REVEALED IN ARABIC – GROUND ZERO MOSQUE FOUNDER RAUF WANTS TO ESTABLISH SHARIAH
by Walid Shoebat
Is Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf – founder of the hugely controversial Ground Zero Mosque – lying to the American public?
We have uncovered extraordinary contradictions between what he says in English and what he says in Arabic that raise serious questions about his true intentions in the construction of the mosque.
On May 25, 2010 Abdul Rauf wrote in an article for the New York Daily News: “My colleagues and I are the anti-terrorists. We are the people who want to embolden the vast majority of Muslims who hate terrorism to stand up to the radical rhetoric. Our purpose is to interweave America’s Muslim population into the mainstream society.”
Oh really?
Only two months before, on March 24, 2010, Abdul Rauf is quoted in an article in Arabic for Rights4All entitled (from one of his responses) “I Do Not Believe in Religious Dialogue”.
Yes, you read that correctly and, yes, that is an accurate translation. And Right4All is not an obscure blog, but the website of the media department of Cairo University, the leading educational institution of the Arabic-speaking world.
In the article, the Imam said the following of the “religious dialogue” and “interweaving into the mainstream society” that he so solemnly seems to advocate in the Daily News and elsewhere: “This phrase is inaccurate. Religious dialogue as customarily understood is a set of events with discussions in large hotels that result in nothing. Religions do not dialogue and dialogue is not present in the attitudes of the followers, regardless of being Muslim or Christian. The image of Muslims in the West is complex which needs to be remedied.”
But that’s only the beginning of what we learn from the Rights4All piece. When asked his view regarding an Islamic state, Abdul Rauf responded that “Throughout my discussions with contemporary Muslim theologians, it is clear an Islamic state can be established in more then just a single form or mold. It can be established through a kingdom or a democracy. The important issue is to establish the general fundamentals of Shariah that are required to govern. It is known that there are sets of standards that are accepted by [Muslim] scholars to organize the relationships between government and the governed.”
When questioned about this, Abdul Rauf continued “Current governments are unjust and do not follow Islamic laws.” He added “New laws were permitted after the death of Muhammad, so long of course that these laws do not contradict the Quran or the Deeds of Muhammad…so they create institutions that assure no conflicts with Shariah.” [emphasis in translation]
In yet plainer English, Abdul Rauf’s goal is the imposition of Shariah law – in every country, including the U. S.
He made that even clearer in an interview with Sa’da Abdul Maksoud that appeared on the popular Islamic website Hadiyul-Islam on May 26, 2010 – one day after his article for the New York Daily News.
In the Hadiyul-Islam article, Abdul Rauf reiterates that an Islamic state under Shariah law with no separation of church and state can be established even when the government is a kingdom or a democracy.
But these attitudes are nothing new for the (alas, few) people who have been paying attention. Way back on September 30, 2001, Faisal Abdul Rauf was interviewed on 60 Minutes by host Ed Bradley. Their verbatim dialogue from this CBS News transcript concluded:
BRADLEY: Are–are–are you in any way suggesting that we in the United States deserved what happened?
Imam ABDUL RAUF: I wouldn’t say that the United States deserved what happened, but the United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened.
BRADLEY: OK. You say that we’re an accessory?
Imam ABDUL RAUF: Yes.
BRADLEY: How?
Imam ABDUL RAUF: Because we have been an accessory to a lot of–of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, it–in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.
This is the “anti-terrorist” of the Daily News article?
The Faisal Abdul Rauf who spoke to 60 Minutes in 2001 is the same Abdul Rauf who, in the last couple of months, espoused the spread of Shariah law on Arabic websites and said the opposite in the pages of the Daily News. He is the man New York City authorities are about to allow to build a mosque on Ground Zero.
Caveat emptor.