Feisal Abdul Rauf: The Man Behind the Mosque

YouTube - Radical Agenda for Ground Zero Mosque

Feisal Abdul Rauf is the man behind the proposed mosque close to Ground Zero, which once stood the site of the World Trade Towers.  On September 11, 2001, the Twin Towers were destroyed when Muslim radical jihadists crashed planes into both towers.  The towers toppled within an hour after impact.  There has been debate on whether or not the mosque should be built close to Ground Zero.  There's been polls taken and most Americans oppose the mosque being built around the site where the World Trade Center was toppled.  President Obama recently showed his support for the right to build the mosque because Muslims "have the right" under the First Amendment to practice their religion.  Many conservative radio talk show hosts are opposed to the building of the mosque.  The reasoning behind the opposition to the mosque is due to the wisdom of building a mosque where three thousand Americans perished in that World Trade Center crash.  It's a sore spot for many Americans especially when you consider it was Muslim radicals who were responsible for the terrorist attacks.  Those that are supporters of Rauf, the man behind the mosque, claim he is a moderate Muslim.  Is he one?  We'll find out as we proceed further.

Feisal Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait in 1948.  He is the Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a New York City mosque.  In 1990 Feisal Abdul Rauf opened al-Farah Mosque in lower Manhattan.  Seven years later, he established the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), a New York based nonprofit organization which has been run by Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, since 2005.  Rauf is a permanent trustee of an Islamic Cultural Center (ICC) which his father founded in New York City.  Until September 28, 2001--seventeen days after 9/11--the ICC employed Imam Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, who later would say that "only the Jews" could have perpetrated the 9/11 attacks; that if Americans only knew about this Jewish culpability, "they would have done to Jews what Hitler did"; and that Jews "disseminate corruption in the land" and spread "heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs."  Gemeaha's successor at the ICC, Omar Saleem Abu-Namous, said there was no "conclusive evidence" proving that Muslims were responsible for 9/11.  In a 60 Minutes interview that aired on September 30, 2001, Rauf said that the 9/11 attacks were part of a larger Islamic "reaction against the U.S. government politically, where we (the U.S.) espouse principles of democracy and human rights, and (yet) where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries."  "I wouldn't say that the United States deserves what happened," Rauf elaborated, "but United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened."  Rauf further stated that "because we (Americans) have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world," it could be said that in fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA." 

On another occasion, Rauf took up this theme again: "We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims.  You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a milion Iraqi children."  Rauf has clearly suggested that terrorism is an understandable, even if unjustified, response to American actions in Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere in the Middle East.  Rauf has praised Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a Muslim scholar who supports Palestinian suicide bombings as "a very, very, well known Islamic jurist, highly regarded all over the Muslim wold."  He has also expressed respect for the late Egyptian cleric Muhammad Tantawi (who likewise endorsed suicide bombings) and Egypts Chief Mufti, Sheikh Ali Gomaa (who has endorsed Hezbollah and defended Islam's use of the death penalty for apostasy).  Rauf, who has been entrusted with the task of conducting post-9/11 sensitivity training for the FBI, contends that Muslims have been unfairly targeted by law--enforcement authorities in recent years.  "There's no doubt we've been profiled since 9/11," he said in 2005.  "The Patriot Act has kind of made Muslims--there's a sense of 'guilty till proven innocent' rather than the other way around." 

In the summer of 2002, Rauf began lecturing on Islam at the 750-acre campus of Chautaqua Institution, located in Western New York State.  Around that time, he also befriended Karen Armstrong, who later wrote the foreword for Rauf's 2008 book, "What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America." 

Rauf depicts jihad as the Islamic world's defensive reaction to Western provocations, rather than as a seminal Islamic tradition of aggression that long predated any Muslim interactions with theWest.  In March 2004 the "Sydney Morning Herald" quoted Rauf as saying: "The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians.  But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets."  In one particularly significant passage, the Herald article stated: "Imam Feisal...said there could be little progress (in American Islamic relations) until the U.S. acknowledged backing dictators and the U.S. President gave an 'American Culpa' speech to the Muslim world."  In a June 2005 interview, Rauf was asked whether non-Muslims should be troubled by the Qur'an's assertion that people from other religious traditions should be mistreated, subjugated, or killed.  Rauf replied that "many of these verses were revealed in certain contexts where the Prophet (Muhammad) and his followers were not allowed to practice their religion," and thus "permission was granted to the Muslims to fight those who fought them for that reason."  "The vast history of Islam through the 14 centuries of history," Rauf added, "has proven that except for certain moments in history, the predominant attitude of Muslims toward non-Muslims, especially to Jews and Christians, was one of friendship, was one of engagement."  In 2009, Rauf took up this theme again, writing: "Religious freedom is at the core of Islam." 

