Oh! Canada! Mosque at Ground Zero

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Mosque at Ground Zero

Why would a Canadian want to speak into the dynamic tensions emerging over Islam’s intention to build a mosque within blocks of Ground Zero? Well, the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers resulted in 2995 people dead (including 19 terrorists), 6,000 people injured, but millions traumatized globally. We felt it too.

9/11/2001 will go down in history as a tipping point. Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, The Tipping Point, spoke about how certain events can make such a difference that society is changed forever. The 9/11 radical Islamic terrorist attack was such a moment. The global culture was shifted: air travel, national security, personal safety, insurance premiums, etc. All of these shifts combined to create what some are calling a socioquake.

In recent weeks the “tipping point” has reached a “boiling point” as emotions have escalated over Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s intention to build a 13 story Muslim community center within sight of the Ground Zero memorial. The city council voted overwhelmingly in favour of this, believing that the basketball court, the swimming pool, the day care facility, would be a welcome addition to the downtown core.

However, a populist “Must Be Stopped” program is gaining momentum. The resounding question has been, “Why there?” In the state there are close to 200 mosques. There have been no restrictions on building sites for religious worship, so “why there?” The agitation is so serious that I am not sure how many city councillors will survive their term.

Apart from the feeling that this decision to build a mosque near Ground Zero is lacking in sensitivity, many are questioning the motive. Is this building intended to promote American-Islamic understanding or is it intended to Islamize – ie. Islamification? The crucial question remains to be answered: Does this building reflect the aims of Islam as a religion or does it reflect the aims of Islam as a political power?

The requirements of political correctness towards religious tolerance in our culture makes it very difficult to deny them the right to build whatever they want, wherever they want if they have money. Isn’t it a house of worship? Doesn’t America believe in freedom of religion and assembly? The fact that the Saudis themselves do not permit the building of churches or synagogues is another matter.

Any resistance to this project has been interpreted as Islamaphobia. However, people are speaking out. One protestor stated it clearly, that it is an insult to build a shrine to the very ideology that inspired the attacks of 9/11. Another reminded the audience that when 9/11 occurred, the streets of Islamic cities were filled with Muslims cheering. A fireman stated: “This is sacred ground – people died.” This last comment was insightful.

Islam has a history of building mosques on sacred sites that have been conquered: eg. Mecca was built over Quraysh, the center for pagan worship, Al-Aqsa was built on Judaism’s Temple, Mount St. John the Baptist church, Damascus was demolished and replaced, St. Sophia Basilica in Istanbul was transformed into a mosque and in Cordoba, a city conquered by jihad (holy war of dominance), the Moors transformed a Christian cathedral into the third largest mosque in the world.

It is significant that the Cordoba Initiative is funding this Dawa project. Robert Spencer, expert on Islamic studies and director of Jihad Watch, explained: “Dawa is Islamic proselytizing and in Islamic law dawa precedes jihad. You call the nonbelievers to Islam, and if they refuse to accept it, then you initiate a jihad against them. But the whole goal of both dawa and jihad is to impose Islamic law or sharia upon the nonbelievers as a political system, not as a religious one.”

In his book, “What’s Right with Islam is What’s Right with America,” Imam Rauf stated that “America is the ideal Islamic society because it encourages tolerance, human rights and promotes freedom of practising faith.” Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, American Islamic Forum for Democracy, stated: “I think that this is part of a deception that wants to exploit American freedoms and claim Islamaphobia.”

Personally, I am not sure what Imam Rauf means because Sharia law makes any criticism of Muhammad punishable by death, it has a different take on the equality of rights of women with men, and it has two separate justice systems – one for Muslims and one for non-believers. Those are blatant differences between Islam and America.

A different Ground Zero appears to be in the making as we begin to process what the merging of Islam’s ideas of theocracy to Western culture and its democratic system will ultimately look like. Many voices are weighing in on this issue. The debate is a necessary one though, and one that will not go away any time soon.