Plans were announced this week to build a 13-story mosque and cultural center on the site of a four-story building that was a Burlington Coat Factory retail store until 9/11, when part of a plane’s landing gear crashed through the roof.   The building, currently housing a mosque, will be torn down.

The organization behind this project is the Cordoba Initiative and its leader is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

Despite the fact that the Cordoba Initiative’s website calls part of the $100 million-plus project a mosque, Imam Rauf says the project is not a mosque (Liar, liar, burqa on fire.) but will include a community center for all faiths that will include recreational facilities, a prayer space and a 500-seat theater that can be a part of the neighborhood’s trendy (attended by pseudo-intellectual Liberals) Tribeca Film Festival. 

According to the Imam:

We’ve approached the community because we want this to be an example of how we are cooperating with the members of the community, not only to provide services but also to build a new discourse on how Muslims and non-Muslims can cooperate together to push back against the voices of extremism.

 Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, views this project with a very skeptical eye:

Even when they have the resources, they are using it for a place of worship, a cultural center for organizations.  They are not using it for a counterterrorism research center.

They are not using it to lead the war like Americans need to see us do and they are wasting our resources, not to mention that being close to the hallowed ground that is so sensitive in the souls of the families of 9/11. I think it is extremely poor judgment.

Dr. Jasser also questions the financing.  I do, too.

The building that occupies the site was purchased last year for $4.85 million in cash by Soho Properties, a real estate company run by Muslims. Imam Rauf, who’s also the founder of American Society for Muslim Advancement, ASMA, was an investor in that transaction.

Rauf says he’s confident  that the balance of the $100-150 million total cost that still needs to be raised, will be.

Dr. Jasser says that there needs to be full disclosure about where the money is coming from.

There should be transparency about who those investors are, whether that money is coming from domestic interest or not, and if it’s coming from foreign interests we need to know, because I think that’s a liability, and it shows that there is another agenda rather than domestic security and tranquility.

Madeline Brooks, a member of the New York chapter of Act! for America, a non-profit organization that “is opposed to the authoritarian values of Islam fascism,” believes the Cordoba Initiative’s agenda is to sublimate the American heroics of 911 and change the narrative into that of a Muslim conquest:

Is it a victory for Islam over non-Muslims?  Is this a feather in his (Rauf’s) cap?

Imam Rauf says that’s not true:

[T]his is where we can amplify the voice of the moderates.  We have been condemning terrorism since 9/11; our voices have not been heard.

What are the motives of  Imam Rauf and ASMA?  Here is some revealing information, from militantislammonitor.org:

The American Society for the Advancement of Muslims proclaims their Islamism by name. ASMA promotes jihad through da’wa and the Islamization of the West by grooming “Muslim Leaders of tomorrow”.   At the Saudi backed 2006 MLT conference in Denmark “moderate”Islamists discussions of how to increase Muslim political and social influence were euphemistically termed “bridge building”.

The Cordoba Initiative /Islamic Dialogue is led by ASMA and is also headed by the Imam of the New York Masjid Al Farah. Together with his wife Daisy Khan, they are trying to put a yuppie face on Islamism.   ASMA can be viewed as an American version of Hizb ut Tahrir after an “extremist makeover” where the khalifate idea has been couched in kumbaya.  ASMA’s young and contemporary facade makes their radical ideology harder to detect, which poses more of a threat then an overtly aggressive organisation which refers to non Muslims as kuffars. In reality, ASMA members share the same hard line as the radicals and their use of legal and stealth Islamist strategies makes it difficult to thwart their da’wa attempts which are made under the guise of interfaith and tolerance but are actually pushing Islam as the only true religion . An ASMA Q&A reveals the Islamist view that the “perfection” of Judaism and Christianity is found only in Islam and is another example of the concept of all non-Muslims “reverting” back to what is presented as the origins of their religions.

This proposed mosque  would be built just two blocks away from the still-undeveloped site of the worst Terrorist attack on our soil in American History. 

Allowing the building of this mosque, knowing who is behind it , with its opening date set for the 10 anniversary of September 11, 2001,  will show unbelievable disrespect to the 2,819 killed on that horrible morning.  It will desecrate the memory of all the heroes and the bravery they showed that fateful day.

Religious Freedom is an intrinsic right in our country…but not for the purpose of the advancement of a message of hate or the  disrespect of America’s Fallen.

Sources:  foxnews.com, militantislammonitor.org, nymag.com, atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com