What I learned from meeting the Ground Zero Imam

Sean says:

08:26am | 28/09/10

Agreed Eric.
Sassoon is another example of a writer seeing one side of the story. Just because they legally can build doesn’t mean they should if the majority of their fellow Americans are against it. Mutual respect works both ways

iansand says:

08:38am | 28/09/10

Cordoba was a centre of learning with scholars of all faiths.  In the Medieval period Islam was far more learned and tolerant than Christendom.  Do not let hate obscure rationality.

bobw says:

09:01am | 28/09/10

@Eric:  The inaccurate and inflammatory epithet “Ground Zero Victory Mosque” robs your post of any credibility it might otherwise have had.

Do you really know anything about the history of Cordoba?  I ask because your post seems simply to echo lines familiar from the Fox News songbook.

HappyCynic says:

09:10am | 28/09/10

@Eric, even if it was at GZ and hit by an engine that still doesn’t change the fact that this Imam has nothing to do with 9/11 except that a few terrorists think they share a religion with him.

Also Al-Andalus (of which Cordoba was the capital), was founded by a King who was extremely moderate, who allowed both Christians and Jews to live in relative peace and who encouraged all religions to contribute to society, while it was conquered later by the Berber (extremists who practiced a strict form of Islam from North Africa), Cordoba at its height was a beacon of learning and civilisation compared to the barbarism that was routinely practiced in other parts of the world.  Alot of Roman and Greek ancient texts would not have survived to this day if it hadn’t been for Al-Andalus.

I’d much rather live in a place like that (as a Jew) than in a country that fosters ignorance and prejudice as one-eyed and irrational as yours Eric

Your prejudice is a slap in the face to those who want to foster peace and understanding between the 3 religions and there are many who do.  If you don’t want peace between us all then quietly sit in a dark corner somewhere with your paranoia and your delusions and let those who do get on with the job.

AdamC says:

09:36am | 28/09/10

I wouldn’t totally endorse Eric’s comment, but he is right about Cordoba, which was part of Moorish muslim Al Andalus. The Moors captured and ruled much of Spain for centuries (not necessarily as a unitary empire, though).

It is true that muslim Iberia was more cultured and tolerant than the Christendom of the middle ages, but you could say the same about the West and the middle east of today. Does that justify the US annexing Saudi Arabia? 

It is also abundantly obvious that, if this Imam wants to promote mutual goodwill between muslims and non-muslims, he should be sharply changing tack!

Mike Franklin says:

09:44am | 28/09/10

Have you been to ‘Ground Zero’ Eric? (I have).  This proposed Islamic centre is two ’Manhattan’ blocks away from the old twin towers site, it is not part of the defined ground zero area. It was not an engine that hit the old coat factory but part of the landing gear.  An Islamic learning and prayer centre is for education, something sadly, the average paranoid WASP American severely lacks. 9/11 was caused by fundamental extremists (of many faiths) hiding behind a false veil of Islam, the average Muslim abhors these actions. The current paranoia is based purely on fear, the assumption that every Muslim follower is a threat to security is absurd, in the same way that I have unbelievable nightmares about Christians since one of their own ’Martin Bryant’ terrorised and brutally murdered innocent people at Port Arthur, imagine the outcry if a Christian education centre was built at Port Arthur…I can’t, both arguments are ludicrous.

Bruno says:

10:11am | 28/09/10

after the fall of rome, the germanic tribes who took over the iberian peninsula, the visigothic christians, they were anything but, they were barbarians who took civilisation back centuries, the berbers of north africa were able to take visigothic lands because a large proportion of the pre-visigoth romanized people, some historians argue over 2/3rds, welcomed and fought for the berbers, because the berbers offered a more civilised society than the christianized barbarians, it can be argued the christians of southern spain and portugal enjoyed a better life under berber muslim rule than other continental christians did under barbarian rule, true the christians had to pay the muslims a special tax, but the romanized christians of barbarian occupied lands also had to pay the barbarians a special tax, it was only when power corrupted the caliphate of cordoba some 400-500 years later that the local population backed vatican funded christian kings in the reconquest of those lands

Zeta says:

10:28am | 28/09/10

Islam really needs to learn the lesson of Cordoba.

