A Tale of Two Mosques
by Arun Venugopal
NEW YORK, NY June 10, 2010 The idea of a "mega mosque," as its called by opponents, mere steps from Ground Zero, is generating national attention. For opponents like Herb London of the Washington, D.C.-based Hudson Institute, this is about defining the future of the country.
"We have a responsibility to make sure that that mosque is not constructed," he said during the Ground Zero protest, a few days ago. "Not in my neighborhood, not in my town, not in New York, not in America. We are against that mosque!"
But the local community board as well as New York City's leading politicians support the project. Opponents say the fight's not over yet. Many, like Mike Burke, the brother of a firefighter who died on 9/11, feel the Islamic Center is an unnecessary provocation. Burke and others are questioning the integrity of the Cordoba Initiative, which is behind the project.
"If they were to turn up a so-called smoking gun and if they were in fact linked to the terrorist groups, I'm sure that would stop everything," he said, while standing next to Ground Zero. "I wouldn't say we're searching for that necessarily. You just want to make sure that's not so. Because other things have turned up."
Mark Costello was part of the majority at Community Board 1 that voted for the project. Although he's a devout Catholic, he regularly visited the Cordoba Initiative's book store in Tribeca after 9/11.
"If you go in that book store you'll see all kinds of disturbing literature," he said, with a touch of sarcasm, "like Letters from a Birmingham Jail, by Dr King. You'll see the writings of Mohandas Gandhi, you'll see Rumi and Omar Khayyam."
Costello says he has no argument for those who think a mosque near Ground Zero is in poor taste. But he can speak to another concern -- that there's something questionable about the Cordoba Initiative. Costello was a federal prosecutor, and made inquiries to his friends in law enforcement.
"I was laughed at," he said. "This Cordoba House does work with the Department of State. They're very very well known. I felt a little bit like I was asking, Should we be afraid of the Kiwanis Club or the League of Women Voters."
The leader of the Cordoba Initiative is Imam Feisal Rauf, who practices Sufism, a spiritual branch of Islam.
"People have said 'Where is the voice of the moderates, where are the moderates, when do we hear them?'" he said. "Well, here we are. We are the moderates, we are the anti-terrorists."
Rauf thinks the Islamic center would help address a problem that sometimes happens in the West -- the act of integrating young Muslims into the broader culture.
"We need to develop in this country a sense of who we are as American Muslims," said Rauf. "Not to be just pockets of immigrant Muslims, which generally happens."
Well before the furor in lower Manhattan, another one had erupted in Brooklyn. There, a community of Muslims is planning a mosque in Sheepshead Bay. In many ways, the two controversies are completely different. One is about a place that many define as sacred: the World Trade Center. The other is a more conventional, Not In My Backyard issue. It's about neighborhood traffic, noise and changing demographics.
This mosque would be located on a small, empty plot of land, set among a couple houses and co-op buildings. Ibrahim Anse is the mosque's architect. He moved to Brooklyn 10 years ago, from Yemen. Anse explains there are 100 to 150 Muslim families in the neighborhood, and they need a place to pray. He says the four-story facility would also have afterschool services for kids.
"We actually welcome anybody else, such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, karate, any activity for the youth. We welcome anybody else who's non-Muslim as well."
But that interfaith outreach hasn't gotten off the ground yet, due to what Anse calls hatred and racism. Some of the criticism has come from real estate agents, who say property values will dip if a mosque gets built in Sheepshead Bay. Much of it, however, has come from neighbors, like Alex Tenenbaum of the group Bay People.
According to Tenenbaum, a mosque is bound to attract drivers from outside the neighborhood who would crowd out local residents. And while proponents of the mosque insist they won't broadcast their call to prayer outside, Alex still worries about noise. And he produces photos showing how worshippers at other mosques in Brooklyn tend to overflow onto the sidewalk. He says his concerns are practical, and that he's not the bigot that proponents say he is.
"They don't want to admit that that could be a nuisance for neighbors," he says. "They're saying, 'Oh, you're just an Islamophobe.' Which is not the case. I just don't want a crowd of people under my bedroom window."
As with the Ground Zero mosque, some of Alex's allies have been looking for their own smoking gun concerning the group building the mosque. That organization, the Muslim American Society, originally stemmed from the Muslim Brotherhood, which also spawned Hamas.
The connection has given pause to even some neutral observers. But to Theresa Scavo, the no-nonsense head of Community Board 15, it's completely irrelevant.
"If there is evil wrong with certain people in a certain group that doesn't mean the entire group is affiliated," said Scavo, peering over her glasses. "[Or] that you can just conglomerate everybody together and just say, 'Oh well, that faction has issues, so that means everybody has issues in that group.' Come on, that's old-time thinking, it's not today -- not 21st century today."
She says the opposition to the mosque has been driven entirely by fear-mongering and fear of Muslims, but that opponents occasionally shift to more polite language to cover their tracks. Scavo also dismisses the concerns about noise coming from the mosque, saying she's reassured by the mosque's promise not to broadcast its prayer. And she thinks a mosque catering to locals would encourage most of them to walk instead of drive there. The mosque would be one of 77 religious institutions in the district, and she says all of them compete for parking spaces, and most of them make noise now and then.
"It's a lot about possession, and 'This is my neighborhood,' and 'We were here first,'" she said. "And 'We don't welcome outsiders.' It's not the American way, or the New York way. Everyone is welcome."
Today an interfaith group of Brooklynites -- Muslim, Jewish, Christian and other -- are holding their annual Peace Walk, and plan to direct it to the site of the mosque. They say they've reached out to people who oppose the mosque. But opponents say that there's no war, so there's no need for a Peace Walk.
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