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Viewpoint - September 2, 2010
NY Imam: Mosque fight about Muslim role in America
Imam says fight over planned mosque near ground zero could
shape future of Islam in America
BRIAN MURPHY
AP News
The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the site
of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York said Tuesday that the
fight is over more than "a piece of real estate" and could
shape the future of Muslim relations in America.
The dispute "has expanded beyond a piece of real estate
and expanded to Islam in America and what it means for
America," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told a group that
included professors and policy researchers in Dubai.
Rauf suggested that the fierce challenges to the planned
mosque and community center in lower Manhattan could leave
many Muslim questioning their place in American political
and civic life.
But he avoided questions over whether an alternative site
is possible. Instead, he repeatedly stressed the need to
embrace the religious and political freedoms in the United
States.
"I am happy to be American," Rauf told about 200 people at
the Dubai School of Government think tank.
It was his last scheduled public appearance during a 15-day
State Department-funded trip to the Gulf that was intended
to promote religious tolerance. He is scheduled to return
to the United States later this week.
He said he became closer to Islam after moving to America,
where he had the choice to either follow the faith or drift
away.
"Like many of our fellow Muslims, we found our faith in
America," he said.
During his Middle East trip, Rauf has generally sidestepped
questions over the backlash to the Islamic center location
about two blocks from the former site of the World Trade
Center towers.
But in an interview published Monday in the Abu Dhabi-
based newspaper The National, he linked the protests to
the U.S. elections in November. Many conservatives have
joined the opposition to the center, which is being spear-
headed by a newly formed nonprofit organization that
includes real estate developers and has named Rauf as one
of the directors.
"It is important to shift the discussion from a discussion
of identity politics," he said. "We have to elevate the
discourse because there is more that bonds us... in terms
of mutual responsibility."
A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed 71
percent of New Yorkers want the developers to voluntarily
move the project. A similar percentage also said they
wanted New York's state attorney general to investigate
sources of funding for the project in lower Manhattan.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said an investigation would set
"a terrible precedent."
"You don't want them investigating donations to religious
organizations and there's no reason for the government to
do so," he said.
He also played down the fact that the developers of the
building where the center would be established owe over
$200,000 in back taxes on the property. "They're going to
be treated like everybody else," he said. "We enforce the
law against everybody, or we protect everybody. And if
they owe money, they should pay it. and if they don't,
they don't."
The developers have said they are negotiating with the
city to pay back the taxes.
Opponents of the center, which could include a swimming
pool and a Sept. 11 memorial, have seized on the question
of the project's funding, raising concerns that the money
will come from overseas extremists or anti-American
sources.
U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Republican who is the ranking
minority leader of the Homeland Security Committee, said
on Tuesday that he disagreed with the mayor. He said the
question of who is financially supporting the project is
fundamental to assessing the plan's backers.
"A number of terror plots have emanated from mosques," he
said, citing the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center
as one example.
Arrests of conspirators in the attack that killed six
people and injured more than a thousand led FBI to a
Brooklyn mosque, where core members of those involved
in the 1993 plot worshipped and where Sheik Omar Abdel-
Rahman led prayers. Abdel-Rahman was later convicted in
the bombing.
King said he would call for churches or synagogues to
undergo the same kind of scrutiny of their finances if
there was evidence that terrorist plots were originating
from them.
Developers of the planned Islamic center have pledged
to hire "security consultants" to review potential
contributors. A spokesman for the developers didn't
immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment
Tuesday.
It is common for the finances of religious groups to come
under scrutiny either by the Internal Revenue Service, law
enforcement or government agencies that protect consumers
against fraud.
Religious nonprofits operate under a complex system of IRS
rules on compensation, spending and governance. The IRS
can revoke the nonprofit status of any group found to be
violating the regulations.
Muslim charities have come under especially intense
scrutiny under U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Federal
prosecutors have brought cases against several American-
based Muslim nonprofits, and in a separate case last year,
seized U.S. mosques whose property is owned by a foundation
federal officials say is secretly controlled by the Iranian
government.
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