A Mosque at Ground Zero(?)

“we do not have a problem with Islam. Any problems we have are with particular interpretations of Islam and with Islamic terrorism”.

Yes we do. There’re no “interpretations of Islam” which are shared by more then a roomful of people that would make 9/11 a religious impossibility. Jihad is a pillar of Islam. Exploiting and abusing the unbelievers is a pillar of Islam. Killing those who wish to leave Islam is a pillar of Islam. Until we start treating Islam as it is – a totalitarian ideology aiming to conquer the world – we’ll keep losing our battles, and in the end we will lose those freedoms you’re trying to defend from the ADL.

Just a few coments:

(a) Jihad is not one of the five pillars of Islam. Even the most rudimentary research will tell you that.

(b) the Mosque/cultural center is a block and a half away from the WTC towers, but withing the WTC complex, building 7 if memory serves. The question is why is this Imam representing his religious institution as being part of the WTC?

(c) Dr. Al-Faisal purports to be a Sufi, but where is he getting his 100 million dollars from? And moreover, why are people donating money to him when so many tekkes, mosques and shrines holy to Sufism are delapidated or just flat out destroyed in Turkey, Syria and the Balkans? People are rightly concerned that is a front for a more intolerant form of the Sunni confession or that outside forces would use the mosque as a symbol for a successful raid of the ghazi in anti-Western propoganda. For an analogy, look at the problems that Seville is having with Grand Mosque built by the Emir of Sharjah. If these frank discussions ruffled modern sensibilities and the end result is avoiding the tensions in Seville, it will have been worth it.

(e) “The calls of so many on the Right (many of whom not only do not live in New York City, but do not consider it part of “real America”) to bar the construction of this building are only further evidence of ignorance and Islamophobia. Ignorance not only about Islam, but also about New York City and how here, unlike in much of America, Mosques and large (non-Christian) religious cultural centers are not much of a big deal.”

Do you feel better Mr. Cristol? That is an awfully big brush you are using there for a happy, anti-German bigot who is probably anti-dentite as well.

Mr. Mead, I am greatly disappointed that you wrote this post in haste, without a few hours of research, and mildly join in the terrible blogoshpere misjudgment of why the ADL issued their statement.

The opinion against is hardly limited to the “right wing”, nor is this a “wedge issue” in New York City. The July 1 Quinnipiac Poll of registered New York voters was 52% against, 31% for, with 17% undecided. 66% of Jews and 66% of Catholics were against. Most important factor is this opinion: “…A mosque near Ground Zero would “foster understanding and teach people that not all Muslims are terrorists,” 42 percent of New York City voters say. Of this group, 68 percent support the mosque. Another 42 percent of voters say the mosque “is an insult to the memory and families of 9/11 victims.” Of this group, 93 percent oppose the mosque. …”

The opinion in favor is greatly skewed to liberal Protestants/no religious affiliation under 35 with a college degree who tend to live in Manhattan and, most important factor, do NOT believe it “is an insult to the memory and families of 9/11 victims.”

Read the data for question (I cannot format the table to appear correctly)
24a. Do you support or oppose this proposal?

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1302.xml?ReleaseID=1473

THIS is the most thoughtful analysis I have read, by Luisita Lopez Torregrosa, PoliticsDaily.com Correspondent:
“…here in the city where it happened we’ve been wrestling with this issue for a while.

This is a place that is sacred ground to millions of Americans, but most principally to the loved ones of the victims — wives, parents, children, friends — who haven’t let the passage of nearly 10 years diminish the memory of that infernal day and of the cruel sight of bodies falling from the sky.

