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Fla. pastor, imam at odds over Quran-burning deal

admin — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 11:16:06 +0000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -Will he or won't he? Negotiations between a local Muslim cleric and the leader of a tiny Florida church who had threatened to publicly burn copies of Islam's holy text left the heated debate in a state of confusion with the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks a day away.

The Rev. Terry Jones said Thursday he would call off the planned burning of Qurans based on a deal negotiated with the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida that the location of a mosque planned near ground zero in New York would be changed.

But Imam Muhammad Musri said he was clear on Thursday when he told Jones that he could only set up a meeting with planners of the New York City mosque, whose leader said he had spoken to neither the pastor nor Musri. Jones responded by opening the door, if only a crack, that he would go forward with his plan on Saturday.

"We are just really shocked," Jones said of Musri. "He clearly, clearly lied to us."

For U.S. political leaders and Muslims around the world who have been outraged by Jones' antics, the on-again, off-again threat bred even more angst and frustration.

Cleric Rusli Hasbi told 1,000 worshippers attending Friday morning prayers in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, that whether or not he burns the Quran, Jones had already "hurt the heart of the Muslim world."

"If he'd gone through with it, it would have been tantamount to war," the cleric said in the coastal town of Lhokseumawe. "A war that would have rallied Muslims all over the world."

Muslims consider the book the sacred word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect.

In Afghanistan, where tens of thousands of U.S. troops are in harm's way, President Hamid Karzai said he heard Jones had perhaps abandoned his Quran-burning plan.

"The holy book is implanted in the hearts and minds of all the Muslims," Karzai said. "Humiliation of the holy book represents the humiliation of our people. I hope that this decision will be stopped and should never have been considered."

Jones announced earlier Thursday — with Musri at his side — that they had a bargain and that he would call off the Quran-burning. Later he accused Musri of lying and said the burning was only suspended, not canceled.

Musri, countered that Jones wasn't confused or misled and that "after we stepped out in front of the cameras, he stretched my words" about the agreement. The imam in charge of the New York Islamic center and mosque project also quickly denied any deal was made.

Musri said Jones had instead caved into the firestorm of criticism from around the world and that his announcement might have been a ploy to try to force Muslim leaders' hand on the Islamic center.

Jones said later that he expected Musri to keep his word and "the imam in New York to back up one of his own men." Musri said he still plans to go ahead with the meeting Saturday.

In New York, the Islamic center project leader, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, said in a statement that he was glad Jones had backed down but that he had spoken to neither the pastor nor Musri.

"We are not going to toy with our religion or any other. Nor are we going to barter," Rauf said. "We are here to extend our hands to build peace and harmony."

Opponents argue it is insensitive to families and memories of Sept. 11 victims to build a mosque so close to where Islamic extremists flew planes into the World Trade Center and killed nearly 2,800 people. Proponents say the project reflects religious freedom and diversity and that hatred of Muslims is fueling the opposition.

Moving the mosque is not why Jones canceled his threat, Musri said. Instead, he relented under the pressure from political and religious leaders of all faiths worldwide to halt what President Barack Obama called a "stunt." Musri said Jones told him the burning "would endanger the troops overseas, Americans traveling abroad and others around the world."

"That was the real motivation for calling it off," Musri said.

Jones had never invoked the mosque controversy as a reason for his planned protest at his Dove World Outreach Center. Instead, he cited his belief that the Quran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

Obama urged Jones to listen to "those better angels," saying that besides endangering lives, it would give Islamic terrorists a recruiting tool. Defense Secretary Robert Gates took the extraordinary step of calling Jones personally.

Jones' church, which has about 50 members, is independent of any denomination. It follows the Pentecostal tradition, which teaches that the Holy Spirit can manifest itself in the modern day.

News of the cancellation also was welcomed by Jones' neighbors in Gainesville, a city of 125,000 anchored by the sprawling University of Florida campus. At least two dozen Christian churches, Jewish temples and Muslim organizations in the city had mobilized to plan inclusive events, including Quran readings at services, as a counterpoint to Jones' protest.

Jones said at the news conference that he prayed about the decision and concluded that if the mosque was moved, it would be a sign from God to call off the Quran burning.

"We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans," Jones said. "We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it."

Despite Jones' words, in the Gaza Strip, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said to a crowd of tens of thousands of Muslim faithful that they had come "to respond to this criminal, this liar, this crazy priest who reflects a crazy Western attitude toward Islam and the Muslim nation."

"We came to say, the Quran is our constitution, we are committed to God and his holy book," he said to those holding the texts in their hands at a stadium in the northern town of Beit Lahiya. "God willing, should they try to carry out their crime against the Quran, God will tear their state apart and they will become God's lesson to anyone who tries to desecrate the holy book."

