A Mosque Near Ground Zero – another perspective?
Vinod Kumar
A great controversy is raging in America.
A New York City community board voted Tuesday – May 25, 2010 -- to support a Muslim-led plan to build a community center with a mosque near ground zero. About 150 people packed the Community Board. One meeting and after four hours of heated debate, the board ultimately gave a 29-to-1 vote of residential approval. The building will be called Cordoba House.
Opponents of the project protested the proposal, waving pictures of loved ones killed in the World Trade Center and holding up signs that read, "Honor 3,000, 9/11 -- No mosque!"
1.Why a mosque near ground zero? Why a mosque at that particular place – the site where the existing structure was damaged when World Trade Center twin towers were attacked by Muslim terrorists in the name of Islam? The site has emotional feelings for not just the relatives and friends of those who were killed on that fateful day or the New Yorkers but also for the entire nation as this was a well orchestrated attack on the fundamental icons of America. On that day the plan was to attack three icons of what America stands for – economic might, military might and democracy. The first two icons were successfully attacked – the attempt for the third was foiled by the brave and vigilant passengers of the flight that crashed in the fields of western Pennsylvania. The pagan pantheon of the Ka'aba, located in Mecca, was the first non-Muslim sanctuary to be used as a mosque; this was done by Prophet Muhammad himself after he conquered Mecca in 630 CE. Since then it has been established practice of Muslim conquerors to demolish icons of people they conquer and build a mosque or use the iconic structure of the vanquished as mosque. Islam is a supremacist faith – it believes it is to be the only true faith.(Koran 3:19 and others) Al-Aqsa mosque of Jerusalem at a site also known as the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, the place where the First and Second Temples, are generally accepted to have stood, Ummayad mosque in Damascus on the site of church of St. John, the converted Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Babri mosque (demolished in 1992) at Lord Rama’s birthplace in Ayodhya, India – are just a few of the long list of mosques built on the site of earlier churches and temples. In India alone historian Sita Ram Goel in his book Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them gives a partial list of 2000 Islamic monuments built at the site of deliberately demolished Hindu temples or material obtained from them. In the medieval times churches, synagogues and temples used to be icons of civilizations. So they demolished those and built mosque there. Today these icons have been replaced by democracy, military and economic might – that is what America stands for today. Building a mosque at the hallowed ground of demolished WTCs -- icons of America’s economic might is in Muslim eyes be a symbol of Islam’s victory over mighty America. The selection of the site is not accidental – it is rather a very astute decision.
2.Why name it Cordoba Initiative / House: The name given to the project to a casual observer sounds quite innocent but on closer scrutiny betrays the intentions of the project. It is named Cordoba Initiative and the building will be called Cordoba House. One wonders why would a Muslim group building a mosque or a community center, as they call it, in New York City in the US would name it after a Spanish city? Symbols are powerful in any civilization and more so in Islam. So one would naturally ask what is so special about Cordoba. Cordoba was once a grand city but then there have been many grand cities in history. What is so special about Cordoba? Of course, Cordoba has deep resonance in the history of Islam. Spain was attacked by Islamic forces in 711AD with a view to capture all Europe and convert it to Islam. Islam’s progress was arrested by Charles Martel at the borders of France in 732AD. Cordoba was the capital of the Islamic empire in Spain. Cordoba is the place where first Islamic Caliphate was established in the West. On the site of an existing and from materials obtained from the Christian Visigoth Church a grand mosque was built in Cordoba. Thus naming the new structure near the demolished World Trade Center Cordoba House carries great symbolic value. The Cordoba mosque has a very special place in Islamic annals. The Muslims have a great reverence for it. The spiritual father of Pakistan, poet Allama Iqbal, while on a visit to Europe in the year 1932 A.D. took special permission to visit Spain. “Among the various monuments of Islamic Spain, the most intense yearning of his soul was to experience the Grand Mosque (Le Mezquita) of Cordoba, built in the 8th century by Emir Abdul Rehman I, but now called The Holy Cathedral. At the great mosque of Qurtaba, he wrote his poem Masjid-e-Qurtaba and offered his prayers, although this ritual had been forbidden by the Government of Spain.” (www.allamaiqbal.com) He wrote: “Sacred for lovers of art, thou art the glory of faith, Thou hast made Andalusia pure as a holy land.” If Allama Iqbal was to revisits the earth, I have no doubt that he would wish to visit the so called Cardoba House in New York and show the same reverence that he showed in his poem towards Masjid-e-Qurtaba. There is no doubt that the proposed "community center" would serve as a land mark of Islamic conquest of America and would be visited not so much by the local Muslim community but the visitors from all over the Islamic world and in time the prayers would be conducted for those who destroyed the twin towers rather than those who perished in them.
3.What is the purpose of Cordoba House?
This is defined on the web site of Cordoba initiative and I quote from the web site as of June 1, 2010:
“This proposed project is about promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture. Cordoba House will provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all.”
I admire the people behind the Cordoba Initiative for their noble aims.
Recently there has been an intense debate across the world about what really true “Islamic values” are? Those who indulge in terrorism claim to be representative of true Islam while others deny it. A non-Muslim is completely puzzled as to what Islam really is?
What is Islam? Simply speaking: the Koran is Islam and Islam is Koran. So true Islamic values can only be gleaned from Islam’s holy book and where Islam is followed in its puritanical form.
Islam was born in what is today known as Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is also the keeper of the two most Holy places of Islam – Mecca and Medina. In Saudi Arabia, the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam is the constitution. Not only that, it follows Wahabi interpretation of Islam which is regarded as the most content-type Sati was practiced all across north India but it was not very common_puritanical of all. So one can safely grant that what Saudi Arabia does is in accordance with the highest and the purest values of Islam. Since the declaration on the web site of the project claims to promote “integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion…. guided by Islamic values in their truest form – compassion, generosity and respect for all” let us see how this is done in Saudi Arabia.
In Saudi Arabia – practice of any religion other than Islam is not allowed. Books and icons of other religions are strictly prohibited. There are other prohibitions about the freedom of speech and thought. Women are treated as second class citizens.
If one were to read the Holy Book of Koran one would find that it regards Islam as the Only true faith (3:19) and regards the unbelievers like beasts…. (2:171). The Koran – the Holy Book of Islam has no tolerance for those who do not believe in its revelations and casts them into the fires of Hell. It commands its believers not to be friends with Jews and Christians. The Koran pronounces harsh punishments for unbelievers. The true Islam has no compassion or generosity or respect for the unbelievers – which most of the New Yorkers and Americans are.
One wonders how Cordoba House will promote its stated goal of “integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion" if it is to be…. "guided by Islamic values in their truest form – compassion, generosity and respect for all”.
However, it is not America or New York City that needs promoting integration, and tolerance of difference and community cohesion. America, and the New York city specially, is a wonderful living testament to integration and tolerance of people from all over the world working together in an exemplary fashion. Would it not be better to spend 100 million dollars in building churches and temples and community centers of art and culture where such integration and tolerance does not exist, where the practice or propagation of religion other than Islam is prohibited, where women and non-Muslims are treated as second class citizens, where there is no freedom of religion, conscience, speech or thought? Would it not be better to promote integration and tolerance in the country where the Islamic terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11 came from?
Mosque near ground zero is a terrible idea. Mosque near ground zero is a psychological surrender to the very forces that attacked the WTCs on 9/11. Mosque near ground zero is an insult to the memory of 3000 who perished in the attack on the twin towers
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