Adding to the pain, for some, are plans to place in the same neighborhood a 15-story mega-mosque and Islamic community center. Its size, its location, and its very name — the Cordoba House, so named after Cordoba, Spain, the capital of Muslim conquerors — conjures up Islamicists’ dreams of triumphalism. To an array of critics, the very idea is offensive; its construction would be a desecration.
…
On the one side are those who believe the United States closed its eyes for too long to the very real threat of global Islamic radicalism and the murderous attacks that Muslim terrorists perpetrate around the world. Why should we pretend that we could ever find common ground with such people or be allies to nations that export such ideology while they prevent the construction of a single temple or church on their own lands, while they send mullahs, mosques and hate-filled textbooks to ours?

On the other hand are those who believe that America’s very strength is that we welcome all faiths and creeds and peoples; that, yes, you can build a mosque — many mosques — in New York, even near the site of a terrorist tragedy and that this doesn’t weaken our resolve or our image in the world. It strengthens them.

Whatever side you’re on, it’s fitting that the fight over the proposed Cordoba mosque is happening here. It goes to the root of so much that defines New York City: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, politics, assembly, beliefs, and freedom to be a jerk, insensitive, greedy, stupid, intolerant and silly.
…
Why would the American Muslim leader Feisal Abdul Rauf choose a site near Ground Zero to build a 15-story community center for Muslims? New York City has dozens of mosques which apparently are getting along fine in their neighborhoods. Why go to the very place that Americans most associate with Islamic terrorism?
…”

for the politics part, read the whole post at:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/07/23/ground-zero-mosque-the-battle-beyond-palin/

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf,on September 30, 2001, was interviewed on 60 Minutes, “…[Ed]Bradley: And throughout the Muslim world, there is also strong opposition to America’s foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East because of its support of Israel and economic sanctions against Iraq.

[Imam]Faisal: it is a reaction against 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 you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?

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

Bradley: You say that we’re an accessory? How?

Faisal: Because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA. …”
from the transcript at http://www.islamfortoday.com/60minutes.htm

Imam Rauf, the chair of the Cordoba Initiative. “is a key member in the Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, the single biggest donor ($366,000 as of June 2010) to the Free Gaza Movement.” [proof is his page at perdana4peace.org] “In July 2010, journalist Andrew McCarthy revealed that “What’s Right with Islam” was originally published in Malaysia under a different title: “A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11″. What’s Right with Islam” [I can not prove this] Both quotes are from discoverthenetworks.org, a guide to the radical left, which is why I tried to verify both statements.

It would be useful to question what “Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11″ means (Dawa is proselytizing all aspects of Islam), and who is funding this project.

Read this June 6, 2010 op-ed, where Jeff Jacoby mostly interviewed “…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.

Jasser reminisced last week 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,’’ Jasser said. “Ground zero shouldn’t be about promoting Islam. It’s the place where war was declared on us as Americans.’’ To use 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.

Schwartz notes that the spiritual leader of the Cordoba Initiative, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, describes himself as a Sufi — a Muslim focused on Islamic mysticism and spiritual wisdom. But “building a 15-story Islamic center at ground zero isn’t something a Sufi would do,’’ according to Schwartz, also a practitioner of Sufism. “Sufism is supposed to be based on sensitivity toward others,’’ yet Cordoba House comes across as “grossly insensitive.’’ He rejects Rauf’s stance that a highly visible Muslim presence at ground zero is the way to make a statement opposing what happened on 9/11. Better, in his view, is the approach of many Muslims “who hate terrorism and who have gone privately to the site and recited prayers for the dead silently and unperceived by others.’’

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 told 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 Americans into account, Ahmed contends. He cites no less an Islamic authority than the Imam Ali, Mohammed’s influential son-in-law. “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?”

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
copied from http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/0…

Finally, the proposed Park51 (new name after that Quinnipiac poll came out), is architecturally out-of-context in both scale, height, and facade design.

As a New Yorker who had no direct connection to the 9/11 atrocity, I am appalled that anyone would choose to build any kind of denominational high-rise only 600 feet from Ground Zero. There is no need to build any such facility at 45 Park Place. It will tear New York City apart, and is already a heated political issue in the contest for governor and the 13thCD.

