigrants who advocate for sharia law for all of Europe)- for this reason, I believe that any fear that Western Europe will suddenly, or even gradually, become a militant Islamic Republic is ridiculous.
It’s even less likely here, no matter how many mosques are built. I imagine that there are far more people living in America who would prefer literal Biblical law than sharia law, and the likelihood of either is so remote as to be laughable.

In regards to your description of Muslim neighborhoods, Stari, that could be said for pretty much any recent immigrant population. When lots of Irish immigrants came to the US, their neighborhoods were “uglier, dirtier and poorer than they were before” they got here. The same could probably be said for when large numbers of Italians came, or Czech, or Italians, or the Chinese in the west. In pretty much all cases, with time, immigrants assimilate and contribute to their adopted society and culture. I imagine the same will occur in Europe in the long run (as it is happening hear with Hispanic immigration).

Hey its not only about building the mosque at ground zero. The symbol of what the Mosque will stand for thorughout the Muslim World will encourge more violent attacks on America and throughout the world because at the end Terrorism does pay, period.
Hurry, with more milk that bites your hand everytime you sincerely try to feed it (snake)

The solution to threats from Islam are the same as the solution to threats from Christianity: a rigorously secular government.
Who’s on board for that?
Captcha: wost on (wost??)

On the plus side, if there’s a mosque “on Ground Zero,” maybe Islamists won’t want to try to blow the site up again!
captcha: not mercedes
ain’t that the truth …

Mosque-a-wits: I, ma’am, am imam.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I slam Islam by the ch?dor.

as someone who lived in nyc – only a few blocks away from the wtc – and escaped with my young children as the buildings collapsed, and someone who is both american and sufi muslim who has been involved the project from its inception, one should be clear about what the “ground zero mosque” really is.
there have been several mosques (and churches and synagogues) within a brick’s throw of ground zero since long before it was even the world trade center.
the opening of a prayer space in lower manhattan became a necessity because the number of muslims who came to friday prayers in the rickety old buildings started to be a problem with the fire codes.
the muslims who come to friday prayers in lower manhattan include the senegalese who work on canal street and otherwise pray on cardboard sheets on the sidewalk, a few firefighters, postmen, a lot of wall streeters, along with advertising and fashion types who work downtown.
as someone who has known imam feisal from his beginnings at the tribeca mosque, i’ve been very slightly saddened by his departure from his sufi background to more mainstream point of view. imho that is a necessary part of appealing to a wider muslim audience.
the people who purchased the building on park place – which is not ON ground zero, but several blocks away, and on a street that is currently a neighborhood wasterland – did so to provide a place for the overflow of muslims trying to come together for friday prayers.
however, since we are all residents of lower manhattan, it occurred to us that we had a bigger footprint than we could make use of, so why not give it back to the community, in a way that we could all be truly proud of.
so it went from being a prayer space to a dream of a space with a pool, a gym, a library, childcare, classrooms. the idea was for muslims to create an interfaith cultural and community center that would be open to EVERYONE.
as young american muslims, we all have family members and friends who are christians, jews, hindus, buddhists, atheists, etc – and we all wanted to create a place that would welcome everyone and perhaps help bridge the divide amongst people. remind us that we are all here for the same reason.
it is frustrating that people continue to call the project, “the ground zero mosque” since it has evolved into something that is so much more.
in terms of fundraising, so far, the money has come from contributions from the moderate muslim community. the funding required to complete the ambitious project has not even begun to be raised.
as a muslim who has, along with imam feisal and daisy khan, worked around tirelessly to create greater interfaith understanding, i find the misinterpretation of the intention frustrating. especially since most of the negativity comes from people who don’t live anywhere near the area and have no idea how much our neighborhood can benefit from any revitalization.
please note, it is indeed a constantly evolving project – i’m sure there will have to be changes to the scope as the situation and our budget evolves as well.
the goal is to, as muslims, give something good to the neighborhood which was decimated by people who called themselves muslims.
i hope i have been able to shed some light on it.

apologizing in advance for any typos or odd syntactical errors.
i’ve just come off of 16 weeks of chemo and my brain doesn’t always do what it’s told.

I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to close this thread. So many abusive comments are being posted here that I can’t afford to let this thing sit unmonitored overnight. I thank everyone who participated on both sides of the debate. And copycat, may God heal you of your cancer.
[Captcha: mosque been -- how does it do that?!]