Several million Muslims live in the US, including a large number in New York City. The vast majority of Muslims refuse to buy into a media scripted xenophobic image of Muslims as terrorists. Certainly, there are criminals of Muslim descent, just as there are criminals of Christian descent, or any other group for that matter. In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City federal building bombing, no one would have questioned the right to hold Christian prayer services near that site, despite the fact that Timothy McVeigh was of a Caucasian and Christian background. His Christian roots were deemed irrelevant to his crimes.
Similarly, Muslims do not feel connected to the terrorists of the September 11 tragedy, and should feel no remorse in building a mosque near ground zero. Indeed Muslims also perished as workers in the WTC towers and as innocent passengers on hijacked airplanes. These victims deserve a monument in their names too. The purported terrorists on 9/11 were Saudi nationals, working for a man, Osama bin Laden, whose political views were so extreme that he had to abandon his own country to hide in a cave in the lawless lands of Afghanistan.
In that region, he was able to develop a quick following amongst some local Taliban, who resented US abandonment of their war ravaged nation which had faithfully served earlier US interests during the crucial cold-war era. Famine, poverty, instability, and anarchy were the results of that abandonment at a time of Afghanistan's greatest infrastructural need. The Taliban mentality became angry at having been "chewed-up and spit-out." The Taliban's alignment with Osama bin Laden was at its fundamental core political, not religious. Hence, the attacks on the WTC were seen by a great majority of the world, barring the Western media, as an extreme criminal reaction to US foreign policy consequences abroad.
However, the Western media, together with the government, manipulated the 9/11 tragedy by using it as an opportunity to propagate public hate not against plain "terrorism," but against "Muslim terrorism." The Bush Administration developed a National Strategy Security document stating that "the struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century." This philosophy became the crux of the Bush doctrine, which supported pre-emptive war, leading to an invasion of the largely Muslim nation of Iraq on the false proposition that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
U.S. public support for this action was easily bolstered by a media that supposedly acted as an independent watchdog, even as other global communities believed from the outset that the underlying attack in Iraq was for oil, not the WMDs that the UN clearly determined to be non-existent. Only later when no WMDs were ever found, US media sources began to acknowledge the lack of critical reporting on their part in numerous mea culpas, an example of which included Washington Post's Bob Woodward statement that "We did our job but we didn't do enough, and I blame myself mightily for not pushing harder...We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for this was shakier."
Yet, the Bush-era anti-Islamic bullying had far reaching consequences for not only Muslims all over the world, but also for all Muslims locally, who became easy targets for racist taunts. Islam is a religion, not a race, but the majority of six million modern day adherents in the US are primarily ethnic persons, of many diverse backgrounds. Yet, together they form a vulnerable racial minority before a prejudiced media that uses religious misnomers like "Islamic terrorist" to garner public support for attacking adherents to Islam, a word that literally means "Peace."
Ironically, hating Islam means hating peace. Peace is the antithesis of terrorism, and therefore practicing Muslims are only too proud to have a mosque constructed near ground zero. American Muslims are proud of being American because the US constitution is essentially a document with Judeo-Christian-Islamic roots. Islamic? Yes, because Islamic roots are synonymous with Judeo-Christian roots. The only God worshipped in Islam is the same God referred to as "father" by the Christians, although Muslims do not attribute any gender to God. The Holy Quran, the book followed by Muslims (analogous to the Holy Bible for Christians) is meant to correctly repeat all relevant parts of God's former holy books, including the Old and New Testament, while completing final guidance on a message of peace, the ultimate form of love for humanity. Accordingly, the Quran and the Bible are more similar than different.
The Quran is deeply steeped in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Hating Muslims is the equivalent of hating that tradition, which when practiced correctly, respects diversity. American Muslims represent the most ethnically diverse group in the US, with immigrant roots from numerous nations, including Africa, which was ransacked for slaves hundreds of years earlier at a time when this nation was openly racist. Those mostly Muslim slaves were terrorized by their masters to abandon Islam. Today's mosques in this country are a testament to the rich fabric of this immigrant nation that has progressed so remarkably in its struggle against racism.