Those guys invented toothpaste and deoderant. You got this big Caliphate stomping across Spain, absorbing smaller Christian fifedoms. Now you imagine you’re some smelly Spainish Catholic dung collector, just out there, in your King’s field, collecting dung for sheckles - when these pointed hatted Muslims show up with their long beards and sweet smelling armpits. You’re gonna sign the hell up. You got your naked, skinny God pinned to a cross at the local church, and every one wearing sack cloth, and then you got these guys with delightfully minty breath, a God you never even have to look at, curvy swords, and silk.

You imagine you show up to the next dung convention and you’re in glorious Cordoban robes with the whitest teeth in all of Europe and you’re the only person who doesn’t smell like a latrine. You’d be unrolling your prayer mat before Mohammed the Executioner could say ‘Convert or die.’

But it gets better. Awesome shit the Caliphate of Cordoba made popular: Haircuts. Shaving. Hair washing. Glassware. Tablecloths. The Three Course meal. Asparagus. Eyebrow waxing.

Before the Caliphate of Cordoba, women all had monobrows and drank out of goblets.

But as if our imaginary convert thought life couldn’t get any better, what with his delightful hair, new found sense of fashion, and fresh fragrances - Cordoba invented the Spanish lute which would later evolve into the guitar. The freaking guitar.

Were it not for the Caliphate, we’d be listening to yodeling, while smelling like arse.

Praise be to Allah.

notsurprised says:

12:51pm | 28/09/10

Wow Zeta, and without the guitar there would have been no Hendrix!

Eric says:

01:54pm | 28/09/10

The niceness or otherwise of the Islamic regime in Cordoba is totally irrelevant. The point is that it was a city conquered by the sword in the name of Allah, and subsequently ruled by Islamic overlords. The symbolism is that of Islamic triumph.

However, my main point has not even been challenged, let alone refuted. That is - if this were really some sort of attempt at building bridges between cultures, the Imam would have dropped the plan as soon as it became apparent that it was creating animosity. That alone renders the whole argument for supporting the mosque null and void.

John Chrysostomon says:

02:27pm | 28/09/10

@iansand - You’re forgetting that Constantinople continued civilization in Europe too. Except it was Islam that started the idea of making non-believers wear special clothing to set them apart from the rest of the population

iansand says:

03:36pm | 28/09/10

Oh for heavens sake, Eric.  I suppose Christians conquered cities with fairy floss and water pistols.  Get a grip.

John Chrysostomon - I have not forgotten Byzantium, but please explain why its existence is relevant to this discussion.

Huddo says:

03:51pm | 28/09/10

Eric,

I saw the Imam being interviewed on American 60 Minutes and he insisted that what America needs after 9/11 is more Mosques.  I thought to myself “No, the terrorists were almost all from Saudi Arabia.  I think that perhaps the Saudies need a few Churches and Synagogues.”  You are right that if the Imam really cared he would move it further out, but he has no interest in that.  Just goes to show that a supposed moderate cannot even make a small concession like that.  Westerners are constantly told to modify their behaviour so it doesn’t upset muslims, but when has that tolerance ever been reciprocated?

John Chrysostomon says:

04:32pm | 28/09/10

@iansand you said Cordoba was a centre of learning of all faiths. It wasn’t for Christianity - Islam doesn’t allow it. Constantinople was also a centre of learning. The Jews continued there too.

Eric says:

04:46pm | 28/09/10

Iansand, I notice that you have still failed to challenge my main point - that if this were really some sort of attempt at building bridges between cultures, the Imam would have dropped the plan as soon as it became apparent that it was creating animosity.

I guess you just have to keep bringing up irrelevancies, since you don’t really have any way to counter that.

iansand says:

06:11pm | 28/09/10

John Chrysostomon - That is an unconventional view, but you are entitled to it.  Do not forget the Norman kingdoms of Sicily as an example of cultured coexistence.  Things are not very simple.

Eric - When was Ground Zero consecrated as a shrine?  Is the animosity rational?

Tom says:

09:26pm | 28/09/10

For God’s sake, iansand, answer the point Eric raised. “If Imam Rauf’s plan was to “promote mutual understanding and respect”, he would have dropped the proposal the moment there was a public backlash. ”

Dan says:

10:22pm | 28/09/10

Eric, you really are so ignorant. It is neither a mosque, nor is it a victory mosque, since the organisers had NOTHING to do with 9/11!!!! I repeat they had NOTHING to do with 9/11!

