The Ground Zero Mosque

Wednesday

THERE ARE GOOD reasons to stop the proposed Ground Zero mosque. But what's the message people have gotten from the mainstream media? "Muslims killed people on 9/11, so Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque so near to Ground Zero."

That's pretty lame. Part of the reason for this weak argument against the Ground Zero mosque is that the really good reasons for opposing it require some background knowledge about Islam — information too extensive to be packed into a sound bite. When the full argument gets squeezed into a sound bite, it is reduced to something embarrassingly pathetic.

For the sound bite to make any sense at all, you have to know quite a bit about Islam. But for someone who thinks Islam is simply another religion, similar to Christianity or Buddhism or Judaism, and that a small fringe of crazy extremists have hijacked the religion and committed atrocities in its name — atrocities that go
against the foundational teachings of Islam, sullying the peaceful reputation of Islam — for someone with that understanding of Islam, the arguments against the Ground Zero mosque sound not just lame, but seem like an obviously weak excuse to be a hater, a bigoted Islamophobe, a redneck, an ignorant Bible-thumper, or just an intolerant jerk.

I don't believe people who think that way should be ignored. I think they should be debriefed. And I don't mean removing their underwear. I mean they should be brought up to speed about Islam. They know almost nothing about Islam, and what they
think they know is getting in the way of them learning any more about it.

If we started from scratch to fill in the details represented by the sound bite, the full argument would go something like this:

Muslims killed people on 9/11 because mainstream Islam (represented by hundreds of millions of Muslims in the Middle East, Indonesia, and elsewhere)
is intent on Islamizing the non-Muslim world, and has been since the year 622. That's quite an indictment. Some would call it an "allegation." But it is nothing more than an historical and doctrinal fact. Well-educated orthodox Muslims would not take any offense at this fact. They would not consider it an allegation. In fact, they would take offense at the implication that this ought to be considered an allegation. It's just basic Islamic doctrine, believed in by hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world, confirmed and supported by all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, confirmed by Islamic history, and given complete authority by the example of the Prophet Mohammad.

The fact is validated by the information in the
Quran, the Sira, and the Hadith, which comprises the core Islamic doctrine. It is not disputed by any mainstream or accepted sect or school of Islam, and has never been disputed by any mainstream or widely popular leaders of Islam throughout its history.

It is simply a basic Islamic principle: Islam exists in a state of war with the non-Muslim world until the whole world follows the holy law of Allah. Read more about this principle here.

Yes, it is true that many Muslims do not subscribe to these teachings. Most of them do not subscribe because they don't know much about their own religion (see more about that here), which is our good fortune.

But those who have read the core Islamic doctrine and consider themselves Muslims (and this would include almost all Islamic leaders,
imams, and Islamic scholars) understand perfectly well it is their religious duty to bring the whole world under Islamic law. This is the prime directive.

Mohammad did not believe in contemplating one's navel as a form of worship. He believed — and made it mandatory for all Muslims — that one proved one's devotion to Allah with
action. And the most important action, according to Mohammad, is jihad. Jihad is not limited to warfare. Jihad means striving to bring the law of Allah to all people on earth, by using your wealth, your speech, your pen, your time, and your life — ideally by peaceful means, but by war if necessary.

According to mainstream (not fringe or extreme) Islamic doctrine,
man made governments (like democracies) and man made laws are an abomination and a sin and should not be allowed to continue existing in the world. Political action is a religious duty to all Muslims — political action aimed at changing laws and governments to follow Sharia, the holy law of Allah.

All this information is easy to discover. It is not esoteric. It is not hidden. Every bookstore carries at least the
Quran (and usually the Hadith and Sira) translated into English.

Okay, so what does this have to do with the Ground Zero mosque?

When non-Muslims think about building a house of worship, we think about a peaceful place where devout, believing people can commune with their creator. But in order to understand what a mosque is to Muslims, you have to understand the fundamentally political nature of Islam.
Most of Islam is political. It is not a fringe part of Islam. It is the main part.