The controversy about building a mosque near ground zero defines one major culprit: the racist media, which has used a propaganda campaign against Muslims to falsely comingle the peace loving values of Islam with un-Islamic acts of terrorism. Both the Muslim and the non-Muslim public is a victim of this misinformation, something President Obama has tried to redress. His team has been working to reverse the incendiary anti-Islamic language of the National Security Documents sanctioned by President Bush. Most importantly, last night at a White House iftar dinner for Muslims, President Obama publicly explained to our nation that "Al-Qaida's cause is not Islam .... These are not religious leaders... they're terrorists .... In fact, al-Qaida has killed more Muslims than people of any other religion...and that list of victims includes innocent Muslims who were killed on 9/11."
Endorsing the Ground Zero mosque, President Obama has transcended the current anti-Islamic hysteria by reminding our country that respecting diversity is a core constitutional value shared by the American public, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. This value allows everyone in our nation to live peacefully together, while respecting each person's individuality. In essence, we are not supposed to become a melting pot, but rather a potpourri, in which diverse elements retain their characteristics to collectively produce the scent of liberty.
Stuart Whatley: Democratic Values, Islam and the Judeo-Christian Tradition Fallacy
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and condemn radicals who are defaming and defining Islam to the rest of the world (would have
been especially helpful right after 9/11) and not the media's job. If they had spoken
out, you can be sure it would have been printed and appreciated.
Unfortunately the silence was deafening.
Yes there are murderers of every faith but what seems to be the defining view now is that Muslims kill for their religion and Christians (at least in this century) kill in spite of it.
This is an issue about the insensitivty of Muslims, like you, that the location for its contruction has been done in POOR taste, and will be a daily reminder of the MURDERING/KILLING/INCINERATION of their relatives, friends and colloeagues.
Luckily, this nation is governed by laws; not popular opinion.
The Teabagger right likes to pretend Osama Bin Laden is all about killing America because he is jealous. Nope, Osama wants to harm Americans because he thinks we are too liberal, and the Religious RIght like Pat Robertson agree. The Christian Right likes to focus in on the violence, which is ironic because the Christian Right relishes violence as the first solution to any diplomatic situation. Liberals focus not on Osama's violence, they focus on his hypocrisy, on how Osama is a liar in every aspect, violating the tennets of Islam, yet OBL is not blowing himself up, kind of like Ted Haggard saying all gays should be executed, but Ted never stepped up to the gallows. Osama Bin Laden would never allow a Christian Church to be built in a country his terrorists control, and Teabaggers will never allow peaceful muslims to build a community center in a country Teabagger terrorists control. Question is, who controls America? Who are the ones parading at townhalls with assault rifles, threatening second amendment remedies for losing elections, peaceful muslims or teabagger Family Values Christians?
Also, I have been taught that the meaning (in English) of "Islam" is submission (to God), not peace.
Then why do so many support Bin Laden and his agenda?
Per a number of polls, as much as 50% of the muslim populations of some Islamic countries support Bin Laden's agenda.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1338/declining-muslim-support-for-bin-laden-suicide-bombing
Granted, the numbers are lower than immediately after 9/11 when support for Bin laden was considerably higher.
They are not. Worldwide, the numbers could be in the hundreds of millions.
If only a real interfaith center could be built by the Islamic community where all three great Abrahamic religions could be observed by anyone as they each conduct their own respective prayer services.
Have it include a library that consists of books and materials of all other faiths. Visiting scholars and religious leaders could come on a regular basis and speak.
Even non believers would have a place there and be represented.
I've been to synagogues that share the same building with a church or a Mosque. Its not as unusual as it might sound.
Building this sort of center would commemorate what happened there that day and the Islamic community's genuine outreach to celebrate freedom to choose to believe or not.
Let everyone have an opportunity to observe everyone else.
