IS GROUND ZERO the right place for a major new mosque and Islamic cultural center? That is the question swirling around the proposed Cordoba House, a 15-story, $100 million Muslim development to be built just 600 feet from where the World Trade Center stood. The ambitious plans for Cordoba House include not only a mosque, but also a 500-seat auditorium, a swimming pool, a restaurant, and a bookstore.
The prospect of an Islamic center so close to Ground Zero is, not surprisingly, controversial. Many relatives of Sept. 11 victims are strongly opposed. One group, 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America, calls Cordoba House "a gross insult to the memory of those who were killed on that terrible day." At the same time, the project has very strong political support. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer are among its backers, and Cordoba House was endorsed by lower Manhattan's Community Board No. 1 in a near-unanimous vote on May 25.
But perhaps most noteworthy are the views of leading Muslim moderates -- Muslims known for their commitment to tolerance and pluralism, and for their opposition to all forms of radical Islam.
One such individual is Zuhdi Jasser, a physician, US Navy veteran, and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
In a conversation with me last week, Jasser reminisced about his family's history of building mosques in the heartland communities where they lived. His parents, Syrian immigrants to the United States, helped create the Fox Valley Islamic Center in Neenah, Wis., in 1980. "This was during the Iranian hostage crisis," he recalled, "and some of the local residents wanted the Zoning Commission to prevent the mosque from going forward." But the commissioners gave their blessing to the project, and the modest mosque -- the construction budget was just $80,000 -- became part of the neighborhood. Later the family later moved to western Arkansas, where they joined with others to create the Islamic Center of Fort Smith. As recently as March, Jasser came out in support of Muslims in Sheboygan, Wis., whose plans for a new place of worship were meeting with vocal resistance.
But he adamantly opposes the Ground Zero mosque.
"For us, a mosque was always a place to pray, to be together on holidays -- not a way to make an ostentatious architectural statement about the grandeur of Islam," Jasser says. "Ground Zero shouldn't be about promoting Islam. It's the place where war was declared on us as Americans." To appropriate that space for Muslim outreach, he argues, is "the worst form of misjudgment."
Equally opposed is Stephen Suleyman Schwartz, a devout Muslim and director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism in Washington, DC.
 Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is leading the campaign to build an Islamic mosque and community center near Ground Zero. |
Ali Al-Ahmed, a Saudi native who founded the Institute for Gulf Affairs and is an advocate for civil rights and religious freedom in the Middle East, hopes for the best from Cordoba House. "A mosque should be a good thing," he tells me. But he worries about the number of Americans who may be "hurt and upset" by the project, and wonders whether a mosque is really the best thing for Muslims to build so close to Ground Zero. Why not something less emotionally charged, he asks -- a social-service agency, perhaps, or an assisted living center for the elderly?
Muslims must take the feelings of other Americans into account Al-Ahmed contends. Healing and social cohesion matter more than a new mosque. He quotes no less an Islamic authority than the Imam Ali, the influential son-in-law of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. "Reconciliation of your differences," says Imam Ali in the collection of teachings known as the Peak of Eloquence, "is more worthy than all prayers and fasting."
Will a mosque at Ground Zero make reconciliation more likely? Or will it needlessly rub salt in the unhealed wounds of 9/11?
(Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe).
-- ## --