Mohammad's biography is one of the core doctrines of Islam. It is called the
Sira. The amount of the Sira's text devoted to jihad is 67%. It says in the Quran — Islam's most holy book — that a Muslim should follow Mohammad's perfect example, and it hammers on this point, saying it 91 times in the Quran.

The practice of Islam is fundamentally political. Non-Muslims may think this is strange, but it is a normal, unremarkable fact to a Muslim. How can you believe in a creator who has given you the perfect formula for living (Sharia), and told you it is your duty to live that way and to bring the light of the holy law to all people, and still have some arbitrary division between "political" action and "religious" practice?

So a Muslim's conception of a mosque is entirely different from a Westerner's conception of a "house of worship," because their conception of "religion" is entirely different than a non-Muslim's. We should think of mosques the way
Muslims think of mosques, rather than lay our own values over theirs, as if we understand their religion better than they do.

And their understanding is based firmly on the example of the Prophet. Mohammad used the mosque as a home-base where jihad was declared, where fatwas were made, where indoctrination took place, where raids and attacks were planned, where the planning and building of the Islamic State took place, where military orders were given, and where Mohammad gave his death sentences to the enemies of Islam. This is not "anti-Islam propaganda." This is history as understood and believed by Muslims. This is basic Islamic history.
Read more about what mosques mean to Muslims.

This is not just interesting ancient history. Mosques are still put to these uses today.

In Islam, the mosque is the center of their religion, and in Islam religion is totally encompassing in a way non-Muslims can hardly imagine.

If the mosque at Ground Zero is built, it will be considered to be a triumphant symbol of the third jihad by most orthodox Muslims in the world. We may not like it, we may wish this wasn't the case, we may believe that our Muslim friend wouldn't see it that way (and we may be right about that), but
most orthodox Muslims will see it this way. When you know a lot about Islam, this will be obvious.

But to understand the idea of "the third jihad," we need to go further back. There have been two major jihads in Islamic history, and mosques always played a central role.
The first jihad started with Mohammad. His armies conquered all of Arabia. In the hundred years after his death, his armies conquered most of the Middle East, North Africa and Spain. The first jihad lasted from 622 AD until 750 AD. Read more about that here.

The second major jihad started in 1071 AD.
Islamic armies toppled Constantinople and spread into Europe, India, and further into Africa. The second jihad began to decline when the Muslim army was stopped on September 11th, 1683 at the gates of Vienna, Austria. Read more about the second jihad here.

The Middle East was eventually carved up, divided, and colonized by (mostly) European powers, and the danger of Islam's quest for world domination seemed to be over.

Then the combustion engine was invented and oil was discovered in the Middle East. Obscene amounts of money started flowing into the hands of devout Muslims. And for the last 80 years or so, Islam has been resurging. Orthodox (and heterodox) Muslims are immigrating into Europe and the Americas, and doing what they're supposed to do according to their sacred texts: Working to bring the holy law of Allah into the ignorant and decadent Western nations, by any means necessary. Violence is one possibility, but most orthodox Muslims now believe 9/11 was a tactical mistake. Arousing the anger of powerful Western nations is not the way to achieve victory.

Much more subtle ways must be found to convert the West to Sharia. And many ways are being found and successfully implemented. The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest Islamic organization in the world, stated in an internal document written in 1991 (seized in an FBI raid) that their mission in America was:

"...eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house..." Read more about that here.

The Muslim Brotherhood has established what appear to be legitimate, mainstream, moderate Muslim organizations (opulently funded with Saudi oil money) which have set themselves up as representatives of "the Muslim community" to approve or disapprove of what is in American textbooks, what is published in magazines, newspapers, and television news, and how Islam is portrayed in Hollywood movies. These organizations have been able to influence how the U.S. governmental security agencies think about and write about Islamic terrorism. They are successfully silencing criticism of Islam in the West. And in numerous other ways, believing Muslims are getting Islamic law applied in the West, and getting it applied more completely with each passing year.

But what does this have to do with
mosques?