The caliphate in Cordoba was much more tolerant than the Christians were (Jews were expelled by the Christians, not Muslims), and make no mistake about it, I would rather live in Corboda than any country with you in charge!

Also during that era, everybody launched war and captured territory! I guess in your Islamophobic black + white world, only the terrible Musims go to war to get land, and the Christians, get land through love. Just like the Crusades was all the Muslims’s fault.

You are a paranoid bigot, Eric, and in the case of the Islamic centre, the Muslims own the land and they have religious freedom. Or does relligious freedom only extend to Christians?

BTW, you talk about understanding and respect, but you have constantly shown that you lack either! You undoubtfully would want to ban all mosques/Islamic centres, just like you want to cut Islamic immigration; well, guess what, whether you like it or not, Muslims have equal rights and have as much right to build holy places as Christians do!

bobw says:

02:19am | 29/09/10

@Tom:  Perhaps commenters would have been more attentive to what we are now supposed to believe was Eric’s “point” if he had not chosen to tether it to a load of emotive twaddle about “true” purposes, “technical” disaster zones and medieval “Jihad”.

However, one obvious response to that “point” is that if Muslim groups in America were expected to accede to every irrational “backlash” engineered on behalf of the bigoted, the underinformed and the chronically hypersensitive, it would probably be difficult to find a single site in urban America on which a facility like Park51 could be built.  Do you really believe that expecting Muslim groups to remove themselves to locations arbitrarily deemed “acceptable” by random bystanders is defensible?  Would it better promote “mutual tolerance and respect” if American Muslims felt obliged to deny themselves access to the ordinary rules of planning law and cocoon themselves from the mainstream of society?

Jon says:

08:18am | 29/09/10

Feisal Abdul Rauf father was member of The Muslim Brotherhood that founded virtually all Islamic terror organizations operating worldwide today, including al-Qaeda and Hamas. He has never denounced the extreme believes of his father.

This insult to America is only a propaganda exercise used to convince useful idiots that Islam is genuinely peaceful and so far it has worked.

James1 says:

11:36am | 29/09/10

If you think Cordoba was bad under the Muslims, have a look into what the Catholics did when they took control…

Billy says:

06:13pm | 29/09/10

@ bobw “irrational “backlash” engineered on behalf of the bigoted”? Bigots are they?

Let me follow your line of reasoning. The yanks allowed to get upset when religious nutters fly a plane into their buildings, killing thousands and cause billions of dollars of damage? I’m damn sure the muslims would get upset if the shoe was on the other foot.

Your response and double standard is insensitive verging on obscene.

Dan says:

09:20pm | 29/09/10

Jon;  “Feisal Abdul Rauf father was member of The Muslim Brotherhood that founded virtually all Islamic terror organizations operating worldwide today, including al-Qaeda and Hamas. He has never denounced the extreme believes of his father.”

You must be desperate if you want to try to potray him as an extremist.

” This insult to America is only a propaganda exercise used to convince useful idiots that Islam is genuinely peaceful and so far it has worked.”

The only idiots are those who listen to you. Islam IS genuinely peaceful; it is not extremist unlike you!

Dan says:

09:34pm | 29/09/10

Jon, sigh. No matter what you do, you can not paint Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf as an extremist. He’s not like you.

“This insult to America is only a propaganda exercise used to convince useful idiots that Islam is genuinely peaceful and so far it has worked.”

The only insult is that Islamophobes like you are listened to. Islam IS genuinely peaceful, and you are nothing but a useful idiot for hate organisations! You are an ignorant Islamophobic extremist.

bobw says:

02:19am | 30/09/10

@Billy:  Your response assumes a connection between the “religious nutters” responsible for 9/11 and the proponents of Park51, but it is self-evident that no relevant connection exists.  The irrational aggregation of unrelated individuals for the purpose of casting moral judgment is a classic bigot manoeuvre.

If there’s a “double standard” here, it resides in the opinion that “mutual understanding and respect” requires Muslims to tolerate and accommodate the irrational demands of people who refuse to tolerate them.  Doesn’t sound all that “mutual” to me.