Part of the pressure exerted on Jones came from Gates who briefly spoke to the pastor before his first announcement to call it off. Gates expressed "his grave concern that going forward with this Quran burning would put the lives of our forces at risk, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

Morrell said earlier that the decision to issue a personal appeal was not easy because it could provoke other extremists "who, all they want, is a call from so-and-so." Earlier, Jones had said if he was contacted by the White House that he might change his mind. After Gates' call to Jones, Morrell said the secretary's "fundamental baseline attitude about this is that if that phone call could save the life of one man or woman in uniform it was a call worth placing."

—

Associated Press Writers Ayi Jufridar in Lhokseumawe, Indonesia; Ibrahim Barzak in Gaza City; Robert Reid in Kabul; Anne Flaherty and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; and AP Legal Affairs Writer Curt Anderson in Miami contributed to this report.

Fla. pastor, imam at odds over Quran-burning deal

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FACT CHECK: Islam already part of WTC neighborhood

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:06:40 +0000

WASHINGTON -A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.

And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.

Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.

He's devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He's scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the "Dark Ages." Yet he's also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.

Many Republicans and some Democrats say the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque should be built elsewhere, where there is no possible association with New York's ground zero. Far more than a local zoning issue, the matter has seized congressional campaigns, put President Barack Obama and his party on the spot — he says Muslims have the right to build the mosque — divided families of the Sept. 11, 2001, victims, caught the attention of Muslims abroad and threatened to blur distinctions between mainstream Islam in the U.S. and its radical elements.

A look at some of the claims and how they compare with the known facts:

_"The folks who want to build this mosque — who are really radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists — those folks don't have any interest in reaching out to the community. They're trying to make a case about supremacy." — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential 2012 presidential candidate.

_Some of the Muslim leaders associated with the mosque "are clearly terrorist sympathizers." — Kevin Calvey, a Republican running for Congress in Oklahoma.

_"This radical is a terrible choice to be one of the faces of our country overseas." — Statement by GOP Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York.

THE FACTS:

No one has established a link between the cleric and radicals. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said: "We've identified no law enforcement issues related to the proposed mosque."

Ros-Lehtinen and King were referring to the State Department's plan, predating the mosque debate, to send Rauf on another religious outreach trip to the Middle East as part of his "long-term relationship" with U.S. officials in the Bush and Obama administrations. The State Department said Wednesday it will pay him $3,000 for a trip costing the government $16,000.

Rauf counts former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from the Clinton administration as a friend and appeared at events overseas or meetings in Washington with former President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush adviser Karen Hughes.

He has denounced the terrorist attacks and suicide bombing as anti-Islamic and has criticized Muslim nationalism. But he's made provocative statements about America, too, calling it an "accessory" to the 9/11 attacks and attributing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to the U.S.-led sanctions in the years before the invasion.

In a July 2005 speech at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Center in Adelaide, Australia, Rauf said, according to the center's transcript:

"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."

While calling terrorism unjustified, he said the U.S. has supported authoritarian regimes with heinous human rights records and, faced with that, "how else do people get attention?"

In the same address, he spoke of prospects for peace between Palestinians and the Israelis — who he said "have moved beyond Zionism" — and of a love-your-neighbor ethic uniting all religions.

—

_"Mr. President, ground zero is the wrong place for a mosque." — Rick Scott, Republican candidate for Florida governor.

_"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center." — Gingrich.

_"Just a block or two away from 9/11." — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, another 2012 GOP presidential prospect.

THE FACTS:

No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal Lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearest of the two destroyed in the attacks.

The center's location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam's former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds.

Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.

To be sure, the center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center's planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism.

—

_"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. ... America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization." — Gingrich.

_"This religion's plan is to destroy our way of life. ... If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians." — Ron McNeil, a House GOP candidate in the Florida Panhandle, in an exchange reported by The News Herald in Panama City.

THE FACTS:

Such opinions are shared by some Americans, while others are more reluctant to paint the religion with a broad brush and more welcoming of the faith in this country. Bush himself, while criticized at the time for stirring suspicions about American Muslims, traveled to a Washington mosque less than a week after the attacks to declare that terrorism is "not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace."

In any event, the U.S. armed forces field Muslim troops and make accommodations for them. The Pentagon opened an interfaith chapel in November 2002 close to the area where hijacked American Airlines flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 184 people.

Muslims gather there for a daily prayer service Monday through Thursday and hold a weekly worship service on Fridays, drawing no complaints. Similar but separate services are provided for other faiths.

—

Associated Press writers Tom Hays in New York and Anne Flaherty in Washington contributed to this report.

FACT CHECK: Islam already part of WTC neighborhood

9/11 events go on in shadow of Islam controversies NEW YORK -Family members of Sept. 11 victims recited...
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The main difference between Europe and USA

admin — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:27:54 +0000

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