Historically, starting with Mohammad, the process of conquering and subjugating non-Muslims included building a mosque on top of the previous culture's representative house of worship. It is a strong symbol of the dominance of Islam. It tells everyone present — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — that a change has occurred, a new sheriff is in town, a new political order is in charge.

In the world today, you could make a very good case that the United States is the most powerful nation on earth, both militarily and economically. And since at least the 1980's, the United States has done more to prevent the
Islamization of the world than any other nation. The U.S. is a barrier to the political goal of Islam.

The Twin Towers and the Pentagon were attacked because they were perceived by Muslims as being representatives of American power — America's money and America's military. They were symbols of core American values, according to Al-
Qaeda. They were our shrines. They were our places of worship, or at least this is how Al-Qaeda perceived it.

So building a mosque as close as possible to the site of the complete collapse of America's house of worship
is a symbolic act, an expression of dominance, a triumphal planting of the flag on foreign soil, and for non-Muslims who are educated about Islamic history and its core values, it is correctly seen as symbolically spitting on the enemy's grave.

In addition, according to the Muslim, Muhammad
Hisham Kabbani, who testified before the U.S. State Department, 80 percent of mosques in America preach "extremist ideology." Coming from an entirely different source, the Mapping Sharia Project sent trained people into mosques in the U.S. to find out how many of them are calling for jihad against America. They discovered that the majority of the mosques they've investigated so far do, in fact, promote jihad against America, in the Friday "sermons" (known as "khutbah") and in the literature available at the mosques.

Saudi Arabia's oil wealth enables it to control around 90% of the world's Islamic institutions (source), and the Saudis promote hardcore, fundamentalist Islam. They pay for these mosques because it gives them control over what is taught and promoted at the mosques. Read more about this.

If you understand all this, you can see it is not only symbolically offensive to allow a triumphalist mosque to be built almost on the site of 9/11, it is strategically foolish. It means allowing another mosque to be planted on American soil which will function as a kind of forward base of operations in enemy land, and which will, in all probability (given the high percentages just outlined) allow orthodox Muslims to reach more people and do more of their "good works" of bringing Islamic law to America.

Because the percentage of Muslims is much higher in Europe than in the United States, Europe is further along in the process of becoming "Islamized." It's hard to believe, but European laws are giving way to Islamic law. Muslim pressure continues to find cracks, and it works its way in. For example, all over Europe, the right to free speech is giving way to Sharia's limits on free speech (source 1 and source 2). Belgium, Germany and Britain offer benefits to polygamists' wives, even though polygamy is illegal there (source). Schools in Amsterdam don't mention farms because pigs are offensive to Muslims. "Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In France, school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity (source)."

France is allowing Muslims to rule parts of their country (source). Britain allows unfair treatment of Muslim women (source). Muslim doctors in Britain don't have to follow the same rules of cleanliness as everyone else (source). Britain knowingly tolerates sedition by Muslims (source). Britain allows over 80 Sharia courts to operate within their borders (source). In these and many, many other ways (source), the laws, values, and principles of Western civilization are giving way slowly but surely to unceasing Islamic pressure.

With this new understanding of Islamic history, Islamic doctrine, Islamic current events, and the role and function of mosques in Islam, the original sound bite makes a lot more sense: We don't want the Ground Zero mosque to be built because "Muslims killed people on 9/11 and Muslims should not be allowed to build a mosque so near to Ground Zero."

27 comments:

Suncat 8:31 PM  

Excellent article! This article explains it all. It is so important to understand what Islam truly is; its history, its way of thinking; its current agenda. You are correct to say the masses think they understand Islam. And that we need to debrief the masses and get them up to speed. The problem is this: How do we effectively get these people to realize that they really do not know what Islam is about. Since they think they know , they do not want to listen. I have been called a racist, and religious intolerant too many times to mention when I try to educate people. I'm very frustrated.

Thank you for your work and your your brilliant writings. You give me hope.

Citizen Warrior 8:55 PM  

"How do we effectively get these people to realize that they really do not know what Islam is about?"

That's a good question, Andrea.

