By: AJ
Hat Tip: Creeping Sharia

Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf

President Obama voiced his support for Imam Rauf’s Ground Zero mosque/community center. With 70% of Americans in opposition to the location of Imam Rauf’s project, let’s take a closer look to consider why they’re opposed.

Oh… and by the way… did you know that while Mayor Bloomberg tells us we shouldn’t question where Imam Rauf is raising the money for his mosque/community center, the Mayor forgot that last year in New York, federal prosecutors seized a mosque and a skyscraper controlled by the Islamic State of Iran’s Alavi Foundation? More on that later…

Imam Rauf named the Ground Zero mosque/community center after the Cordoba mosque in Spain. He titled this construction project the “Cordoba Initiative.”

In July 2008, on his website www.CordobaInitiative.org, he sang the praises of the Cordoba name by describing it as follows:

The Cordoba Name

For hundreds of years during the middle ages, Cordoba was the capital of Muslim Spain. During much of its “golden age” from the 8th to 12th centuries, the Cordoba Caliphate witnessed a great flowering of culture, art, and philosophical inquiry amid a remarkable climate of religious tolerance. Religious freedom, while not perfect, was sufficient that many Jewish and Christian intellectuals emigrated to Cordoba, where they lived, wrote and flourished side by side with their Muslim counterparts in a strikingly pluralistic society. The Cordoba name reminds both Muslims and non-Muslims that a great Islamic civilization was once the most open and tolerant of its era.

Imam Rauf has since deleted his description of the Cordoba history from his website. Raymond Ibrahim, in his article “The Two Faces of the Ground Zero Mosque,” clarifies the real story of the Cordoba name:

Oddly enough, the so-called “tolerant” era of Cordoba supposedly occurred during the caliphate of ‘Abd al-Rahman III (912-961) — well over a thousand years ago. “Eight hundred years ago,” i.e., around 1200, the fanatical Almohids — ideological predecessors of al-Qaeda — were ravaging Cordoba, where “Christians and Jews were given the choice of conversion, exile, or death.” A Freudian slip on the part of the Cordoba Initiative?

At any rate, the true history of Cordoba, not to mention the whole of Andalusia, is far less inspiring than what Western academics portray: the Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. The original mosque of Cordoba — the namesake of the Ground Zero mosque — was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church. Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this. Such is the true — and ominous — legacy of Cordoba.

More pointedly, throughout Islam’s history, whenever a region was conquered, one of the first signs of consolidation was/is the erection of a mosque atop the sacred sites of the vanquished: the pagan Ka’ba temple in Arabia was converted into Islam’s holiest site, the mosque of Mecca; the al-Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, was built atop Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem; the Umayyad mosque was built atop the Church of St. John the Baptist; and the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque upon the conquest of Constantinople.

What are Imam Rauf’s opinions of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 when 3,000 innocent civilians were murdered on U.S. soil? In his 60 Minutes interview just 19 days after 9/11, Imam Rauf stated the following:

Imam Rauf: It is a reaction against the policies of the US government, politically, where we espouse principles of democracy and human rights and where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries.

Bradley: Are–are–are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?

Imam Rauf: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.

Bradley: OK. You say that we’re an accessory?

Imam Rauf: Yes.

Bradley: How?

Imam Rauf: Because we have been an accessory to a lot of–of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it–in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.

Today in an Atlas Exclusive, audio of Imam Rauf reinforces his accusations against America. Here are a few of his statements:

Imam Rauf: “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children. This has been documented by the United Nations. And when Madeleine Albright, who has become a friend of mine over the last couple of years, when she was Secretary of State and was asked whether this was worth it, she said it was worth it.

Imam Rauf: On the issue of the reformation, in terms of what is again intended by it, Islam does not need a reformation.

Imam Rauf: “So men will say: women, you know, they’re emotional, ….. whatever, whatever, and women will say: men, they’re brutes, insensitive, et cetera, and you have the beginning of a gender conflict. If gender is not what distinguishes us we’ll look at skin coloring and say: n#####s or whities, or whatever.”