Mostly, if it must be built, it should be contextual architecture, like Scandinavia House on Park Avenue between 37-38th.

Do not be fooled by the approvals of Mayor Bloomberg or the Community Board. You can research the still-ongoing controversy over the new Yankee Stadium or the water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park to see what happens when a Community Board asks to be involved.

Blogpost in haste, repent never?

my apologies to Mr. Mead. Just realized this post was written by Jonathan Cristol, who should have done a few hours of research.

It’s always shocking to see how easily the majority ignores the rights of a despised minority. “Religious freedom? Rule of law? But they’re scum!” Scum have rights, and zoning laws apply to everyone equally.

Anyway, I seriously doubt this “mosque” construction is going to have much of an impact. With the supposed total paranoia and rampant rumors on the Arab street, our enemies will believe anything: all this controversy is is a stupid American wedge issue.

One more correction: Abe Foxman is NOT a rabbi as Cristol wrote: ” I am a great admirer of Rabbi Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League…”

Personally.

9/11 happened in NY, but not to NY only. 9/11 was an attack on America and all that it stands for. Therefore I find the negation of any commentary by anyone other than resident New Yorkers to be simplistic.

Also simplistic is that this is truly and only a place of worship and that this is about freedom of religion. I would check around the United States for some mosques that are indeed only places of worship and some quite frankly that are not. A quick look see in the Northern Virginia area might speak to that.

It is also unnecessarily provocative, in my opinion. And, in my opinion, it dishonors all who died and suffered from the events of 9/11.

I find it tedious at best that increasingly American freedoms are being used to justify actions that could potentially damage or bury those freedoms.

My objection is in making Abe Foxman the issue instead of the very real controversy which will not go away, and much of the anger IS local.

There is absolutely no need to build a 13-story facility to serve the workday population.
Park Place, an 18th century scale street, is not convenient for most of the Financial District.

St. Peter’s Church (Roman Catholic) is at 16 Barclay St, between Park Place and Vesey Street north border of Ground Zero, current building is from 1836. “Old St. Peter’s is the Mother Church of Catholic New York, as it is the oldest Roman Catholic parish in New York City and New York State.
…The body of the Rev. Mychal Judge, Chaplain to the New York City Fire Department and officially the first casualty of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack, was brought to St. Peter’s by firefighters and laid before the altar.”

full text and photos at: http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/StPeterRC.html

St. Peter’s has a permanent display of a cross made of the steel beams salvaged from the destruction.

Perhaps that helps explain why 66% of Catholics surveyed by Quinnipiac oppose the Cordoba House on the next block.

Community Boards learned their lesson (not to protest) from the new Yankee Stadium when THAT CB got fired, solely because they wanted to be involved because their parkland was being confiscated.

There are two muslim congregations in the North Central Bronx (where I sometimes live)are struggling financially to have their places of worship. Why does Imam Rauf not help them?

Foxman did not ask “the government to dictate the location of houses of worship.”
He asked Rauf to re-consider the location in the interest of actually improving interfaith relations.

When I consider St. Peter’s, and the recent convent sale controversy on Staten Island, I am beginning to think Foxman stuck his neck out for Catholics, and what has already become a divisive political issue in the gubernatorial race and the 13th CD, putting Jews in the middle as the GOP fights for votes.

Imam Rauf has already failed in his mission.
The anger and pain will not go away.

“There is also a reasonably good, if not wholly satisfactory, explanation for the location of the building. Downtown NYC is the only area I can think of that is zoned for such a large structure and that has a significant number of Muslims in the area (during the workday). The Muslim neighborhoods in Brooklyn do not have any buildings so large, and thus the location is not without any logic other than triumphalism.” (Jonathan Cristol)

I respectfully disagree. The Astoria/Long Island City neighborhoods in Queens are home to large numbers of Muslims and there are numerous buildings 15 stories or higher in the area. The area from 39th Avenue to the south; Ditmars Boulevard to the North; Steinway Street to the East and 21st Street to the West is populated by thousands of Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Egypt, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia and even Kosovo. There are also a small number of Muslims in the area who emigrated from the former Soviet Republics. Steinway Street, (named for the famous piano company that still produces pianos in the area) is affectionately referred to as “little Cairo” because of all the establishments on the street owned by Egyptian merchants.

