Live webcast: Coptic Christian activist Joseph Nassralla, Pamela Geller, and Robert Spencer respond to media smear campaign against SIOA mosque rally

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May 25, 2010

Mosque Unbecoming
M. Zuhdi Jasser

"In the 1960s, my parents left their despotic motherland of Syria for the promise of genuine liberty and religious freedom in America. In the decades since, we have led the construction of a number of mosques in the towns where we lived.

Some went up without challenge from the local community, but others met with palpable local discontent. In those cases, the law and the natural American affinity for religious freedom eventually paved the way to the ribbon cutting.

These were all humble mosques, funded locally by our congregations. It's plain the planned "Ground Zero mosque" is something very different. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, his wife, Daisy Khan, and an investor intend to build "Cordoba House," an ostentatious $100 million, 13-story Muslim community center including a gym, a swimming pool, a performance-arts facility and a mosque.

My first concern is whether the financing truly represents the local American Muslim community or comes with strings from foreign Islamists. But that is far from my last concern.

I am an American Muslim dedicated to defeating the ideology that fuels global Islamist terror – political Islam. And I don't see such a "center" actually fighting terrorism or being a very "positive" addition near Ground Zero, no matter how well intentioned.
To put it bluntly, Ground Zero is the one place in America where Muslims should think less about teaching Islam and "our good side" and more about being American and fulfilling our responsibilities to confront the ideology of our enemies.

Khan and Rauf avoid discourse on reform and political Islam. Instead, they simply give us the familiar, too vague condemnation of "extremism and violence." They seem to conveniently view 9/11, al Qaeda and every manifestation of militant Islamism as simply a public-relations problem for "Muslims in the West." Imam Rauf has even gone so far as to bizarrely say that the 9/11 terrorists were "not Muslims."

As controversy over the project has become heated, Rauf's Web site has scrubbed the term "mosque" in exchange for "center" – again missing the boat of why so many Americans are offended. (Meanwhile, the plans of another local Islamic group to rebuild near Ground Zero only added to the quandary.)

This is not about the building of a mosque or a religious facility. It is not about religious freedom. This is about a deep, soulful understanding of what happened to our country on 9/11.

When Americans are attacked, they come together as one, under one flag, under one law against a common enemy that we are not afraid to identify. Religious freedom is central to our nation – and that is why the location of this project is so misguided. Ground Zero is purely about being American. It can never be about being Muslim.

The World Trade Center site represents Ground Zero in America's war against radical Islamists who seek to destroy the American way of life. It is not ground zero of a cultural exchange.

We American Muslims cannot merely passively avoid Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots. We need to ask ourselves: Are we Americans who happen to be Muslim or Muslims blindly demanding to be American?

American Muslims will be better served if this project is built further away from Ground Zero and focuses on leading a reform effort. If we help build anything at the WTC site itself, it should be timeless memorials to all those who lost their lives on 9/11 – memorials blind to faith, race, creed or national origin.

On Sept. 12, 2001, I was first an American. When those planes hit the World Trade Center, they hit at the core of my being as an American. The attack on my faith by the terrorists was secondary to their attack on my homeland.

We need to focus our efforts more transparently on teaching Muslim youth that the American concepts of liberty and freedom are preferable to Sharia and the Islamic state. American Muslims represent the best opportunity to fight Islamist radicalization not because we understand Islam but because we have experienced and understood what American liberty provides to the Muslim experience.

Americans must always remember the horrors of 9/11 and must be vigilant in not allowing political Islam to wear down the principles that built our country.

This center is trying to change the narrative of 9/11 – to diminish what happened at Ground Zero. That can only weaken us against the very real threat of Islamist radicalization."

In order to prevent misunderstanding, Coptic people should be given front seat at any SIOA rally and presented at the beginning explaining their predicament.

Jasser will at one time learn, if he has not already done so, that Islam, once taken on, is akin to the Shirt of Nessus, the killer of Hercules. Once you put it on, you're dead, spiritually.

Jasser may have good intentions, but far too many of those in the sway of the Islamic cult have entirely different ideas of what can and cannot be done with or to Islam. And one of those ideas is that Islam canNOT be re-interpreted. As Robert has pointed out, the Gates of Ijtihad are closed, thereby foreclosing the possibility of "reforming" Islam. In other words, what we see today of Islam is what we are going to get.

"Ijtihad (اجتهاد) is the process of arriving at a decision on a point of Islamic law through study of the Qur'an and Sunnah. Most Muslims consider the gates of ijtihad to be closed -- that is, independent study of the Qur'an and Sunnah are discouraged, and Muslims are instead expected to adhere to the rulings of one of the established schools of jurisprudence (madhahib, مذاهب). The gate of ijtihad must be reopened if there is ever to be any genuine Islamic reform: "Therefore it is said that 'the door of ijtihad is closed' as of some nine hundred years, and since then the tendency of jurisprudence (fiqh) has been to produce only commentaries upon commentaries and marginalia."

