Quote Originally Posted by Total_Blender View Post
You are attempting to judge a religion by the actions of a handful of extremists. Suppose I judged all Christians by the actions of Timothy McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph or David Koresh (all Christians). Should I protest that we not allow X-ian churches near the Murrah building, Centennial Olympic park, or Waco TX? What do you think my view of Christianity would be if my only info on it came from what I read about Fred Phelps?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot...administration

[article]
But such characterizations don't square with the project's mission — or the career of its spiritual leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. (Rauf heads up the Cordoba Initiative, the organization sponsoring the center.) Rauf was considered moderate enough during the Bush years to lecture FBI agents about Islam. And he is targeted on theological grounds by the same militant Islamists that mosque opponents claim he represents.

Rauf was sent by the State Department on several speaking tours in the Middle East under President George W. Bush, the Huffington Post's Sam Stein reports. He also attended a U.S.-Islamic World Forum with close Bush adviser and then-Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes. (Hughes has so far not commented on Rauf and his project, though another former Bush adviser, Michael Gerson, wrote in the Washington Post that "a mosque that rejects radicalism is not a symbol of the enemy's victory; it is a prerequisite for our own.") Right now, Rauf is on another goodwill tour in the Middle East sponsored by the State Department, where he will talk about religious tolerance in the United States.

In 2003, the Kuwaiti-born Rauf was called on to speak about Islam to FBI agents, Stein reports. He is currently an adviser to the Interfaith Center of New York, which has come out in support of his plan to build the Islamic center, which Rauf says will be open to people of all faiths.

New York Times contributor William Dalrymple noted in an op-ed this week that Rauf represents a peaceful, mystical sect of Islam called Sufism. Sufi mosques are often attacked by more radical Muslims in the Middle East who oppose its pluralistic teachings, as well as the Sufi practice of permitting a wider public role for women in religious worship. Dalrymple points out that "in the eyes of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban, [Rauf] is an infidel-loving, grave-worshiping apostate; they no doubt regard him as a legitimate target for assassination."
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Looks like the "radical ties" the Imam has lead right to George W. Bush and the FBI. The Imam is also from an opposing sect of Islam than O.B.L and Al Qaeda. He is a Sufi and they are Wahabbi's.

I am also not buying the spin that he "supports Hamas". It seems to me like he is saying the HE, as an American Muslim, should not have to answer for what Hamas says or does.

The funny thing about this is that there has been a mosque in that area even before the WTC opened for business. Its at 20 Warren St. which is 2 blocks away from the WTC site and the mosque opened in 1970, several months before the WTC.

The Right needs to face it that Muslims (and therefore Islam) are going to be here permanently, and they are just as American as you or me. Does it occur to any of you that most Muslims come to America to escape things like Hamas, Sharia Law, etc?
That is one of the smartest comments I have read regarding this situation. FYI, there are actually two mosques near Ground Zero. It's ironic that no one complains of the other mosques around Ground Zero and they both are only a few blocks away. Now that a new mosque is being built, it has become a problem. Why? We are supposed to pride ourselves on religious tolerance and yet, we cannot even do that. If someone advocated building a Catholic Church within two blocks of Oklahoma City Building bombing, would it receive this same level of disapproval?