The area has numerous tall buildings including the CITIBANK building which has more than 35 floors and numerous residential apartment buildings along the East River (opposite the United Nations) which are 20 stories or higher. 21st Street in Queens (which provides ingress and egress from the 59th Street Bridge) has large numbers of residential and office buildings 15 stories or higher. The area is also home to several movie studios including Kaufman and Silvercup studios both of which have mosques for neighbors.

This would be the perfect neighborhood for the Cordoba Center Project. And it is close to downtown (one subway stop on the 7 train). By the way, Queens not Brooklyn is home to the largest number of Muslims living in New York City and a Muslim Cultural Center/Mosque in this area would be convenient for many of them.

The Muslims in these neighborhoods live in harmony with their neighbors from other ethnic/religious groups and while a small number of idiots might object, the area would probably welcome the Cordoba Center Project.

This is a far better location for this project and it would reduce all or most of the animosity associated with it; unless inspiring animoisty was the intention in the first place.

“Downtown NYC is the only area I can think of that is zoned for such a large structure and that has a significant number of Muslims in the area (during the workday).” (Jonathan Cristol)

WigWag and I definitely get into the micro-details of NYC geography and demographics!

The geology is what dictates the height of a building in NYC, then the as-of-right zoning, financial consideration, and airspace rights define the upper limit of any building.
A 15 story building is not that high for NYC, so 45 Park Place has no significance.

Astoria/LIC would make sense for the reasons WigWag defines. It is also just across the East River from the United Nations building.

Here is the NYT article that explained the proposal from Dec 8 2009 (with street map and slide show)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html
“…The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July. A presence so close to the World Trade Center, “where a piece of the wreckage fell,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.”

“We want to push back against the extremists,” added Imam Feisal, 61….”

Based on the slide show, it seems the use of the existing building for Friday prayer has been for many street vendors who work in the area. But, the fact that part of the airplane fell through the roof (photo in slide show) on 9/11 was very important in Imam Rauf’s location choice, not proximity to service the workday population, especially since most street vendors tend to work the higher traffic locations and tourist attractions downtown.

NYC has a noise code since July, 2008, so no one can broadcast anything that “will amplify the muzzein’s call five times a day over the skyline of NY”

Thanks to Khan for explaining jihad versus fisad.

Anyone interested in how Israel treats muslims should read journalist Khaled Abu Toameh for a balanced view:
http://www.hudson-ny.org/1433/arabs-and-muslims-run-to-israel

Also at hudson-ny.org is a July 30 article digging into the ideology and financing behind the Mosque at Ground Zero.

None of us (including me) has provided ample data to support where such a structure should go.

I agree that LIC would be an excellent venue (though hardly convenient for UN workers to pop over in the middle of the day, except by speedboat or jetpack). However, I am thinking more about Muslims who are coming to work from neighborhoods in NYC, NJ, Westchester, and CT where there are not enough Muslims to support a Mosque or Islamic Center.

Do I have those statistics? No. But there are certainly a large number of Muslims working on Wall Street… in finance not only as street vendors. Perhaps not large in terms of percentage, but large in terms of raw numbers.

I might well be wrong about this, but the location theoretically makes sense to me (and there is a great deal of the outerboroughs in which a 15 story building would very much stand out).

It is interesting to me that I am placed in the position of defending a structure that, in all honesty, I could care less about. My feelings are only about the matter of discrimination based on religion and the role of church and state.

Anyway, it is a credit to you all that I was compelled to respond. I try very hard not to respond to comments on blogs and have only responded one time before today. I appreciate the tough criticism.