It seems to me the perfect opportunity and perfect place to have something like this.
Ignorance breeds fear and fear breeds violence.
it should be about freedom to believe or not believe whatever we choose.
How enormous would that message be if this were built by the Islamic community in this particular place ?
From Hadith, Vol.5 # 541: "The prophet had a slave called Midam who had been a gift from Banu Ad-Dibbab"
From Hadith, Vol 7,# 734: "At the door of the prophets room was a slave of his who I asked to procure permission for me to enter".
Islam allows Muslims to enslave conquered people to be enslaved, as long as they are not Muslims. Historically the men were killed or enslaved, the women were not killed but always enslaved.
http: // www.answering-islam.org/Silas/slavery.htm
Peace/Salaams/Shalom
The problem with your thesis, Ms. Khan, is that we are smart enough to distinguish between a criminal who happens to be Muslim and a Muslim doing something criminal in response to Islamic teachings.
Peace/Salaams/Shalom
The connection between the murderers of abortion doctors and Dominionists and mainstream Christian texts is an observable fact. That connection is tenuous at best.
The connection between the textual justifications offered by the perpetrators of 9/11 and other jihadist attackers (Faisal Shahzad and Major Hasan, for example) are also observable facts. That connection is deep and significant.
Then there is the matter of the historical record. Islam and Christianity both have episodes that they would rather erase from the record. I hold no brief for Christianity.
But it is an observable fact that those two historical records point to a conclusion that the two ideologies are not even close to being equivalent on the subject of the use of force to spread the faith.
My pointing this out should not be taken as feeding the flames of anything, but rather the beginning of a frank debate on a subject in sore need of frankness and plain speaking.
Allow me to compliment you on the absence of the words "bigot" and "racist" in your comment.
Just because a Muslim taught some of these people to be criminals, does that automatically make these teachings Islamic?
Do you deny that this is an Islamic teaching?
Osama bin Laden:
“[O]ur talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue, and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?
Yes. There are only three choices in Islam: either willing submission [i.e., conversion]; or payment of the jizya [poll-tax paid by non-Muslims], thereby bodily, though not spiritual, submission to the authority of Islam; or the sword—for it is not right to let him [an infidel] live.
The matter is summed up for every person alive: either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die…. Such, then, is the basis of the relationship between the infidel and the Muslim. Battle, animosity, and hatred—directed from the Muslim to the infidel—is the foundation of our religion.”
(The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42.)
What constitution would that be? Not the US constitution, for sure. Diversity is a recent addition to the pantheon of "values", one added during the drug-fueled 1960s when so much of our social fabric was damaged by self-indulgent fools chanting slogans like "Do your own thing!"
The more "diverse" a population is, the less (by definition) the people have in common. It is our common qualities, not our "diversity", that we should focus on. Those are the qualities that define us as a society. To workship and work toward "diversity" as a "core value" is to unravel the bonds that hold us together.
It is my unprovable belief that multiculturalism will become more common in the world's nations as time goes on, driven by forces of globalism and immigration.
America is on the right side of the issue, showing more traditional cultures how to deal fairly with the stresses generated when digesting immigrants from many cultures.
But multiculturalism, like all ideas, has an outer limit. America cannot incorporate into its culture a culture that maintains a value system that is opposite the American value system.
That is the case with Islamic sharia.
When Christians are insulted, they write irritated letters to the editor of their local newspaper (or blog).
When Muslims are insulted, they kill people.
The news folks are scared. I don't blame them, but they should at least put up some kind of disclaimer before their self-emasculated stories on Islam: "Tonight's broadcast is brought to you by a bunch of people who don't want to be killed. Thank you for understanding."
Writing the complete story of the creation of Kosovo from Serbia or the rioting of “youths” in Denmark following the re-publishing of the Mohammed cartoons or the many attacks by “militants” or “gunmen” is not possible without reference to religion. People do kill people randomly, but that is not the case in these stories. What motivates journalists who know the correct descriptive term but refuse to use it?