Whatever the name was is a pointless argument. Park51 should not be an offensive name to anyone.
However, I will humor you further. The Cordoba initiative is nothing new. It has been around for a number of years. I didnt see you, or anyone else jumping around about the choice of names then.
Gee, that sounds like the language used by the liberals here to excuse criticism of the massive debt the Dems have racked up by pointing to the more moderate escalation by the Repubs. You learn quickly, don't you? :awe:
I don't find it pointless and neither does your imam Rauf - as the name was changed, wasn't it? No need to do so if it, in fact, represented something other than Moorish conquest and occupation of Europe. Interesting that you denied it was ever named thus, though. Practicing a re-write of something so current and exposed does subject you to questions as to what your real purpose in naming it the Cordoba Mosque is. That can be found in the speeches offered in Arabic, but not in English, huh?
Please use the 5 seconds you proposed to determine the truth. JohnOfSheffield helped you in that effort. Thank him.
Why, routan, I am using much more than five seconds to determine the
truth! I am actually doing some research rather than taking your word. And for you to suggest that I rely on someone that is patently ignorant of history as JoS rather than do my own research is ludicrous.
Better for you to refer me to noted independent scholars than anyone on these forums. I tend to spend much more time reading the works of historians such as Ernie Bradford, Neil Hanson, Victor Davis Hanson,
and the source documents they reference, than rely on any unlearned and ignorant opinion to be found here.
Contemporary scholarship has clearly demonstrated that there was no ‘harmony’ or ‘prosperity’ for
non-Muslims in Islamic Spain. Rauf's Cordoba Initiative is attempting to revisit some sort of mythical “tolerance and respect” which never existed.
What is irrefutable is that living under Islam, the non-Muslim population was always mandated to submit to Islam, accept discriminatory laws, and make payment of a mandatory Koranic tax imposed upon every non-Muslim.
Not only were successive battles for Spanish cities bloody, but desiring more than Spain the Arabs declared a jihad against France, then crossed the Pyrenees, and in successive swarms spread over the southern regions of the French countryside, slaughtering the Christians by thousands, and burning their churches to the ground before being halted.
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.”
At any rate, the true history of Cordoba, not to mention the whole of Andalusia, is far less inspiring than
what some "academics" (LOL!) like JoS portray as the truth is that the Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711 and its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved.
We must again remember that a practice associated with conquering Islamic armies was the construction of a mosque at the location where their triumphant battle was won. And this modern Islamic organization that you represent is seeking to build a mosque at the site of the 9/11 attack, an attack which was carried out by 19 Muslim hijackers who considered their mission holy war.
More to the point, based on your commentary thus far, you could claim anything and I would doubt you because of the deflections and incomplete story you tell. I am also quite leery of this rather inadequate propaganda you provide as it contradicts what is well established. I wish you would add something new, something honest, even if just to change up the pace a bit.
My own commentary is but a brief attempt to identify some, but not all, of the inconsistencies and to refer our mutual readers to sources which might intrigue them and raise our discussion to an exploration of the
truth rather than what appear to be an attempt on your part to deflect and deceive.
I already answered your financing of the mosque query. Because you throw a "I suspect the source of financing" does not really warrant any response whatsoever. I agree that the financing sources are important, and hence all required checks have been completed by the federal, state and city authorities.
Well now, as I am coming to a better understanding of the likely sources for financing such project and the purpose for such investment I was hoping you would attempt a
truthful statement based on
fact.
Instead you say that I should refer to non-existent checks that might have been done, but weren't, by federal, state and city authorities. The "authorities" like to see verification of funds but they don't generally get involved in tracking down just where that funding is coming from. And if the funding is not by identified proscribed organizations, which are few in number indeed, they don't bother with it.
If outside investors
choose to conduct due diligence
that is where questions may arise. But when it is a group of "friendly" investors, that due diligence is of an entirely different sort, and likely not related to where or why the money originates but that is comes from politically and sharia compliant sources in this case.
So, you invite us to conjecture rather than inform us. Like your imam, you put the burden on us rather than indulge in open and full disclosure.
