By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
August 23, 2010
Reporting from Beirut
The heated debate across America over construction of the so-called
ground zero mosque is reverberating across the globe, with the
potential of creating a worldwide black eye for the United States.
Many Muslims abroad are miffed by the stateside debate, largely
conducted by non-Muslims, that has grown so loud as to become a topic
of discussion on talk shows and newspapers from Bali to Bahrain, from
Baghdad to Berlin. The proposed Cordoba House has become a symbol of
America's fraught relations with the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.
"Rejecting this has become like rejecting Islam itself," said Ahmad
Moussalli, a professor of Islamic Studies at the American University of
Beirut. "The United States has historically been distinguished by its
tolerance, whereas Europe, France, Belgium and Holland have been among
those who have rejected the symbolism of Islam. Embracing it will be
positively viewed in the Islamic world."
Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, America has spent millions trying to improve its image
among Muslims, especially in the Arab world, from where the Sept. 11
hijackers and their leaders came. Coincidentally, the leader of the
proposed Muslim community center, the Kuwaiti-born scholar Imam Feisal
Abdul Rauf, is currently touring the Persian Gulf states on a U.S.
State Department-funded trip to promote goodwill for America.
Like most non-Americans, Muslims across the world barely understand the
vagaries of U.S. politics, including the wedge issues and posturing
that turn midterm elections into mud fights. Commentators from the
Middle East to South Asia to Indonesia to Nigeria praised Obama and New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for coming to the defense of the community
center, even as the president hedged his apparent initial support for
the project.
Obama has "placed ethics and principles ahead of politics that not only
enhances his credibility to the Muslims only but also his stature as a
statesman to the rest of the world," read an opinion piece in the Daily
Star of Bangladesh.
But in interviews conducted mostly in the Arab world and in
commentaries by newspapers throughout the Muslim world, many emphasized
that the United States will be judged ultimately not on a building in
Lower Manhattan but on whether it is able to help resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and leave Iraq and Afghanistan in peace.
"Is not exerting serious effort to implement pledges towards the
Palestinian cause and state more useful with regard to showing the U.S.
adherence to rights, freedom and justice?" Rajih Khouri wrote in the
Aug. 19 issue of An-Nahar, a Lebanese daily.
The proposed center, a sort of Muslim YMCA with a pool and a prayer
room situated two blocks from the World Trade Center site, is not a
huge topic of debate on websites that draw frenetic commentary over the
Arab-Israeli conflict or tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Houses of worship are humdrum affairs in the Muslim world and many
ordinary Muslims wonder primarily whether the mosque is "needed,"
meaning simply whether Muslims in that neighborhood now have nowhere
else to pray. Some appear baffled that anyone in their right mind would
scoff at a $100-million private-sector investment at a time of global
economic crisis.
"To me and many Muslims, this mosque is like any other mosque in any
part of the world," said Houriya Baleegh, a 55-year-old Cairo
housewife. "It does not mean much to Islam having a mosque at ground
zero."
Indeed, some say it's a bad idea to construct the building so close to
the site of the twin towers, whose fiery destruction at the hands of 19
Muslim extremists is etched into the minds of people all over the world.
"Building a mosque there will increase hatred between Muslims and
non-Muslims in the West," said Gamal Awad, a professor at Cairo's Al
Azhar University. "It will further connect Islam with a horrible event."
But many Muslims tuning in to the debate see a demonization of their
religion by some Americans, who have been painting the 1,400-year-old
faith as a dangerous political ideology. They bristle at the ignorance
of politicians who argue that the structure should not be allowed
because Muslims don't allow churches in their countries. Despite
tensions between Christians and Muslims in some countries, Saudi Arabia
is the only country to specifically bar churches.
Muslims worry that the campaign has become caught up in the same
racially tinged clash-of-civilizations campaigns to ban Muslim women in
France from wearing Islamic garb or Muslims in Switzerland to build
minarets on their houses of worship.
"What is important is the symbolic dimension to the issue," said Zaki
Saad, a former leader of the Jordanian branch of the Muslim
Brotherhood, called the Islamic Action Front. "When they connect all
Muslims to Sept. 11, that means they connect terrorism and extremism to
Islam. This is a form of discrimination and unacceptable."
Fazel Maybodi, a moderate Iranian cleric and supporter of the
opposition movement, has seen fellow political travelers jailed and
tortured by dogmatic Islamist extremists who now have the upper hand in
Iranian politics. Citing verses from the Koran arguing for peaceful
coexistence among Muslims, Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians, he said
the Lower Manhattan center could help reinforce more moderate trends
within Islam. "A mosque in ground zero is good for promotion of
democracy and peaceful coexistence of people all over the world," he
said.
While some conservative American critics allege the building would
serve as a "victory mosque" to the terrorists who destroyed the World
Trade Center, Muslims contend that the project could serve as a bridge
not only to non-Muslims, but to reach out to those of their faith who
may have lost their way.
Those in Osama bin Laden's Wahabbi school consider the Sufism espoused
by Abdul Rauf a degenerate form of the religion. And in April, Iraqi
authorities said they uncovered a Sept. 11-style Al Qaeda plot to fly
planes into mosques revered by Shiite Muslims in the cities of Najaf
and Karbala, underscoring the disdain the extremist network holds for
Muslims who don't adhere to its puritanical Sunni brand of Islam.
"It is very important to have mosques and Islamic learning centers,
especially abroad," said Bassem El Tarrass, a Lebanese cleric who
preaches at several mosques. "If there is no mosque, people will go the
Internet to learn about Islam, and perhaps come across extremists like
the ones who carried out Sept. 11."