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.”
By Aziz Poonawalla & Shahed Amanullah, July 24, 2010

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.”

On 9/11/2001, “…a plane’s landing-gear assembly the size of a World War II torpedo crashed through the roof and down through two empty selling floors of the Burlington Coat Factory….[reported December, 2009] …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.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/nyregion/09mosque.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

On Monday, after an interview with Daisy Khan, the WSJ reported “Park51 will include a prayer space designed for about 2,000 worshipers.” Khan said “We want to repair the breach and be at the front and center to start the healing.”
[one can argue that objective has already failed]

On Tuesday, “El-Gamal told The Jerusalem Post that with the decision not to designate the existing building a landmark, he was beginning to prepare a fund-raising strategy and considering the future look and organization of the facility.

“While we plan to include a mosque, this will only be small component of the larger facility and it will be run as a separate not-forprofit,” El-Gamal said….”
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=183463

Between Friday and Monday, Malaysia’s Dr. Mahathir Mohamed Gaza-obsessed Perdana For Peace Initiative redesigned their hompage to delete the direct link to Imam Rauf’s page at http://www.perdana4peace.org/agenda.aspx?x=3

Park51 has a website. http://www.park51.org

You can follow the development of a final plan and design there.

A prayer space for 2,000 on such a small footprint is a big challenge in meeting NYC Fire Code, and New York City Fire Department has veto power to insure compliance.

As far as the government is concerned, it is only a matter of property rights and freedom of religion. For the rest of us, there is the added question of the wisdom or civility of such a move. But in this case, the Imam responsible for the mosque/community center has been a fixture in the community dating back to 1983. He has run his mosque twelve blocks from the Twin Towers long before anyone had heard of either Ramzi Ahmed Yousef or Mohammed Atta. So I don’t see any case against him at all.

JP: “This Mosque is going up a few blocks where Americans were incinerated and crushed.”

American Muslims were incinerated and crushed on September 11, 2001 as well. Or are Muslims not real Americans to you?

And he couldn’t even get past his first sentence without misrepresenting the situation. Pathetic.

A very wealthy Boston Red Sox fan wishes to erect a huge billboard that will overlook The House that Ruth Built. It is so large and tall that it overshadows the entire outfield of Yankee Stadium. Now imagine if said billionaire wished to put a photo of a smiling Red Sox fan giving the world the “bird”. Think about it; everytime someone’s gaze turned to the outfied, or evertime a Yankee stepped up to the plate he would see this smiling Red Sox fan flipping him off. What would Yankee fans say if both the Mayor of New York and the City Council approved it?

Methinks everyone is missing the big picture. This Mosque is going up a few blocks where Americans were incinerated and crushed. The name of the Mosque is taken from a Islamic regime that dominated Christians in the Iberian Peninsula (Caliph of Cordoba), and whose regime was within one battlefield victory of dominating all of Western Europe. If our enlightened, high educated, sensitive elites cannot seen the significance, Muslims the world over can. This is Islam’s way of giving the finger to the West.

And for New Yorkers in Lower Manhatten, this is only the beginning.