Would you directly confirm or deny that the following individuals and organizations are the true backers of this Cordoba House?
A Saudi charity has sunk more than $300,000 into ASMA. It's called the Kingdom Foundation -- headed by Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi prince whose 9/11 relief check was rejected after he blamed the attacks on U.S. foreign policy.
Bin Talal is a major financier of Muslim Brotherhood fronts in the U.S. His foundation is run by Saudi hijabi Muna Abu Sulayman, who appears on ASMA's Web site as one of its "Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow."
Sulayman, who spends much of her time in the U.S., happens to be the daughter of Dr. Abdul Hamid Abu Sulayman, "one of the most important figures in the history of the global Muslim Brotherhood," according to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.
So? The Egypt-based Brotherhood is the parent of Hamas and al-Qaida and the source of most of the jihadi ideology and related terror throughout the world today.
True or not true? You don't have to agree with the negative characterization as the Muslim Brotherhood, with its bloody history, can be considered either a terrorist or a revolutionary leadership group, but can we agree that they are a funding source? It shouldn't really be surprising as Rauf's father was a full fledged member of the Muslim Brotherhood until his death in 2004.
I found the following article interesting, don't you?
The Tangled Web of the GZM Imam's Organizations Raises Questions
The backers of the Ground Zero Mosque have virtually no money, one of the group's leaders says, and plan to create another nonprofit organization that would further complicate the already labyrinthine financial network surrounding the project.
Daisy Khan, one of the leaders of the project, told supporters over the weekend that the mosques organizers have "nothing in the bank" for their effort. Khan said there is no money and that she doesn't know of anything that has been raised.
Tracing the money going to the two nonprofit groups led by Khan and her husband and partner in the mosque project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, requires a world map.
Federal tax records show Rauf and Khan direct the two groups supporting the mosque project – the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA). Those two organizations, along with Soho Properties, which owns the site of the proposed mosque and community center, are coordinating the project.
However, federal tax records show the Cordoba Initiative has not listed contributions from at least two charitable foundations that have supported its activities. In another case, a foundation gave money to Cordoba's sister group, the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), that was supposed to go to Cordoba; that money was also not listed in Cordoba's tax records.
Cordoba has failed to list almost $100,000 in charitable donations since 2007, federal tax records show.
Between 2006 and 2008, Cordoba's charitable tax filings with the IRS show a total of $31,668 in gross receipts. However, tax filings from two charities that have donated to Cordoba or ASMA show more than $130,000 to donations to Cordoba during that time.
They include:
- $98,000 from 2006 through 2008 from the Deak Family Foundation, a Rye, N.Y.-based nonprofit organization.
- $32,000 from the William and Mary Greve Foundation of New York in 2007.
- The Greve foundation also gave ASMA $25,000 in 2008 "to support Cordoba Initiative in improving Muslim-West relations." There is no record in the Cordoba Initiative's tax filings that shows it received $25,000 from ASMA. Greve foundation officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The Deak foundation's contributions to Cordoba were routed through ASMA, the religious organization Rauf founded in 1997 as the American Sufi Muslim Association, said R. Leslie Deak, the foundation's director. The Deak foundation has also given more than $100,000 between 2006 and 2008 to the National Defense University Foundation. That group supports activities at the National Defense University, a Pentagon think tank in Washington.
However,
Cordoba's tax filings between 2005 and 2008 show no contributions from ASMA.
The missing donations are troubling, said Bob Blitzer, a former FBI counterterrorism chief now in private business. "Obviously, they're not running things very well," Blitzer said. "It's the whole issue of the money is really bothering the public. Does he have the money?"
Blitzer said the missing money could be due to theft, embezzlement or sloppy bookkeeping. "They're really open for somebody who, particularly the government since they're filing as a nontaxable institution, could look into why the money is missing," he said.
As a religious organization, ASMA is exempt from filing the same federal tax forms as Cordoba. That means it is not required to name its donors, or reveal how much it receives in donations or how it spends its money in federal tax documents.