What has worked best for me personally is asking someone if they've read the Quran, and then focusing exclusively on convincing them they MUST read it, and in the process, telling them all about it and how interesting it is: how it was written, how the nature of the revelations changed, what abrogation is and how it works, and all about the books An Abridged Koran and A Simple Koran and why those are the ones they should read.

This is an extremely effective approach. Read more about it here:

Push Them to Read the Quran

And when they interrupt you to object to something you say, answer back with one of these:

Answers to Objections

Damien 10:05 PM  

Citizen Warrior,

You're correct about the danger of using sound bytes, especially that one. It isn't so much that the people who attacked us on 9/11 happened to be Muslims, they attacked us because, they genuinely believed what is written in their holy text. To expect a Muslim fundamentalist to not support things like Sharia Law and the conquest of Infidels, would be like a expecting a Christian fundamentalist to not believe in a literal six day creation, Noah's Flood and Jesus being the only way into heaven.

Now of course, not all Muslims, will literally believe what's written in their holy books, but large numbers of them do. It is possible that in addition to those who are ignorant of Its hateful violent teachings, some non fundamentalist Muslims will try to explain away or just ignore the really nasty parts of the Koran and the Siras and Hadiths. Its not even the fact that it is a Mosque no matter what they choose to call it, that's really important. Its that we know that the person behind it, is a Sharia Loving fundamentalist, (or as you would call him, Orthodox Muslim) and that Muslim Jihadists around the world will view it as a victory shrine like you said. Its also possible and highly likely that if it is built it will fund terrorist activities, unlike a lot of people in the Mainstream Media, like Keith Olbermann believe. Unfortunately, apparently youtube user Chattiestspike2, who I respect, agrees with him as well since he favorited this video.

Ground Zero Mosque Haters K.O.'d

They are definitively wrong to think that opposition to the Mosque is based on bigotry. I wish that someone like you, or Robert Spencer could have been there to refute what he got wrong. Also, while Olbermann's claim that there have been hate crimes agianst Muslims in the U.S is probably true, his claim that you are more likely to experience a terrorist attack if you are a Muslim in America is probably false. He does not provide a source for that statistic.

Damien 10:09 PM  

Citizen Warrior,

By the way, you need to provide a source link for this.

"Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils...In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity (source)."

You wrote the word source, and put it in parenthesis, but you forget to turn it into a link in this one instance for some reason. Sorry to have to tell you that.

Citizen Warrior 10:14 PM  

Unfortunately, Damien, some of the opposition to the Ground Zero mosque IS based on bigotry.

I would agree, however, that MOST of the people who oppose the mosque are not bigots. They are simply informed about Islam. Opposition to the mosque comes naturally once people learn a bit about basic Islamic doctrine.

Citizen Warrior 10:19 PM  

About the missing link: I checked it on my computer, and the link works just fine. But in case it doesn't work for anyone else, the link goes to a speech by Geert Wilders:

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/09/america-as-the-last-man-standing.html

Wilders gives many more examples in the speech.

Unknown 10:33 PM  

Excellent summary Citizen Warrior. I have bookmarked it on my youtube profile. More strength to you!

Damien 10:38 PM  

Citizen Warrior,

Thanks, for some reason it wasn't even appearing as a link for me when I clicked on "show the original post." It was just appearing as normal text.

Damien 11:43 PM  

Citizen Warrior,

You know, maybe its time for a change of tactics, at least in this one instance. Maybe our primary focus should be on the nature of people behind the Ground Zero Mosque in particular.

The Mosque at Ground Zero: Who Is Behind It?

Than maybe a lot of the people who once saw it as bigotry to oppose it, might suddenly see the Ground Zero Mosque as something more akin to a church run by the Aryan Nations next to Auschwitz.

Citizen Warrior 5:09 AM  

Someone just sent me a song about the proposed Ground Zero mosque, entitled: Salt in the Wound.

Citizen Warrior 3:59 PM  

Yes, let's hope as many Muslims as possible reject Sharia and jihad.

