The Cordoba Initiative’s proposal to build a ‘mega mosque’ near Ground Zero in New York has engendered fierce debate and drawn serious media focus.
“This proposed project is about promoting integration, tolerance of difference and community cohesion through arts and culture,” say those behind the project.
“Cordoba House will provide a place where individuals, regardless of their backgrounds, will find a center of learning, art and culture; and most importantly, a center guided by Islamic values in their truest form - compassion, generosity, and respect for all,” they add.
However, those who are opposed to the project claim that the motivation is political not reconciliation.
“Why was this particular site selected? Because the need for a $100 million mosque is so great? Because 45-47 Park Place is the only place left in Manhattan to put a mosque?” posed Mosab Hassan Yousef, author of the bestselling book Son of Hamas.
“No. Because it will make a powerful political and religious statement.”
Other opponents to the initiative speak out even more emotionally against it.
“We feel that it is a cemetery and sacred ground and the dead should be honored,” said Pamela Geller, the conservative leader of a group called Stop the Islamization of America, on CNN’S “America Morning” last week. “To build a 13-story mega mosque on the cemetery, on the largest site in American history, I think, is incredibly insensitive.”
However, other Americans are fully supportive of the project and believe it would do a great deal of good. In an article written on this topic for CNN, John L. Esposito, who is the professor of Religion and International Affairs and director of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal center for Muslim-Christian understanding at Georgetown University, said that:
“Here are the facts: The center is not at Ground Zero but two blocks away, and the Cordoba Initiative seeks to build a center, not a mosque. The center is not designed as a local mosque for a Muslim community but rather to serve the wider community. It is meant to improve interfaith and Muslim-West relations and promote tolerance -- not just to provide services to Muslims. The proposed 15-story community center will include a prayer room, offices, meeting rooms, gym, swimming pool and performing arts center.”
Esposito went onto state his belief that the groundswell of opposition to the project is part of a much bigger problem: Islamophobia. As Muslim populations grow in the States, this problem is becoming more and more marked. To validate his claim, Esposito quotes a 2006 USAToday-Gallup poll which illustrates that ill-feelings towards Muslims are very much present in America. He concludes by writing:
“Islamophobia must be recognized for what it is, a social cancer as unacceptable as anti-Semitism, a threat to the very fabric of our democratic, pluralistic way of life. The line that distinguishes Islam from those who commit violence and terror in the name of Islam --between the majority of mainstream Muslims and the acts of a minority of Muslim terrorists -- must be maintained. Blurring these distinctions risks the adoption of foreign and domestic policies that promote a clash rather than co-existence of cultures and threaten the rights and civil liberties of Muslims.”
(The image is of those involved a few weeks ago in a protest march against the proposed build).