The church status for ASMA comes from the group's original
1997 filing with the IRS. ASMA was originally created as the American Sufi Muslim Organization and stated on its federal application it would provide "facilities for the local Muslim community in offering five time daily prayers" and other religious functions. As a result, the group was granted church status and was exempted from filing the traditional tax forms and financial disclosures associated with other charities.
The group changed its name from the American Sufi Muslim Association to the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) in 2006,
New York state corporation records show. Its
current web site mentions nothing about the group hosting prayer services. Instead, it cites five key parts of its mission, to educate, incubate, advocate, organize and mobilize on behalf of Islam.
Their church status, former FBI counter-terrorist chief Blitzer said, could also be subject to an investigation. "The bigger issue is, if they got tax exempt status as a church and they're now not having services, how can they maintain their status for any length of time?" Blitzer said.
A financial statement found on ASMA's web site for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2009, also does not mention religious services as one of the group's functions. The statement says ASMA is "a non-profit intermediary organization established in 1997 and dedicated to reshaping the discourse about Islam."
The same financial statement lists Cordoba as a "related party." The statement says Cordoba is a separate corporation that will "work with ASMA as a sister organization sharing the same infrastructure, space, utilities, vendor services and co-sponsorship of programs to remain fiscally lean and keep operational costs low for both."
The statement, however, does not show that ASMA sent any money to Cordoba between July 1, 2008, and June 30, 2009.
During that time, ASMA reported receiving $1,382,194 in grants, the financial statement shows. Donors included the United Nations Population Fund, $53,664; the Dutch government's MDG3 Fund, $481,942; the Hunt Alternatives Fund, $15,000; the Carnegie Corp. of New York, $122,000; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, $50,000; and the Qatar government fund, $576,312.
There are no available records for anything called the Qatar government fund, although the oil-rich Persian Gulf nation has a sovereign wealth fund known as the Qatar Investment Authority.
At various times this year, Rauf has said he plans to solicit donations for the $100 million mosque and community center project from overseas sources, although he has not named any donors. One possible source could be Malaysia, where Cordoba has an office, according to a
2009 New York corporate filing.
In an interview earlier this year, however, Khan said there is no connection between the two offices that share the same name. "I don't know what the status of that organization is," Khan told
investigative reporter Claudia Rosett of Forbes magazine on Aug. 11. Yet Khan is named as a Cordoba official in the 2004 tax form that includes the reference to the Malaysian official. Khan is also listed as a Cordoba director in its 2008 tax filing, which is the latest on record.
Imam Rauf was also listed as a participant in several meetings of the Malaysia-based
Perdana Global Peace Organisation, according to the group's
web site. Perdana is led by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
Mohamad was prime minister from 1981 to 2003. Shortly before he left office, he told a gathering at the Organization of the Islamic Conference that Jews rule the world by proxy. Mohamad said he was not anti-Semitic but opposed "Jews who kill Muslims" and "the Jews who support the killers of Muslims."
Creating a new nonprofit group to handle the finances for the mosque profit means that outsiders looking to monitor the group's finances would have to wait until 2012, according to guidelines for nonprofits posted on Guidestar.org. That site tracks nonprofit groups and their finances. (My emphasis - PJABBER)
It takes an average of two months for the IRS to rule on a group's nonprofit filing, Guidestar says. So, if the group filed immediately, it could receive tax-exempt status in late October. IRS regulations require all nonprofits to file their tax forms within five months after the end of their fiscal year. That would push disclosure of the mosque group's finances to March 2012 at the earliest.
Until then, however, questions about Rauf and Khan's finances remain. "When you see this kind of activity, it makes you pause," Blitzer said.
Here's how it works:
When the new organization files the Form 1023 (Application for Recognition) the IRS will assign the application to one of three tracks. For all practical purposes there are only two - either it gets immediate approval (TRACK A). In those cases it takes about 2 months or goes to TRACK C. Theoretically there is a TRACK B which is a small amount of additional information, but that doesn't really happen.
In TRACK C it is sent for further work-up. In those cases the folks in Cincinnati will prepare a series of questionnaires (called "Letter 1312") which will also be public information including any responses.
