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| Developer Scales Back Plans for Muslim Center Near Ground Zero |
| 2014-05-04 |
| [NYT] The developer whose proposal to build a Moslem community center and mosque near the World Trade Center failed amid a national controversy three years ago said Tuesday that he now plans to construct a museum devoted to Islam in the same location. Sharif El-Gamal, the developer, said through a front man that instead of a $100 million, 15-story community center and prayer space, he now planned a smaller, three-story museum "dedicated to exploring the faith of Islam and its arts and culture." The building would also include a sanctuary for prayer services and community programs. Daisy Khan, who along with her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, was originally a partner with Mr. El-Gamal in the Park51 Community Center project, said that they had not been contacted or involved with these latest plans. "I am just as surprised as anyone else," Ms. Khan said. |
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| Ground Zero Mosque Fraudsters Settle With Each Other |
| 2013-06-13 |
| The donor, Robert Leslie Deak, had accused the former leader, Feisal Abdul Rauf, of diverting millions of dollars in charitable donations meant for the Cordoba Initiative, founded by the imam, as well as the American Society for Muslim Advancement, which is led by the imams wife, Daisy Khan to buy real estate, luxury vacations and a fancy car. It also accused Mr. Abdul Rauf of failing to report approximately $3 million in donations from the Malaysian government. |
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| Ground Zero Iman charged with using Mosque funds for personal use |
| 2013-02-06 |
| The former imam of the controversial Ground Zero mosque used millions of dollars in donations to fund a lavish lifestyle of travel and cars, a bombshell lawsuit charges. The court papers, filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, allege that Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf pocketed $3 million from the Malaysian government and another $167,000 from private donors. The money intended to fund a pair of non-profits was used by Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan to buy real estate, pricey trips and vacations, entertainment and a luxury sports car, the suit charged. |
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| Daisy Khan claims death threats |
| 2010-10-04 |
| [Arab News] The wife of the imam planning an Islamic community center at Cordoba House said she and her husband have received death threats. Daisy Khan said Sunday that her life and that of her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf were "under threat." Police could not confirm the threats. Khan was part of a wide-ranging discussion of Islam broadcast on ABC's "This Week." She also said that moderate Mohammedans like herself must lead the fight against forces of Evil in their religion, but that if moderate Mohammedans are branded as snuffys, they will be thrown into the arms of Al-Qaeda. The developer of the Islamic center has released preliminary sketches of the 16-story planned structure. Sharif El-Gamal said groundbreaking was probably two to three years away. |
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| CNN - Conservatives call for Ground Zero mosque protest |
| 2010-06-06 |
| (CNN) -- Conservative bloggers called for a protest Sunday against plans to build a mosque near the site of Ground Zero in lower Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed by Islamist hijackers on September 11, 2001. "Building the Ground Zero mosque is not an issue of religious freedom, but of resisting an effort to insult the victims of 9/11 and to establish a beachhead for political Islam and Islamic supremacism in New York," the group "Stop the Islamicization of America" says on its website. "Ground Zero is a war memorial, a burial ground. Respect it," says the group, which is run by conservative blogger Pamela Geller. "No one's telling them they can't. We're asking them not to," Geller told CNN's Joy Behar recently. "We feel it would be more appropriate maybe to build a center dedicated to expunging the Koranic texts of the violent ideology that inspired jihad, or perhaps a center to the victims of hundreds of millions of years of jihadi wars, land enslavements, cultural annihilations and mass slaughter," Geller said. The project calls for a 13-story community center including a mosque, performing art center, gym, swimming pool and other public spaces. It is a collaboration between the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative. The Cordoba Initiative aims to improve relations between Muslims and the West. "The Cordoba Initiative hopes to build a $100 million, 13-story community center with Islamic, interfaith and secular programming, similar to the 92nd Street Y," its website says, referring to the cultural institution on the upper East side of Manhattan. Daisy Khan of the American Society for Muslim Advancement told CNN it was a "community center with a prayer space inside." She said the project was an opportunity for American Muslims living in New York to "give back" to the community. "There is a lot of ignorance about who Muslims are. A center like this will be dedicated to removing that ignorance and it will also counter the extremists because moderate Muslims need a voice," she told CNN. "Their voices need to be amplified." Local political leaders turned out in support of the community last month after Mark Williams of the conservative Tea Party Express reportedly said the mosque was for "the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god." "To make room for peace there can be no room for hatred, bigotry or prejudice," council member Robert Jackson said at the May 20 demonstration. The project has the backing of the Community Board of lower Manhattan. It does not require city permission to go ahead. The plan has split people touched by the September 11 attacks. "Lower Manhattan should be made into a shrine for the people who died there," said Michael Valentin, a retired city detective who worked at ground zero. "It breaks my heart for the families who have to put up with this. I understand they're [building] it in a respectful way, but it just shouldn't be down there." Others such as Barry Zelman said the site's location will be a painful reminder. "(The 9/11 terrorists) did this in the name of Islam," Zelman said. "It's a sacred ground where these people died, where my brother was murdered, and to be in the shadows of that religion, it's just hypocritical and sacrilegious. " But Marvin Bethea, who was a paramedic at ground zero, said it was "the right thing to do." "I lost 16 friends down there. But Muslims also got killed on 9/11. It would be a good sign of faith that we're not condemning all Muslims and that the Muslims who did this happened to be extremists," he said. "As a black man, I know what it's like to be discriminated against when you haven't done anything." |