And what of Imam Rauf’s alliances with Iran? Within a week of Iran’s June 12, 2009 election, while the people of Iran were protesting for freedom and Iran was torturing and murdering its own citizens for protesting, Imam Rauf stated in the Huffington Post…

Imam Rauf: The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was in part to depose the shah, who had come to power in 1953 after a CIA-sponsored coup overthrew democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossaddeq. And in part it was an opportunity to craft an Islamic state with a legitimate ruler according to Shia political theory.

After the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took the Shiite concept of the Rightly Guided Imam and created the idea of Vilayet-i-faqih, which means the rule of the jurisprudent. This institutionalizes the Islamic rule of law. The Council of Guardians serves to ensure these principles.

Imam Rauf: (Obama’s) administration understands that what is going on now in Iran is an attempt by the Iranian people to live up to their own ideals. Just as American democracy developed over many years, the United States recognizes that this election is part of the process of an evolving democracy in Iran.

Imam Rauf: He should say his administration respects many of the guiding principles of the 1979 revolution — to establish a government that expresses the will of the people; a just government, based on the idea of Vilayet-i-faqih, that establishes the rule of law.

More on Imam Rauf’s alliances with Iran… Real Estate News provides more changes to Imam Rauf’s website in their article “Imam Rauf, the Ground Zero Mosque, and…”

From deleted pages from the Cordoba Initiative website ~ Iran is at the Shari’a development meeting:

Shari’ah Index Project

Imagine: a Perfectly Islamic State

Goal: To define, interpret and implement the concept of the Islamic State in modern times.

History: The Shariah Index Project (SIP) had its first meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August 2006. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf convened and chaired this meeting, which included four scholars from India, Malaysia, and Pakistan. This session consisted largely of brainstorming and exploring the thought of making an index of Islamic governance. At its conclusion, the group presented a vision for the project as well as a roadmap.

At the second SIP meeting, in February 2007, the initial group expanded to include additional members from Indonesia, Iran (to represent the Shi’a perspective), and Turkey, as well as two additional participants from Pakistan and Malaysia, respectively. At this meeting, the group refined the roadmap and made a Basis for Evaluation document, which set out an initial list of Islamic legal principles relating to governance. The group also committed to research assignments, which would support the project and which they would present at the next meeting. […]

It would be a terrible thought to allow an asset controlled by American adversaries to be built anywhere in the United States.

When Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahhar threw his support behind the Ground Zero mosque, it became clear that what started as a political controversy is also a national security issue. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says it is incorrect to question where Imam Feisal Rauf is raising money for his project, which suggests that the city’s chief executive has forgotten that in his town last year federal prosecutors seized four mosques and a skyscraper controlled by the Islamic State of Iran’s Alavi Foundation. So let’s place aside for a moment whether Rauf has the right to build a mosque near what the president of the United States has called hallowed ground (he does), or if it is insensitive to do so (it is). What we want to know is what unknown interests are to be served with the money that Rauf is raising to build his Islamic center.

Will Imam Rauf’s partners in the Cordoba Initiative accept funding from Iran to raise the $100 million needed to build the mosque/community center? According to the New York Post article “Iran Cash Might Fund Ground Zero Mosque”:

The developers of the Ground Zero mosque are refusing to flat out reject cash for the project from Holocaust-denying Iranian nuke nut Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Imam Rauf has been a busy man. He’s also a member of the group that sponsored the Gaza Flotilla.

From misrepresenting the history of the Cordoba name, to accusing America of being an accessory to the crime of 9/11, to his alliances with Iran, it appears Imam Rauf is not the “moderate” he tells us he is.

President Bush brought Imam Rauf into our government and President Obama has strengthened Imam Rauf’s involvement and influence to an inexplicable level (Also see: SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY… OBAMA’S MAN BEHIND THE MOSQUE).

Based on what we’re learning about Imam Rauf’s political ideology, alliances and his determination to bring Sharia Law to America, do you think President Obama will rethink his support of the man behind the mosque or is it true that birds of a feather flock together?