Jonathan Cristol

Lapse into bigorty? Islamophobia? I thought this blog had some kind of committment to civility.

“A Lefty I am not, as you will likely soon discover.”

Glad to see WRM found another hippy puncher to blog with him. The blogsphere is so lacking in that predilection.

The WTC mosque is not intended as a religious establishment promoting peaceful religious values; it’s purpose is as a victory monument and proof of dominance.

This type victory commemorative is typical of Islam, where the Dome of the Rock, Hindu temples in India, and Christian chuches in Turkey and Europe are converted to mosques as a statement of triumph and propaganda for Islam.

There will only be only one final winner in this conflict and we are foolish to concede their claims of victory achieved by cowardly attacks. .

WRM makes the entirely legitimate and correct point that Islam is as capable of reforming its most extreme tendencies as any other religion. He also points out that the overwhelming number of the world’s Muslims are peace-loving, decent and non-radical. This is also true.

But there are other equally important factors that he fails to mention. There are 48 majority Muslim nations in the world today; the vast majority of these are autocratic and remarkably intolerant of religions other than Islam. In fact, many of these nations aren’t even particularly tolerant of the practice of forms of Islam different from the form practiced by the majority.

Even moderate Muslims feel perfectly justified in suggesting that actions that they feel demean their religion should not be tolerated in the West. So, for example, it’s not just radical Islamists who are outraged if the Prophet is depicted in pictures, paintings or cartoons, large numbers of more moderate Muslims are too. They object even if a likeness of the Prophet is depicted in a manner that is not insulting; their religion precludes physical depictions of the prophet and they expect that even people who are not Islamic should, out of respect, refrain from committing what they think is a blasphemous act. What they are arguing for is common courtesy or respect.

Yet many of these same Muslims are insulted at the suggestion that New Yorkers and other Americans, who are by and large Jewish and Christian (but also Muslim, Hindu and members of other religions) should be insulted by the establishment of a Muslim cultural center in close proximity to a site that has acquired (because of an attack by Muslims ) an iconic status. The hypocracy is remarkable.

In the late 1970s Carmelite nuns erected a cross within very close proximity of Auschwitz. A few years later they erected several more crosses visible from block 11, the camp’s major torture chamber. The nuns correctly asserted that Catholics as well as Jews were murdered at Auschwitz; they correctly suggested that the site was the location of the martyrdom of Catholic Saint Maximilian Kolbe; and they pointed out that Pope John Paul II had said mass near the Concentration Camp.

Nevertheless, many Jews were correctly outraged. Auschwitz is a site that is highly pertinent to the modern Jewish experience that is indeed unique. When the Jewish community asked that the crosses be moved, they weren’t suggesting that all Catholics or even most bore responsibility for the behavior of the Nazis nor were they suggesting that Poles were uniquely to blame. What they were asking for was sensitivity and respect.

Muslims of all stripes also ask for sensitivity and respect; they are entitled to it. But isn’t it the height of insensitivity and a sign of disrespect to build this Mosque/cultural center so close to the site of the largest terrorist attack ever to take place on American soil?

Don’t all the three great Abrahamic faiths have one version or another of the call to “do on to others…”

This type of “slap in the face” tactic is ruining the wholesome goodness of America! This is not an isolated instance. It’s starting to happen all over. I just heard of plans to build a Catholic church within two blocks of an elementary school. This after the multiple rapes perpetuated on our children by Catholic priests! Utter Outrage – shame on all who approve this church! Have they already forgotten the homosexual molestation of our American children? Are our children to be forced to look upon this den of pedophilia every time they walk to school? The Catholics laugh at us Americans. It makes me sick. This should not be allowed to happen.