They don't really have an Islamic leg to stand on, but more Muslims who reject those basic Islamic doctrines, the better for non-Muslims.

Citizen Warrior 7:17 PM  

In an interesting article by Frank Gaffney, he says:

We can’t get a clarification from Imam Rauf about precisely why he wanted to call his complex the Ground Zero mosque.

Perhaps he called his project the Ground Zero mosque because he wanted to associate his 15-story, $100 million complex as closely as possible to the location where nearly 3,000 Americans and other innocent people — precisely because they were murdered there by people who wanted, as he does, to “bring shariah to America.”

The last explanation would certainly conform to the triumphalist past practice of adherents to shariah, the barbaric, totalitarian political program that masquerades as a religion. Indeed, there is a tradition of constructing mosques at the site of previous Islamic conquests for example in Jerusalem, Istanbul and Cordoba, Spain. Yes, it was for Cordoba — where a Catholic church was converted into the world’s third largest mosque by the Moorish conquerors of Spain — that Rauf wanted initially to name his Ground Zero mosque.

dinesh 11:29 PM  

sword in one hand and quaran in another
was the real symbol of promotion of islam in entire asia/mid east/iran/irque /hindustan/afghanistan etc
either you follow islam or get killed
there were several temples of hindu religion and buddhists religion are either destroyed and now mosque is builton that place-site-several several examples as islam forces invaded and killed former rulers and destroyed the religios sites
thank god that they are not attacking on UNO-...after all the best place of worhsip to stop war ship of islam.
better open up the eyes-
tell the fanatics to save their religion and respect others religion as sid and written by hon prophet in his all books and also as described in holly quaran too
live and let live
here mis used and applied as
YOU ONLY LIVE AND DO NOT LEAVE OTHERS WHO DO NOT WANT TO LIVE TO YOUR STYLE AND SYSTEM
best readings
Dinesh k jani

Anonymous 2:43 AM  

You sure about this? If Islam is really about world domination and the article is true, why is it that we have always killed a lot more of them than they have of us? And again, how can the work of a few individuals at 9-11 be contrued to be the work of the entire congregration of Islam? Why is it the Islam nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Iraq have never attacked us? No Muslim country has ever invaded a Western country, when we have invaded theirs? So writer please :). Again, Islam followers are in all walks of life in the USA from politicians to judges and military personnel. As such, is the article really saying that all were complicit in 9-11? Totally stupid! The article seems to be more directed towards religious hatred and intolerance than any version of the truth.

A history lesson for the writer - the US has no greater friend that the Islamic Republic of Kosovo .. a country that we in the west liberated a short while ago? So the point of the article?? I'm waiting.

Citizen Warrior 5:30 PM  

Question: You sure about this? If Islam is really about world domination and the article is true, why is it that we have always killed a lot more of them than they have of us?

Answer: So far, Muslim warriors have killed 270 million people. That is more than any person, country, group, or empire has killed at any time in history. By a long shot. In second place is communist China, which killed 77 million people.

Question: And again, how can the work of a few individuals at 9-11 be construed to be the work of the entire congregration of Islam?

Answer: You missed the point of the article. My point is that mainstream, established Islamic doctrine is supremacist, aggressive, intolerant toward non-Muslims, and imperialistic, and the orthodox Muslims who flew the planes into the Towers share that same ideology with orthodox Muslims all over the world. The heterodox Muslims do not agree with those core Islamic doctrines. They are essentially heterodox (follow only select parts of Islamic doctrine, which is against the dictates of Islamic doctrine), Muslims in name only, or apatheists, and these make up a significant proportion of "the entire congregation of Islam."

Question: Why is it the Islam nations like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Iraq have never attacked us?

Answer: We provide them with huge sums of money, and they are not powerful enough to win.

Question: No Muslim country has ever invaded a Western country, when we have invaded theirs?

Answer: Please read more about Muslim countries invading non-Muslim countries, including Western countries here and here and here and here.

Question: Islam followers are in all walks of life in the USA from politicians to judges and military personnel. As such, is the article really saying that all were complicit in 9-11?

