This comes after his threat that “anger will explode” among Muslims if the Qur’an burning went forward. Honestly, though, such thinly veiled threats are tantamount to a denial of free will in the Muslim world.
That should be insulting to the intelligence of a Muslim who believes him- or herself above such histrionics as we have seen in Afghanistan in recent days. Besides, isn’t Ramadan about self control? So, everyone should be at the top of their game there right about now.
Does Rauf really mean to tell us that, instead, real or imagined (like the Newsweek debacle) insults to Islam are really that much like poking a bee-hive with a stick where free will is concerned? Again, Muslims ought to be insulted, but many seem more bent on leveraging that instability to quash free speech in the West — Rauf included.
“Koran burning ‘would be disaster’ NY imam warns,” from BBC News, September 12:
The New York imam leading efforts to build an Islamic centre near the World Trade Center site says plans by a small US church to burn Korans would have sparked “a disaster”.
Feisal Abdul Rauf told ABC News that the event – now called off – would have “strengthened radicals”.
The BBC seems to find free speech distasteful, too:
Rallies for and against the proposed centre marred the 9/11 commemorations.
Meanwhile, two people died in eastern Afghanistan as protests sparked by the threatened book burning continued.
Security forces opened fire when some demonstrators tried to storm the district governor’s office in Baraki Barak, in Logar province, on Sunday.
Protests have erupted across the Muslim world since Florida Pastor Terry Jones announced plans to burn Korans outside his church to mark the 9/11 attacks.
Mr Jones said he cancelled the event because those behind the Islamic centre near Ground Zero had agreed to relocate it – a claim denied by Mr Rauf.
“How can you equate the burning of any person’s scripture with an attempt to build inter-faith dialogue?” Mr Rauf told ABC.
It’s not a dialogue when skeptics and concerned citizens are branded haters, Islamophobes, and per Rauf’s wife, “metastasized anti-semites.”
Rauf is preaching his side, and all he wants to hear back is, “Yes, sir, gee, that’s great, sir. Now we understand.” That’s not dialogue.
And ironically, Jones did more to negotiate in good faith, and appears to have been hoodwinked by one of Rauf’s henchmen.
“This is a house with multi-faith partners, intended to work together towards building peace.”
Your conduct in the entire course of the project demonstrates you want peace and coexistence only on your terms.
He said burning the Koran would have sparked “a disaster” in the Muslim world….
“It would have strengthened the radicals. It would have enhanced the possibility of terrorist acts against America and American interests,” he said…
Again: why no self-control, why no apparent exercise of free will?