Tedd says:

08:03am | 28/09/10

““we should make every effort to reach out to those who work on the basis of mutual respect.”“

Words such as these deny the reality that inter-faith interactions vary from occasional cosy photo-shoots and mini-talk-fests to more distant barbs and bomb-throwing. 

The only consistent thing the monotheistic faiths do is denigrate those who fail to believe - the abelievers.  They are at war with abelief.

T.Chong says:

07:36am | 28/09/10

“Who is paying”? funny you should ask Joan.
Apparently ( I only have media reports to go on ) one of the main financers of the Mosque is a Saudi man, ,who also happens to own a very large share of FOX, and as Jon Stewart has pointed out this is just to funny to be true .
FOX news talking heads regularly decry all things ground zero mosque, but wont actually mention the mans name . LOL Funny.
So Joan, broaden yuor education, and take up The Punches link to the Daily Show, and John Stewart.
Theres a whole world out there. Some of it very enlightening.

GreenGoblin says:

08:28am | 28/09/10

“Who is paying for the mosque?”....a business partner of Rupert Murdoch among others.

HappyCynic says:

09:20am | 28/09/10

Yeah and like ex-smokers and ex-girlfriends, no one is more evangelically biased against their former vices, addictions and beliefs than an ex.

Has it ever occured to you, Old Clive, to find out for yourself?  Interfaith dialogue requires normal people reaching out to other normal people of other faiths and getting to know them, finding out how alike we all are and we are all more alike than we are different.

Zeta says:

10:05am | 28/09/10

I heard from an ex-Christian that all Christians eat human flesh and drink blood to commemorate their crucified God. Just look at the history of their religion. Also, pedophiles.

what a joke says:

02:28pm | 28/09/10

@ Zeta - Your immaturity astounds me!!

I assume that you are a Muslim - and the below comments do nothing to assist anybody.

Clearly Clive has been misinformed and instead of taking the opportunity to correct him and shed some understanding light on the situation - you mock, belittle and embarass not only yourself, but if you are a muslim, your religion also.

The best form of attack is NOT attacking back - if you are a muslim - you’re a disgrace for lowering yourself to such a level where by you feel the need to attack a persons religion over things which are outside of any person control.

Pedophile are sick individuals and they come in all shapes, sizes, races and RELIGIONS!! A google search would prove that to you!!!

Time to grow up!!

Zeta says:

04:21pm | 28/09/10

@ what a joke - Your maturity amazes me!

I assume therefore you are old, and your above comment has done wonders to enlighten me as to the purile nature of my commentary. 

See what I did there?

Normally, I would view your response and propensity for exclamatory sentences with a hearty chuckle, knuckle cracking, and perhaps a self-congratulatory ‘my work here is done’ said to no one in particular, but in this case, I shall grace you with a more detailed retort.

Anyone who claims to be a beacon of understanding light is, to put it mildly, an arsehat. Millenia of human misadventure have established beyond any shadow of a doubt that correcting one’s deeply held misapprehensions is only possible through violence or satire.

Any military strategist will tell you that as a general rule of thumb the best form of attack is actually attack, and the best form of defence is also attack.

And in direct response to your most basic level of outrage, I’ll break down the joke into parts so you can digest it the way the elderly digest their food:

By taking the basic premise of Old Clive’s statement, and replacing the definitive clauses with those taken from common rumours circulated about the early Christian Church by Romans and Jews prior to the Emperorship of Constantine one sees that Old Clive’s statement is just as ridiculous as 3rd century accusations that Christians were cannibals. By also reminding the reader of recent Christian political issues concerning pedophillia within the ranks of Church leaders, it further highlights the ridiculousness of assuming a people of a religion are all the same based on hearsay.

I thought that on it’s own was pretty funny, but you assuming that I’m a muslim because I dared to ridicule a ridicule-worthy statement about muslims makes it even funnier.

It’s kind of like assuming I’m smart because I’m making fun of a stupid person.

HappyCynic says:

04:34pm | 28/09/10

@Zeta

Ouch   what a joke didn’t seem into S ‘n’ M to me but he sure asked for it nonetheless

iansand says:

10:53am | 28/09/10

You mean the banks can’t charge interest?  You beeyooty.  That is sharia law.