Answer: Anyone who shares the same ideology and goals are part of the problem. If they want to be part of the solution, they will overtly reject those aspects of Islam that endanger women's rights, freedom of religion (including the right to apostasy), and freedom of expression (including the right to criticize Islam).

Question: A history lesson for the writer — the US has no greater friend that the Islamic Republic of Kosovo ... a country that we in the west liberated a short while ago? So the point of the article?

Answer: The point of the article is to explain why allowing the Ground Zero mosque is a bad idea for the free world.

Citizen Warrior 5:33 PM  

From an article by Andrew C. McCarthy:

"Secularism can never enjoy a general acceptance in an Islamic society." The writer was not one of those sulfurous Islamophobes decried by CAIR and the professional Left. Quite the opposite: It was Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual guide and a favorite of the Saudi royal family. He made this assertion in his book, How the Imported Solutions Disastrously Affected Our Ummah, an excerpt of which was published by the Saudi Gazette just a couple of months ago.

This was Qaradawi the “progressive” Muslim intellectual, much loved by Georgetown University’s burgeoning Islamic-studies programs. Like Harvard, Georgetown has been purchased into submission by tens of millions of Saudi petrodollars. In its resulting ardor to put Americans at ease about Islam, the university somehow manages to look beyond Qaradawi’s fatwas calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq and for suicide bombings in Israel. Qaradawi, they tell us, is a “moderate.” In fact, as Robert Spencer quips, if you were to say Islam and secularism cannot co-exist, John Esposito, Georgetown’s apologist-in-chief, would call you an Islamophobe; but when Qaradawi says it, no problem — according to Esposito, he’s a “reformist.”

And he’s not just any reformist. Another Qaradawi fan, Feisal Rauf, the similarly “moderate” imam behind the Ground Zero mosque project, tells us Qaradawi is also “the most well-known legal authority in the whole Muslim world today.”

Rauf is undoubtedly right about that. So it is worth letting it sink in that this most influential of Islam’s voices, this promoter of the Islamic enclaves the Brotherhood is forging throughout the West, is convinced that Islamic societies can never accept secularism. After all, secularism is nothing less than the framework by which the West defends religious freedom but denies legal and political authority to religious creeds.

It is also worth understanding why Qaradawi says Islam and secularism cannot co-exist. The excerpt from his book continues:

"As Islam is a comprehensive system of worship (Ibadah) and legislation (Shari’ah), the acceptance of secularism means abandonment of Shari’ah, a denial of the divine guidance and a rejection of Allah’s injunctions. It is indeed a false claim that Shari’ah is not proper to the requirements of the present age. The acceptance of a legislation formulated by humans means a preference of the humans’ limited knowledge and experiences to the divine guidance: “Say! Do you know better than Allah?” (Qur’an, 2:140) For this reason, the call for secularism among Muslims is atheism and a rejection of Islam. Its acceptance as a basis for rule in place of Shari’ah is downright apostasy."

Citizen Warrior 10:23 PM  

In an interview with Pamela Geller, the interviewer asks her about an audio recording.She says, "the audiotape, segments of which are available at AtlasShrugs.com [2], was recorded on July 12, 2005. It's a speech Rauf gave at The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre in Australia. The speech reveals that he is not even close to being the "moderate" that the media always portrays him as being. This speech Rauf delivered contains numerous statements that belie his moderate image and raise serious questions about what the mega-mosque will really be standing for once it is up and running in lower Manhattan.

"Like Osama bin Laden and other jihadis, Rauf blames America and sees America as more evil than the terrorists. Here is what he says about how the U.S. is worse than Al-Qaeda:

"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, said it was worth it."

"We all know what a profoundly misleading statement this is. It is curious that Rauf makes no mention of the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilation and enslavement. Nor does he say anything about the recent slaughter by Muslims of Christians, Hindus, Jews, and non-believers in Indonesia, Thailand, Ethiopia, Somalia, Philippines, Lebanon, Israel, Russia, China. Rauf's words manifest no candor, no willingness to admit that Muslims have ever done anything wrong. He shows none of the mutual respect and readiness to take responsibility that we might expect from someone with such a reputation as a "moderate."