In a high-profile, highly complicated application ($100,000,000.00! Offices in Malaysia! Are you kidding me?!) this application may take as long as a year or more to be approved (unless the Obama Administration decides to request it be expedited, which they'll do at their own risk because that's public information).
While approval will be retroactive, during the pendency of the application they will have trouble getting legitimate American foundation support, but I doubt any of that is important to Saudi sponsors .
As for the Church status - that was a big no-no. If you look at the approval letter as a Church it will say something to the effect of "If your purposes and/or activities change, you must notify the IRS so we can see how that impacts your status". The Regional District Director should be notified and do something about it.
How about if we file a complaint and see what it turns up?
But you are not disturbed by this in the least, are you? Full disclosure is not the way of taquiyya.
By the way, I find it especially interesting that Rauf 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. While this may not be a familiar name to our readers here, it really should be by now. They are the friendly folk who sponsored the pro-Palestinian activists who clashed violently with Israeli commandos at sea not too long ago. It is no wonder that he does not condemn Hamas, is it?
While his statements made in the United States were that the money for the Cordoba Mosque would come solely from American Muslims, in an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat (a London based pan-Arab daily newspaper,) Rauf told that newspaper that funding would come from Muslims in the United States and from overseas.
"Imam Abdul Rauf . . . told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Islamic center will be financed through contributions from Muslims in the US, as well as by donations from Arab and Islamic countries," the newspaper reported.
Again we see one story for a supposedly gullible American audience and entirely another for an overseas Arabic audience, a very typical example of taquiyya.
Anyway, stay tuned. I am finding a number of Saudi (Wahabbi) financiers named in my research, but I want to get some other third party sources to confirm this before I ask for your comments. Interesting who these names are, though.
Sharif El-Gamaal has been having financial difficulties because all of his current cash-flows are being thrown into the day-to-day operations and maintenance of the mosque. As to his success, America is awesome in affording everyone the opportunity to attain success. Heck, even I was printing T-shirts a few years ago
You know that is entirely an incorrect picture of his finances, which are available through legal filings against him. None of his financial problems are a result of his involvement with the Cordoba Mosque. In fact, based on public records, little or none of his own money is going to the Cordoba Mosque.
El-Gamal's poor financials and legal issues are the result of his taking on an over extension of debt, failure to pay required taxes, building code violations and the resultant fines and poor management of the tenement buildings he bought with OPM (Other People's Money.) His record is one which, if he were not a willing front man for the real interested parties of the Cordoba Mosque, would not inspire any confidence in his ability to manage finances or real estate development.
It is
great that you are personally benefiting from the American system. It is my
great hope that you and your friends do not choose to use the liberty and economic advantages of this country against those same systems by pursuing the imposition of sharia in this country.
According to the Center for the Study of Political Islam, 60% of the Koran is political, fully 19% of the Koran is of violent Jihad. 75% of Sira, the life of your Prophet, is about violent Jihad, not the development of a moral code or anything else not related to jihad. If you and other Muslim Leaders Of Tomorrow can overcome Islam's institutionalized extreme intolerance and violence against infidels you will go a long way toward having Muslims accepted as equals in the civilized world instead as examples of the worst of intolerant human nature.
And I already mentioned, numerous non-Muslims have been hosted at the mosque. You repeating the same thing again and again is another example of being pointless.
Pointless to you is not pointless to me. You say this is going to be an "inter-faith" center, but it would be useful for us if you could provide a link to any official statement as to what that means - is there an official statement that the facility will be opened to all faiths? Jews, polytheists, atheists? Can all faiths use the facilities as they could, let's say a YMCA? If Muslims worship on Friday, can Jews worship there on Saturday and Christians on Sunday? To me that is what is meant by inter-faith, but I have absolutely no idea what inter-faith means to you and Rauf!
I am a Sunni Muslim. The vast majority of Muslims do not subscribe to any variants.
We both know there are schisms in Islam. As a Sunni (Wahabbi?) do you recognize the validity of the Shia version of Islam or the Bahá’í?
Enjoy your espresso :thumbsup:
Oh, I did, I certainly did!