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| Mosque madness at Ground Zero |
| 2010-05-13 |
| A mosque rises over Ground Zero. And fed-up New Yorkers are crying, "No!" A chorus of critics -- from neighbors to those who lost loved ones on 9/11 to me -- feel as if they've received a swift kick in the teeth. Plans are under way for a Muslim house of worship, topped by a 13-story cultural center with a swimming pool, in a building damaged by the fuselage of a jet flown by extremists into the World Trade Center. The opening date shall live in infamy: Sept. 11, 2011. The 10th anniversary of the day a hole was punched in the city's heart. Plans to bring what one critic calls a "monster mosque" to the site of the old Burlington Coat Factory building, at a cost expected to top $100 million, moved along for months without a peep. All of a sudden, even members of the community board that stupidly green-lighted the mosque this month are tearing their hair out. Paul Sipos, member of Community Board 1, said a mosque is a fine idea -- someplace else. "If the Japanese decided to open a cultural center across from Pearl Harbor, that would be insensitive," Sipos told me. "If the Germans opened a Bach choral society across from Auschwitz, even after all these years, that would be an insensitive setting. I have absolutely nothing against Islam. I just think: Why there?" Why, indeed. A rally against the mosque is planned for June 6, D-Day, by the human-rights group Stop Islamicization of America. Executive director Pamela Geller said, "What could be more insulting and humiliating than a monster mosque in the shadow of the World Trade Center buildings that were brought down by an Islamic jihad attack? Any decent American, Muslim or otherwise, wouldn't dream of such an insult. It's a stab in the eye of America." Called Cordoba House, the mosque and center is the brainchild of the American Society for Muslim Advancement. Executive director Daisy Khan insists it's staying put. "For us, it's a symbol, a platform that will give voice to the silent majority of Muslims who suffer at the hands of extremists. A center will show that Muslims will be part of rebuilding lower Manhattan," said Khan, adding that Cordoba will be open to everyone. "We were pleased to see that the community welcomed us as an asset to lower Manhattan," she added. "The community board approved it." Not so fast. The Financial District Committee of Community Board 1 seems to have gotten ensnared in a public-relations ploy by mosque-makers. At a May 5 meeting, the committee gave the project an enthusiastic thumbs-up. But boards have zero say over religious institutions. Board chair Julie Menin, blind-sided by the move, predicts "this will be overturned by the full board" later this month. But the damage is done. Wounds that have yet to heal are now opening, as mosque opponents are branded, unfairly, as bigots. "The worst tendency is the knee-jerk, emotional, angry, hateful response to acts of violence and war," said Donna Marsh O'Connor, who lost daughter Vanessa on 9/11 and supports the mosque. "I think it's racist tendencies." Many more feel like Bill Doyle -- doubly maimed as he's forced to defend himself against charges of prejudice. "I'm not a bigot. What I'm frightful about is, it's almost going to be another protest zone. A meeting place for radicals," said Doyle, whose son, Joseph, was murdered on 9/11. "It's a slap in our face!" said Nelly Braginsky, who lost son Alexander. Unclear is how the mosque will raise the $100 million-plus it needs. "We would be seeking funding from anyone who would help," Khan told me. "Seeking maybe some bonds or something like that." At the May 5 community board meeting, she displayed a sign with names like "Rockefeller Brothers Fund" and "Ford Foundation," which observers believed meant money is coming from those organizations. But Khan says those groups merely gave money in the past, and no funding is yet in place. There are many questions about the Ground Zero mosque. But just one answer. Move it away. |
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| Plan For 13 Story Mosque Near World Trade Center Site Moves Ahead |
| 2010-05-07 |
| H/T HotAir.com. Check out the picture at the site A proposal to build a mosque steps from Ground Zero received the support of a downtown committee despite some loved ones of 9/11 victims finding it offensive. The 13-story mosque and Islamic cultural center was unanimously endorsed by the 12-member Community Board 1's financial district committee. The $100 million project, called the Cordoba House, is proposed for the old Burlington Coat Factory building at Park Place and Broadway, just two blocks from the World Trade Center site. "I think it will be a wonderful asset to the community," said committee Chairman Ro Sheffe. Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, who helped found the Cordoba Initiative following the 9/11 attacks, said the project is intended to foster better relations between the West and Muslims. He said the glass-and-steel building would include a 500-seat performing arts venue, a swimming pool and a basketball court. "There's nothing like it," said Rauf, adding that facilities will be open to all New Yorkers. Daisy Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement and a member of the Cordoba Initiative's board, said donations are being sought to pay for the construction. Khan said the project has received little opposition. "Whatever concerns anybody has, we have to make sure to educate them that we are an asset to the community," Khan said. Khan said her group hopes construction on the project will begin by the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Once built, 1,000 to 2,000 Muslims are expected to pray at the mosque every Friday, she said. No one at last night's meeting protested the project. But some 9/11 families said they found the proposal offensive because the terrorists who launched the attacks were Muslim. "I realize it's not all of them, but I don't want to have to go down to a memorial where my son died on 9/11 and look at a mosque," said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches - whose son Jim, a firefighter, was killed on 9/11. "If you ask me, it's a religion of hate," said Riches, who did not attend last night's meeting. Rosemary Cain of Massapequa, L.I., whose son, Firefighter George Cain, 35, was killed in the 2001 attacks, called the project a "slap in the face." "I think it's despicable. That's sacred ground," said Cain, who also did not attend the meeting. "How could anybody give them permission to build a mosque there? It tarnishes the area." |
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