Radical Muslim Preacher to Build Giant Mosque Next to New York's Ground Zero

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has been planning to expand the role and influence of Islam in the United States for a very long time. He began modestly enough: in 1990 Rauf opened a small mosque - the al-Farah Mosque - at 245 West Broadway in Lower Manhattan. Feisal Rauf now seems to be on the verge of his greatest triumph: the opening of a $100 million, 13-storey mosque, just 600 feet from Ground Zero, that is, the site of the World Trade Center Towers that were destroyed by Islamic terrorists on September 11, 2001.

A few days ago, on Tuesday May 25, the Manhattan Community Board listened to a 9/11 survivor, and relatives and friends of victims, including the mother of a firefighter, all demanding a halt to any plans to build the mega-mosque. The father of one of the victims reminded everyone that the bodily remains of 997 people are still missing, “Where the hell do you think they are? They are on that [holy] ground … and building a mosque over them is truly insensitive.”

The Islamic attacks on September 11, 2001, not only destroyed the Twin Towers but falling jet debris also crushed a five-storey 1923 structure 600 feet away that had housed the Burlington Coat Store, at 45 Park Place. And it is over the ruin of the latter store that Rauf plans to build his gigantic mosque. The Manhattan Community Board voted by a large majority to give their approval for the mega-mosque project.

A Dream of Islamization

Feisal Abdul Rauf was born in Kuwait to an Egyptian father, the radical preacher Dr. Muhammad Abdul Rauf [1917-2004]. He was educated in Malaysia, and U.K., arriving in the USA when he was 17 years old, and eventually obtaining a degree in Physics from Columbia University. The family moved to Washington D.C. where Feisal's father, Muhammad, headed the Islamic Center on Massachusetts Avenue. Feisal carried on his father's mission to Islamizise the USA, and to that end in 1997 established the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), which was financed by Gulf States such as Qatar, which gave $576,312.00. Other donors have included Holland’s Millennial Development Goals Fund ($481,942.00); New York’s Carnegie Corporation ($144752.00); the U.N. Population Fund ($53,664.00), and many other easily duped liberal organizations such as Gloria Steinem's Ms. Foundation.

In 2002 Feisal began lecturing at the Chautauqua Institution, a 136-year-old non-profit organization in upstate New York, and his influence and contacts grew. While Feisal Rauf presents himself as a moderate, it is clear, as the assiduous research of writers like Alyssa Lappen has shown, he is anything but moderate. Feisal Rauf told the Sydney Morning Herald that terrorism will end only when the West acknowledges the harm it has done to Muslims. He has also denied that Muslims perpetrated 9/11, and explained that, “In the Islamic belief system, the next life is the primary life. The next life is more real, more intense, and more vivid.” Feisal Rauf has also stated unequivocally, “I don't believe in interfaith dialogue.”

How to Stop Him

The best way to stop this project, which is Islamic triumphalism at its most obscene, is through the The Internal Revenue Service [IRS]. Remember, in the 1930s the only way the FBI finally got Al Capone was through his tax evasion. As researcher Alyssa Lappen pointed out, “available American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) tax filings raise several red flags. Very little ASMA information is available on the non-profit organization from Guidestar, a commercial service that provides 990 filings from thousands of tax-exempt charitable organizations, many much smaller than ASMA. However, the CPA reports that many documents required for public examination are missing from Guidestar’s ASMA files. Federal law requires ASMA to provide tax returns for public inspection, but evidently it has not done so. ... Director since 2005, Daisy Kahn -Feisal Rauf’s Kashmir-born wife - apparently never filed a required informational return or regular annual reports: shocking for a charity with over $1 million in grants just last year. Several other issues indicate ASMA 's financial statements are not in accordance with accounting standards for nonprofit organizations.”

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See also Pat Condells video comment on the mosque project