James says:

11:40pm | 28/09/10

@ iandsand you mean eye for eye law? you broke a man’s leg, sharia breaks your leg as well, you mean where women have to be forced to have a male companion (which has to be a relative) when she walks outside? you mean adultery is punished by stoning? you mean when a woman is raped she has to produce more than 2 witnesses (who must be male) and if a woman has to testify she is worth less than half of a witness? if she could not produce witnesses she would be the one punished by lashes for being a victim? YOU BEEYOOTY.

Eric says:

08:42pm | 28/09/10

Your point is well taken, Samson. I am still thinking about it.

Jon says:

02:23pm | 28/09/10

Angus, Hear Hear!

Shama says:

11:03am | 28/09/10

The Saudis are financing everything but what the hell are Fox, Bush etc. - good Christians all - doing by taking money from them?

It takes more than one hand to clap - maybe put to right your own conservatives who are fire and brimstone at the pulpit for the unwashed masses all the while making deals with the very people they denounce?

Not that different though from the Saudis who want to spread Islam but are not above keeping their Islamic neighbours suppressed by way of US force.

In short, the really rich and powerful are in cahoots while the rest of us argue about the merits or otherwise of religions.

TheRealDave says:

11:24am | 28/09/10

“Rich Saudis’ are doing a lot of ‘financing’, lately.
Just look what fruit their work in the Sudan has ripened to. “

We Capitalists rock!

We sold Japan Pig Iron prior to WW2 for a few bucks and they sent it back to us in the form of bullets, bombs, battleships, tanks and planes which would kill close to 40 000 Aussies.

But we’re more enlightened now. We throw billions to the Saudis every single day, but its all good - they’re on ‘our’ side after all….

Peter says:

04:08pm | 28/09/10

No doubt you await the first MP to be sworn in wearing a burqa too?

bobw says:

03:30am | 29/09/10

Your point, Peter?

Herb. Holden says:

04:16pm | 28/09/10

why stop there…the afl could run a footy club called the Jets…or maybe a vegan eatery serving fried chicken.

Cuppa says:

06:07pm | 28/09/10

Absolutly spot on John.I mean surely the muslims wouldnt be offended would they?I mean they are all for tolerance in new york & all that arent they?I think they should call the nightclub ’ Talibuns’  & see what hypocrits muslims are when the shoe is on the other foot.

mike says:

09:25pm | 28/09/10

The best comment on this issue I’ve read yet. Bravo!

Dan says:

10:18pm | 28/09/10

So the only reason you propose this is to provoke the Muslim community? Wow, how mature. BTW, did you know that there are already strip clubs in the neighbourhood anyway?

You really need to look up the word tolerance because it doesn’t mean provocation. Unless, you also build gay clubs near churches, but you wouldn’t do that would you?

Cuppa, you are incredible. So Muslims are hypocrites because they rejected an imaginary nightclub with an imaginary name?!!!!

Eric says:

06:04am | 29/09/10

Dan: “You really need to look up the word tolerance because it doesn’t mean provocation.”

Provocation - such as building a victory mosque at Ground Zero? Why do you tolerate the Imam’s provocation, and not that of the others?

Dan says:

09:21pm | 29/09/10

Eric, you ignorant Islamophobe! It is not a victory mosque!!!! The organisers have nothing to do with 9/11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

James1 says:

11:52am | 29/09/10

Huntington is wrong because he entirely misses the point of world politics.  State behaviour is not motivated by values or culture, it is motivated by power.  In that sense, all states act in the same way, because their behaviour is determined by the anarchic structure of the international system, rather than some abstract “value system”.  If the US is such a Christian nation, why does it act the way it does?  Why does it kill millions?  Why does it place itself before all others?  Surely these are fundamentally anti-Christian acts?  None of this is to condemn the US, it is more to advocate a realist understanding of why states act as they do.

Furthermore, there is no clash of civilisations happening.  A tiny minority is Islamists are but a minor irritant, compared to the real power struggle that lies ahead - that between China and the US.  That power struggle will not be about “values” or “culture” or any similar silly concept, but power.

Also, I am pretty certain that something the founding fathers of the US did not have in mind was a totalitarian theocracy.