"That's from Cyril Glasse's New Encyclopedia of Islam. Cyril Glasse is a graduate of Columbia University and a practicing Muslim."

From Robert's post of 03/30/09, Shhh! Don't talk about "freedom" and "tolerance" in front of Muslims! You might offend them!

What you say is true. Here is Pamela interviewing Jasser.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/05/jassers-jihad.html

Still, for a Muslim to say this about the Ground Zero mosque, and to renounce the MBs is extraordinary.

". . . I wish there were more people like you [Dr. Jasser]. It didn't happen. I would not agree with [Dr. Jasser] about Islam, but I wish there were more like him."
Geert Wilders
http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/br0nc0s/managed-mt/mt-search.cgi?search=Dr.+Zuhdi+Jasser&IncludeBlogs=1&limit=20

I didn't post this so much to tout Dr. Jasser, but to show there is another angle to the the Ground Zero Mosque story.

If Keith Olberman hadn't so eager to act childish, he might have noticed this.

..and Mr. Nasralla (Joe?), thank you for being a good survivor. You are proud strong and brave..and God be with you..Sir.

Witness how this piece by Jasser astoundingly reveals the typical logical twists and contortions an indoctrinated muslim makes in an attempt to either deliberately lie in order to falsely promote islam or to simply be able to maintain their delusional state themselves. Anyone equipped with a brain can see through the smoke and confusion of his writnigs.
Consider the following comments Mr Jesser makes:
1)“I am an American Muslim dedicated to defeating the ideology that fuels global Islamist terror – political Islam”
Ok but what ideology fuels “political isalm itself Mr.Jesser? Is it not exactly what fuels you and all muslims, the ideology of islam! So in reality you are just promulgating and helping spread the same poison, thereby one has to conclude that either you are lying or are being intellectually dishonest.
2)“Should think less about teaching Islam and "our good side" and more about being American and fulfilling our responsibilities to confront the ideology of our enemies”
And what is that “ideology of our enemies “ Mr. Jesser, once again is this also the ideology you also follow as well, the ideology of mohamed possibly.
3) “They seem to conveniently view 9/11, al Qaeda and every manifestation of militant Islamism as simply a public-relations problem for "Muslims in the West."
Isn’t this precisely what you are doing, a PR campaign obfuscating the ugly truth that what the problem here is are the actual tenets of islam.
4)This is not about the building of a mosque or a religious facility. It is not about religious freedom. This is about a deep, soulful understanding of what happened to our country on 9/11”
Specifically what is that soulful understanding that you claim it is all about? What about the murderers of the innocent Americans, and understanding that islam inspired them? Yes the same evil brainwashing you espouse yet so softly Mr. Jesser.
5)American Muslims will be better served if this project is built further away from Ground Zero and focuses on leading a reform effort..”
Tells again, as you do numerous times where the focus should be, you Mr. Jesser first focus on the morally repugnant behavior of your idol prophet as it relates to the ideals of our Judeo-Christian heritage her in the West.
“This center is trying to change the narrative of 9/11 – to diminish what happened at Ground Zero. That can only weaken us against the very real threat of Islamist radicalization “
6)Here again he tries shifting our attention by the false claim that the real threat is “Islamic radicalization” , no the real threat , the more fundamental cause driving us unto eternity by the assault of isalm is islam itself and unless the quran undergoes profound editing anyone following its tenets is complicit with the enemy killing many of us, beleivers of the quran, muslims.

Thanks, that was an interesting deconstruction.

I think he is trying to distinguish himself from the Muslim Brotherhood, Tariq Ramadan, and Ibn Taymiyya type of Muslim when he talks about enemies, and ideologies.

Workers of New York Unite!!......union and non-union.........refuse to work on this disgusting mosque (in Arabic mosque is 'masjid' meaning, "place of battle") near Ground Zero. Out of respect for your city, the victims of 9/11, your troops and Vets and your country. No workers, no mosque...................(readers: please pass this on and post on any and all websites. We can stop this insult)

Dr. Jasser might be a very good human being. But, if he is potraying a good (westeran idea of 'good') muslim at the same time, he does contradicting his own faith. For example, if you were to ask him, does he consider muhammad to be the 'perfect man'? If he doesn't, what happens to the sunnah and the hadith? If he does, what, for example, happens to the beheadings? Muhammad beheaded many a victims.

I suggest Dr. Jasser jump to our side.

I am sure there are Muslims who are in good faith, who have not studied or contemplated their religion well or who are not aware of Muhammad's doctrine of abrogation (i.e. that allah changed his mind and that the earlier, peaceful suras are superseded by the later, violent suras). As such, they are red herrings distributing misdirection, division, and confusion to non-Muslims. It is up to us to politely point out the truth about Islam and to those who ignorantly defend it. As the Christian (original, not rewritten by Muhammad) Bible says, we must rebuke our brothers when they sin or we are as guilty as they are.