"In his address in Australia he said he had just come from a conference in Jordan featuring "over 170 leading Muslim scholars from almost every part of the Muslim world, including some of the most important names like Sheikh Tantawi of Egypt, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, who is the Chief Mufti of Egypt, the Chief Mufti of Jordan, the Sheikh Al-Qaradawi, who is a very very well known Islamic jurist, highly regarded all over the Muslim world."

"The late Sheikh Tantawi several years ago endorsed suicide attacks against Israelis, as did Sheikh Qaradawi. Sheikh Gomaa has defended Islam's death penalty for apostasy and sanction for wife-beating, and has endorsed the jihad terror group Hezbollah."

Citizen Warrior 12:19 AM  

The Center for Religious Freedom did a study on Saudi influence in American mosques and produced this 95-page report:

The Report (PDF document)

Citizen Warrior 12:15 PM  

This is great: It's a challenge to Imam Rauf to prove he is serious about promoting a new Reformed Islam that divorces itself completely from the ideology that brought down the World Trade Center. The principles are basic American principles. Will he accept them?

The Ground Zero Declaration

The declaration includes the following. Will a devout Muslim be able to accept them? And if Rauf doesn't, that should clarify the issue for a lot of people. Here is some of the text of the declaration:

1. Freedom of Religion

Freedom of conscience is an inalienable right for all Americans, as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. No person or group, religious or secular, has any right to impose religious beliefs on anyone else. American citizens are entirely free to choose and practice (or not practice) whatever religion they believe is best as long as they uphold the right of others to do the same.

2. Equal Protection

Men and women have equal status under the Law, entitled to protection from harm, even from family members who may think it is unacceptable to leave a religion, convert, or date and marry someone of another religion.

3. Human Dignity

All human beings have equal dignity, and thus must not be subject to slavery, ethnic, racial, or religious discrimination, or cruel and unusual punishment.

4. Peaceful Assembly and Free Speech

Everyone has the right to meet with others of like mind to share ideas, even those contrary to majority views. However, this carries the shared responsibility to allow others to safely express ideas we may disagree with and strongly object to.

In particular, we must always be free to criticize religions and religious choices in a responsible manner. This is essential precisely because we respect religion as a serious intellectual matter, deserving of thoughtful consideration and informed debate.

Anonymous 3:06 PM  

Having lived in a Muslim community, I know perfectly well what you are talking about. Any educated person who thinks that Islam is a peaceful religion and that we can live side by side and coexist with it must have his head examined first. Building a mosque at the site of the Ground Zero is the beginning of the end of American freedom especially freedom of religion. Everything you said in the article is 100% accurate. All American must read this article and it should be circulated worldwide.

Citizen Warrior 1:54 PM  

Someone just emailed me the following comment:

Saudi Arabia's Al-Waleed bin Talal is back in the spotlight for allegedly being one of the financers of the mosque near 9/11 Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan.

One of the richest men in the world, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud has recently been named as being one of the financers behind the planned Islamic center in downtown Manhattan by Fox News -- which is owned by a company in which, ironically, he is also a major stakeholder, reports Foreign Policy magazine.

It is believed that bin Talal has pumped more than $300,000 into the project headed by New York imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as part of the prince's campaign to 'improve the image of Islam among the American public.'

It is to be noted that in October 2001, following the World Trade Center attacks, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani turned down a $10 million donation from Al-Waleed for disaster relief after the prince suggested the United States 'must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack,' and 're-examine its policies in the Middle East.'

However, Giuliani interpreted his statements as drawing 'a moral equivalency between liberal democracies like the United States, like Israel, and terrorist states and those who condone terrorism.'

