NY mosque imam says US freedoms more in line with Islam than limits of some Muslim nations

[Turborama]

Source: AP via LA Times

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — The imam spearheading plans for an Islamic center near the New York site of the Sept. 11 attacks says America's sweeping constitutional rights are more in line with Islamic principles than the limits imposed by some Muslim nations.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told the Al Wasat newspaper in Bahrain that the freedoms enshrined by the U.S. Constitution also reflect true Muslim values.

A portion of the interview — to be published Monday — was seen Sunday by The Associated Press.

Rauf is on a Middle East tour funded by the U.S. State Department. He has discussed efforts to combat extremism, but has avoided any comments on the rancor over proposals for a mosque and Islamic center near the site of the toppled World Trade Center towers.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-nyc-mosque-imam,0,2835783.story?track=rss

---

Apologies in advance for the use of "NY mosque" in the title but it's not my choice of words, it's AP's.

[Cirque du So-What]

1. According to Chimpolini, they HATE us because of our freedoms!

And millions of pinheads bought into the neocons' comic-book, good-vs-evil, with-us-or-agin-us worldview. Will this imam's statement receive one scintilla of the axis-of-evil codswollop trumpeted by the corporate media? Yes, that is most definitely a rhetorical question!

[Turborama]

3. Faux have it on their website, I wonder what Faux and Fiends will make of it.

Think twice before clicking on the comments tab, though. it's very toxic in there, as you could imagine: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/08/22/ny-mosque-imam-says-freedoms-line-islam-limits-muslim-nations/

[EFerrari]

12. If torture boy meant, the freedoms we've stolen from them, that could be right. n/t

[X_Digger]

2. So very true.

Religious tolerance was one of the hallmarks of the islamic caliphates.

See 'dhimmi'.

[customerserviceguy]

11. Yeah, I did, and under dhimmi

it says "jizya".

[X_Digger]

13. Now compare that..

.. to outlawing the practice of other religions.

The tolerance that islamic states of old had is closer (not equal, but then again, nobody claimed it was) to the protection of different religions that we enjoy than islamic states are today.

[customerserviceguy]

14. Practically every religion invented on the face of the earth

has shown intollerance for members of other faiths when it got in power. Islam is probably where Christianity was five hundred years ago, most individuals can put up with their neighbors, but excesses of some cause distrust by others.

Like I said on another thread, this mosque is like building a statue of General Sherman in 1875 Atlanta.

[X_Digger]

15. Which is neither here nor there.

The article in the OP is about how our tolerance of other religions is more in line with the core teachings of islam than as is currently practiced in some of the more extreme islamic states. History demonstrates this in the islamic caliphates of old.

[gerenimox]

19. you would want to pay "jizya" under islamic rule

rather than being killed in a medieval christian country for being a non-christian.

[burnsei sensei]

20. Under Muslim majority rule you'd pay it.

You'd pay it or you'd pay the consequences. And I don't think they would be peaceful. I think they would probably be bloody.

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. Now on youtube - Christiane Amanpour interviews Daisy Khan and Rabbi Joy Levitt

Daisy Khan is the wife of Imam Feisal. Rabbi Joy Levitt is from the Jewish Community Center of Manhattan


now on The DU Video Forum:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x497675


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_XnmQRDPA


.

[Karenina]

6. Could you feel the obvious affection and solidarity between them?

That was a fabulous interview.

But will it overcome the smears and innuendo in this one? See 1:20

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/3677250#38806521

Dougiekins, Tante K. is NOT AMUSED by all this tomfoolery.
It's NOT a "distraction." It's a revelation of the American Zeitgeist and has global consequences. Peace Broker? :scared:

OT question. Do you ever refer to "the Muslim world" when you write? Would you be so kind to PM your response? I had this :think: moment this afternoon I'd love to run by you.

[Turborama]

7. Thanks, Douglas. I just went there and sent it to the Greatest. Did you see Fareed Zakaria's take?

He did an excellent piece on Imam Feisal's religion at the top of his show today. This is from his website:

Have you heard of Sufi Islam? Well, Al Qaeda sure has.

It is the mystical brand of Islam that embraces a more liberal interpretation of the Koran. Sufism embraces music and song. It is an interpretation that Al Qaeda views as its mortal enemy.

It is also the sect of Islam embraced by the Imam of the Islamic center near Ground Zero. Watch as Fareed takes a look at what lies behind Sufism...and why Al Qaeda's hatred of it should inform us about where Imam Rauf stands on the Islamic spectrum.

From: http://edition.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/

[Turborama]

17. I've uploaded it to YouTube and added it to the videos forum now

Here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=497869&mesg_id=497869

YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyxVl_ATkIU

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. kick and recommend!!

FILE - This May 25, 2010, file photo shows Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, addressing a gathering as groups planning a proposed Islamic center, including a mosque, two blocks from the World Trade Center site to be named Cordoba House showed and spoke about their plans for the center at a community board meeting in New York. The New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being swiftly demonized by some campaigning Republicans, without regard to facts like these: Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) (Craig Ruttle, AP / May 25, 2010)


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-nyc-mosque-imam,0,2835783.story?track=rss

.

[woo me with science]

8. Glad he is speaking. nt

[slackmaster]

9. He must be working for the CIA

K&R

:kick:

[Turborama]

10. NYT Feature: For Imam in Muslim Center Furor, a Hard Balancing Act

By ANNE BARNARD
Published: August 21, 2010

Not everyone in the Cairo lecture hall last February was buying the imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s message. As he talked of reconciliation between America and Middle Eastern Muslims — his voice soft, almost New Agey — some questioners were so suspicious that he felt the need to declare that he was not an American agent.

Muslims need to understand and soothe Americans who fear them, the imam said; they should be conciliatory, not judgmental, toward the West and Israel.

But one young Egyptian asked: Wasn’t the United States financing the speaking tour that had brought the imam to Cairo because his message conveniently echoed United States interests?

“I’m not an agent from any government, even if some of you may not believe it,” the imam replied. “I’m not. I’m a peacemaker.”

That talk, recorded on video six months ago, was part of what now might be called Mr. Abdul Rauf’s prior life, before he became the center of an uproar over his proposal for a Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center. He watched his father, an Egyptian Muslim scholar, pioneer interfaith dialogue in 1960s New York; led a mystical Sufi mosque in Lower Manhattan; and, after the Sept. 11 attacks, became a spokesman for the notion that being American and Muslim is no contradiction — and that a truly American brand of Islam could modernize and moderate the faith worldwide.

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/nyregion/22imam.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw

[alp227]

16. You know what? Theocracy and democracy can NEVER mix.

Think about how Christian fundamentalists in America are constantly bleating that America is a Christian nation and then begin supporting values antithetical to the American definition of freedom such as making homosexuality a crime, censoring rock music, etc.

Imam Rauf shall keep on fighting the good fight!

[burnsei sensei]

18. Care to remember the Wars of Religion?

This is what Rauf is trying to avoid.

http://www.lepg.org/wars.htm

I don't know if he's ever studied them, but I haven't forgotten them.
And I remember them best when I hear the fundamentalist Christians of America!