A very UN-necessary part of the controversy is that there is no defined plan for Park 51/ Cordoba House, so a lot of reaction to date was based on the ABSENCE of a defined plan. They are still in Phase 1, which includes the development of a detailed plan and facility design as explained at their website: http://www.park51.org/landmark.htm

It would have been very helpful if Imam Rauf and his partners had remembered all the controversy of the first mosque in Manhattan,(displacing the poor tenants, the design critiques that resulted in a change in architects; Libya funding that changed to funding from all OIC countries; and some NIMBY). It is a beautiful building complex at 96th Street and Lexington Avenue.
that opened in 1992.

We are where we are.

New York City has kept WAL-MART OUT. And WAL-MART tried really hard to come to poorest urban county in America, The Bronx. But, Wal-Mart gave up when they realized they were not welcome.

I remember the people in The Bronx were really upset to be denied access to Wal-Mart due to an odd combination of Manhattan-politico-snobbery and union resistance.

imo, chris p’s comment at 12:37 am should be removed from this thread for an inappropriate and offensive attempt at humor.

MUCH of this controversy might have been mitigated if only this July 24, 2010 interview had been more accessible (and it may be that the very diverse American-Muslim community may actually shape the final plan for Park51 since they seem to be asking the truly hard questions):

http://www.altmuslim.com/a/a/n/3866
“In the wake of growing public debate, we ask Sharif El-Gamal, the CEO of Soho Properties and the developer of Park51, some hard questions about the plans to develop a Muslim-run community center in lower Manhattan.”

Question: “What are Imam Feisal’s specific roles and responsibilities in the project? If he is not in a leadership/executive position, then who is really “in charge” and making the decisions?”

ANSWER: “Imam Feisal Abdul-Rauf is as an interfaith leader and a visionary in this project. He has served the lower Manhattan community faithfully for over 27 years. He is supported by political and religious leaders across New York City for his commitment to moderation and tolerance and his years of work in bringing people together.

Park51 is an independent project led by Muslim Americans. This project will be separate from The Cordoba Initiative and ASMA. The next step is forming a non-profit and applying for tax-exempt status. Imam Feisal and I are serving as the project managers until then. This non-profit will be run by an Executive Director, yet to be selected, support staff, and a 23-member Board of Directors.

Imam Feisal will be one of the Directors, and will oversee the Cordoba House, which will direct the interfaith programming within Park51. We have not yet selected the other members of the Board of Directors, but we will be picking people very carefully, based on their record of leadership, relevant experience and positive contribution to New York City and the country. The board will not be limited by religion.

The mosque will be run by a separate non-profit whose Board of Directors will reflect a broad range of experience. While the mosque will be located in the planned final structure of Park51, it will be a distinct non-profit. Neither Park51 nor the mosque, which hasn’t been named yet, will tolerate any kind of illegal or un-American activity and rhetoric.”

Jonathan: a few thoughts about the various interpretations of the three Abrahamic religions that were stimulated by re-reading the 2004 NYT article about how observant Jews who pray (and need a minyan of ten) three times a day, and observant Muslims who pray five times a day have carved out hundreds of spaces in midtown and downtown Manhattan. “Prayer Amid the Office Machines” By: Joseph Berger
NY Times January 19th, 2004

In such a case, is there an issue if an observant Jew helps Hasidic Jews make a minyan?

Islam is far more complicated. The reporter Aziz Poonawalla who interviewed Sharif El-Gamal for altmuslim.com is a Dawoodi Bohra, (Hindi: दवूदि बोह्रा, Arabic: داؤدی بوہرہ) are the main branch of the Bohras, a Mustaʿlī subsect of Ismāʿīlī Shīʿa Islām. No wonder he asked such tough questions.

Reading about that sect of Shi’a made me realize that Islam has so many sects, and they apparently can not pray together.

If Park51 were being proposed by a Dawoodi Bohra, or, an Ahmadi*, there would be far less controversy.
* The Ahmadi seem to be the Mormons of Islam?

As to the use of violence to overthrow an unjust ruler, you need to wonder why Sayyid Qutb placed so much credibility on Ibn Tamiyya’s 14th century fatwa. Seems like selective reasoning to me.