IT IS HIGH TIME ALL NONMUSLIMS OPPOSE THIS MOSQUE AND ISLAMIZATION OF US UNANIMOUSLY

Citizen Warrior 5:52 PM  

Here's a link to Rauf's letter, recently published in the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, you can't read the article without a subscription:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703632304575451762406545760.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

freiwahrheiten 12:00 PM  

Hi Citizen Warrior. Thanks for your website and the interesting article about Ground Zero Mosque. I am still unsure whether the whole jihad-conspiracy you are describing is really true, but will continue to study it. But if it were true, then I would probably still oppose a ban of Ground Zero Mosque, much like I oppose a ban of the burka.
My reason for that? I am really concerned about freedom of speech. People like Terry Jones, Geert Wilders or Thilo Sarrazin are under extreme pressure and on trial because they say or do things that "offend" muslims.
And I can't see how we can fight for freedom of speech for critics of islam while at the same time denying that same freedom for islamists.
We can only argue on the grounds of "imminent threats". That means we can send people into the mosques to listen to what the imams say there. And if they really are planning the jihad then we can stop them from preaching.

Citizen Warrior 10:21 PM  

I think that's a great idea: We have enough evidence from other mosques to justify monitoring every mosque. Not just what they say there, but the literature they hand out. And if it's seditious, they should be arrested or deported.

Whoever is building the mosque will choose to build it or not. It's up to them. The government won't stop it, so the "freedom of speech" is not really at issue here, and neither is "freedom of religion."

However, the people protesting the mosque should be allowed to protest as vigorously as they wish. That IS free speech.

And if the GZ mosque opens, people of all faiths should use it, including the mosque part of it. New Yorkers should go out of their way to keep it from being a Muslim-only building. That's what the planners are promising and we should keep them to their promise if they go through with it.

A comment on the article, A mosque by any other name: Ground Zero mega-mosque group ditches name redolent of Islamic supremacism, said this:

In the unfortunate event this mosque project goes through, since Imam Rauf claims to want interfaith dialogue, perhaps non-Muslims should pour into this place daily to the point of outnumbering the adherents to Sharia.

If he wants interfaith dialogue, then Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. should all expect the same benefits and privileges as anyone else who enters the dwelling, and should practice their respective religion while inside it.

If Rauf is what he says he is, he should have no problem with that, right? Play for keeps.

Damien 10:48 PM  

Citizen Warrior,

I think that's a good idea as well. Even some people who have studied Islam, seem to believe Rauf. If he isn't what he says he is, this is one why to prove that. If he is what is says he is, this is one way to prove that we're wrong. The only problem, is, I would imagine that it would be very hard to convince the government, to monitor every single mosque. As far as I know, they haven't started doing so despite what we've found in other mosques, unless its classified beyond top secret.

At the very least maybe some brave reporter could infiltrate the Ground Zero Mosque after its built, assuming its built regardless of our efforts. A TV station in Briton did just that with another mosque, and they found them preaching violence, extreme misogyny, homophobia, and hatred for the west and all non Muslims being preached there and they got it all on camera. It was an episode of a show called, Dispatches. The title of the episode was, The Undercover Mosque. Off course any news station brave enough to do it would have to keep the identity of the undercover reporters a secret. Otherwise they might be killed.

freiwahrheiten 4:20 AM  

Hi Citizenwarrior and Damien

Thanks for your comments. I think the monitoring of the mosque could be a similar step like reading the koran. The whole idea would be: Bring the people to actually learn about what orthodox muslims preach. I really like the "Pledge to read the koran" - campaign - this is exactly the kind of enlightment the world needs.

At the moment the western world is closing their eyes. We need to protect freedom of speech as much as possible to open their eyes, on many levels: art, discussion forums, documentery, secret monitoring of mosques etc. This is a very legitimate wish: We just want to know what it is going on and whether it is against our values or not. No general condemnation, just enlightment.

John 1:44 AM  

something interesting w.r.t name of mosque proposed:

http://www.islamreview.com/articles/What_Could_Possibly_Be_Wrong_About_Building_A_Mosque_Named_Cordoba_at_Ground_Zero.shtml

Article Spotlight

One of the most unusual articles on CitizenWarrior.com is Pleasantville and Islamic Supremacism.

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).

Click here to read the article.


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