Rauf believes that Muslim charities have been subject to undue scrutiny since 9/11.  In 2005 an interviewer asked him to comment on the fact that "some Islamic charities are being investigated for terrorist ties."  Rauf replied: "We believe that a certain portion of every (Islamic) charity has been legitimate.  To say that you have connections with terrorism is a very gray area.  It's like the accusation that Saddam Hussein had links to Osama bin Laden.  Well, America had links to Osama bin Laden--does that mean that America is a terrorist country or has ties to terrorism?  It's that type of logic."  In 2008 Rauf revisited the question of whether sharia could be effectively incorporated into Western legal and political systems.  He hailed "Archbishop of Cantebury Rowan Williams for the "forward thinking" that had led Williams to advocate on behalf of "plural jurisdiction," which would permit Muslim enclaves in Britain to be governed by a separate set of laws consistent with sharia.  In March 2009, Rauf said that "Islamic law and American democratic priciples have many things in common," and he claimed that Sharia's endorsement of "political justice" and "economic justice...for the weak and impoverished" is a creed that "sounds suspiciously like the Declaration of Independence." 

Rauf contends that authentic Islam is highly respectful of women's rights and freedoms.  What kind of proof does he have that Islam is highly respectful of women's rights and freedom?  In a 2009 piece he penned for the "Huffington Post," Rauf stated, "The Prophet Muhammad has been known as the first feminist...Gender equality is an intrinsic part of Islamic belief."  In response to suggestions that Islam could benefit from a movement to purge the faith of unsavory elements such as its treatment of women, Rauf has said flatly: "Islam doesn't need a reformation."  In a 2009 interview, Rauf endorsed the 1979 Iranian revolution which established a theocratic Islamic state.  In a May 7, 2010 sermon he delivered in New York City, Rauf seemed to suggest that the perpetrators of 9/11 may not actually have been Muslims.  "Some people say it was Muslims who attacked (the U.S.) on 9/11," he said, before drifting into another topic.  In a June 2010 interview with newsman Aaron Klein on New York's WABC Radio, Rauf was asked whether he agreed with the State Department's designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization, Rauf replied:  "I'm not a politician.  I try to avoid the issues.  The issue of terrorism is a very complex question...I'm a bridge builder.  I define my work as a bridge builder.  I do not want to be placed, nor do I accept to be placed in a position of being put in a position where I am the target of one side or another." 

In recent years, Rauf and ASMA have pursued a project known as the Cordoba Initiative, whose mission is to recapture an "atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect" in "Muslim-West relations."  Funded by numerous countries that are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, this Initiative aims to build a 13-story, $100 million mosque/Islamic Center just 600 feet from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.  The proposed name of the structure--"Cordoba House"--implies conquest.  Indeed, the first Cordoba mosque was built upon the ruins of a Christian church in the Spanish city of Cordoba after the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 8th century A.D. 

In August 2010, the State Department announced that it would be sending Rauf on a taxpayer-funded trip (costing $16,000) through the Middle east to foster "greater understanding" about Islam and Muslim life in the United States.  This was Rauf's fourth U.S.-sponsored trip to the region.  The first two took place in 2007 during the Bush administration and the third was in early 2010.  Rauf had previously said that he would seek funds from overseas to finance the $100 million mosque project but offered no specifics.  A spokesman for the project refused to say whether Rauf would accept money from Iran. 

From the information I retrieved from the website called, DiscoverTheNetworks.com, Feisal Abdul Rauf isn't a moderate Muslim.  I don't think you can trust Rauf from the information on this particular website.  Imams like Rauf are a threat to America.  The media tries to give the impression that Islam is a religion of peace.  I don't know whether there is such a thing as a moderate Muslim.  I'm aware all Muslims aren't terrorists.  However, some of them haven't been called to commit acts of jihad.  Also, I believe there are Muslims that are Muslims-in-name-only; that aren't that committed to their religion, like many people who claim to be Christian but aren't committed to serving the Lord.  The information I've just mentioned says a lot about Rauf.