Muslims Speak Out Against the Ground Zero Mosque

By Eileen F. Toplansky

In the Ottawa Citizen published on August 7, 2010, two Canadian Muslims write that "Muslims know the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation." Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah, both authors in their own right, sit on the board of the Muslim Canadian Congress.

They ponder the "reasoning behind building a mosque at the epicenter of the worst-ever attack on the U.S." and wonder "why its proponents don't built a monument to those who died in the attack." Furthermore, it is not as if there are no Islamic centers of worship in New York City. The Islamic Society-Mid Manhattan is located on 55^th Street. On the google map page there is an additional listing of nearby places of Islamic interest. Then there is the Islamic Cultural Center of New York on Third Avenue which caters to the Upper East Side and then there is the Assata Islamic Center at 172 Allen Street in lower Manhattan.

Raza and Fatah go on to say that "we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as "Fitna," meaning "mischief-making" that is clearly forbidden in the Koran."

From their Islamic perspective, these two authors state that "the Koran commands Muslims to "Be considerate when you debate with the People of the Book" ~ i.e., Jews and Christians. Yet, Raza and Fatah state that to build a mosque at "the place where Muslims killed thousands of New Yorkers is not being considerate or sensitive."

Like many others, Raza and Fatah want to know where the funding is coming from. They state that if "Rauf is serious about building bridges, then he could have dedicated space in this so-called community centre to a church and synagogue, but he did not."

In fact, both writers "passed on this message to [Rauf] through a mutual Saudi friend, but received no answer." Furthermore, they write that [Rauf] "could have proposed a memorial to the 9/11 dead with a denouncement of the doctrine of armed jihad, but he chose not to."

They consider it a "repugnant thought that $100 million" would be spent [in building this New York City mosque] instead of sending it to "dying and needy Muslims in Darfur or Pakistan." "As Muslims," Raza and Fatah, "are dismayed that [their] co-religionists have such little consideration for their fellow citizens and wish to rub salt in their wounds and pretend they are applying a balm to sooth [sic] the pain."

While Raza and Fatah "understand [Bloomberg's] and other liberals goodwill, they maintain that the "stand is based on ignorance and guilt, and [liberals] will never in their lives have to face the tyranny of Islamism that targets, kills and maims Muslims worldwide, and is using liberalism itself to destroy liberal secular democratic societies from within."

One should ponder the last statement carefully. If Americans do not educate themselves about the horrors of sharia law, and begin to consider the dangers of a dual legal system in this country, then, in fact, we will face the genuine tyranny of Islamofasciam that is currently enveloping the world. Sharia law was thwarted in Canada because of the very concerns that Raheel Raza and Tarek Fatah discuss but it is critically undermining Great Britain.

Hat Tip: Tom Hustad

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com