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A Further Perspective
What’s in a Word?
“Dawa” may be unfamiliar to you. It shouldn’t be.
“Dawa” may be an unfamiliar word to you. It is to most Americans, but we had better learn to understand it for it is almost certainly the motivation behind the drive to build the “Ground Zero” mosque in Manhattan.
It is an Arabic word. As Andrew McCarthy, the former U.S. prosecutor who put the “blind sheik” and his allies in prison for their part in the 1983 World Trade Center garage bombing, puts it this way: “Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread…The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread and defend sharia.”
The leader of the movement to build the 13-story mosque and “community center” 600 feet from the hole in the ground where the twin towers stood, is Feisal Abdul Rauf, imam of one of New York City’s 100 or so other mosques. The site where he wants to build it is owned by Sharif el-Gamal, who, until a few years ago, was waiting tables in New York restaurants. He now owns several expensive properties. The sources of his wealth are unclear as are the sources of the $100 million that must be raised to build the structure.
Imam Rauf, now on a U.S. State Department-sponsored “good will” tour of Muslim countries, is widely considered to be an example of “moderate” Islam; however, among his more memorable quotations are these:
…United States policies were an accessory to the crime (9/11) that occurred.
…the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims. You may remember that the US-led sanctions against Iraq led to the death of over half a million Iraqi children.
While Rauf does not endorse violence, he professes to understand its roots; that it is the reaction of oppressed people to authoritarian regimes supported by the U.S. He has declined to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Rauf has been heading the Cordoba Initiative which professes to create “an atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect.” That should appeal to many Americans, but they should note also that the name of the proposed mosque-community center is Cordoba House, is derived from the Cordoba, Spain mosque built on the ruins of a Catholic church after the Muslim conquest of Spain in the 8th Century. The Christians reconquered Spain in 1492 and Islam lost “al Andalus.”
This is one of the “humiliations” that ardent Muslims want to avenge. Thus, the name “Cordoba House” stands for “conquest” and the siting of it is an example of dawa in action: Islamist triumphalism.
Large number of Muslims, in America an elsewhere, practice their faith, but temper it by willingly living under secular governments. Muslim purists, however, believe that every aspect of life is prescribed in the Koran and the hadith (the writings of and about Mohammed) which makes secular government superfluous. Militants such as al Qaida and its allies seek to eliminate these “infidel” institutions by violence. Other determined Muslims, such as the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in 1928) choose to accomplish it by dawa — stealth.
Rauf (and others like him) hopes and works for a world that has fully adopted Islam and sharia, but wants to do so without violence. Dawa is a one-step-at-a-time process. Rauf’s State Department trip is dawa in action as is the fact the FBI hired him after 9/11 to conduct sensitivity-training sessions for its personnel. Two years ago, Rauf praised the Archbishop of Canterbury for advocating that Muslim enclaves within the United Kingdom be allowed to assert sharia law for their members. Had the U.K. government agreed, it would have a great success for dawa.
Their is no Muslim constituency in lower Manhattan. Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama missed the point of Cordoba House entirely. It is not a matter of religious freedom or property rights. It is a matter of appropriateness. If it is allowed to be built virtually next door to Ground Zero, it will be dawa’s greatest triumph in the United States to date.
About the Author
Peter Hannaford was closely associated for a number of years with the late President Reagan, beginning in the California Governor’s office. His latest book is Presidential Retreats.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (23) | Leave a comment
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martin j smith| 8.31.10 @ 8:00AM
On 9/11 their will be --I think-- the annual memorial ceremony to those who died in the attacks. This is held at the actual site of the WTC itself. Similar ceremonies will be held at the Pentagon and Pennsylvania where the Bushs and Obama will do a joint thing. But this years is different and it could lead to possible changes in the way people think of the 9/11 site in NYC.
The question of how much pressure can be sustained to demonstrate angry opposition to the building of this Mosque is key. Keep the pressure on thru e-mails,calls, letters etc. I really hope that Imama Rauf talks his talk because the more he does, the more people learn that he is no"moderate". He and his Muslim supporters who spew Anti-American and Anti-semitic rhetoric are our best hope. So Imam Rauf--just keep talking.
Tomas| 8.31.10 @ 2:27PM
The MSM is igoring this story. Let's see how effectively they can keep it under wraps when this Mosque gets federal funds.
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Ken (Old Texican)| 8.31.10 @ 8:17AM
"Dawa" is a term one responds to with "screw them"
Eric Catman| 8.31.10 @ 9:31AM
Ah, I see! Much like a "You're welcome" after a thank you! Very good! I will use it in my everyday communication. I like it!
arlo price| 8.31.10 @ 10:12AM
The obamagedon PIMP thugocracy chugs along.....
The pagan cult of islam is most convenient to the greedy, arrogant global elitist ruling class.
Let's Roll!!!
Jim O'Brien| 8.31.10 @ 8:24AM
The goal of Islam is to merge religion and the state, and you had better be a Muslim in such a state. There is no individual or religious freedom. There is brutality, terrorism, ignorance, and hostility toward "infidels". Secular law, such as our Constitution, is not recognized. The building of more mosques is the Muslim way of sticking a middle finger in our faces. Sharia courts will follow (England already has about 80 of them). I'm sure Obama already knows all this, and he supports Islam.
Allowing Islam to grow in the United States does not display our love of freedom. It displays our stupidity and weakness.
Max Quad| 8.31.10 @ 8:41AM
Islam is possibly the one world system which is prophecied in the Christian Bible. It is a battle between the forces of good v. those of evil.
Louis Jenkins| 8.31.10 @ 8:42AM
Dawa: The missionary work of thugs, thieves, killers, and the infidels. Dancing in the streets required. Part of the celebration of bodies raining from the heights of burning buildings, and emergency, fire, and policemen being crushed by falling debris.
I do not see the true American population accepting the Islam Fun House, replete with a pool, a kitchen, multi-meeting rooms, and of course the prayer room that can accomodate a thousand or so prayerees. Burkas required. And if a female member of your family gets out of line, a lash or worse.
How long America are we going to buy this crap and bull story? How long are we going to lay down to our perceived betters?
And the waitor turned realtor? Where did he get his money? And why does the State Dept. have the urge to send Rauf across the seas to gather money for this beastly building? There is something rotten in Denmark, and it ain't someone's feet we're smelling.
Anthony| 8.31.10 @ 9:59AM
The Left spent years excoriating Bush for what they perceived as his inability to "connect the dots".
Yet the same Left, I submit, willfully refuses to connect the dots with this bizarre mania and insistance to build this mosque at G.Z. The intellectual gyrations from Islamic proponents and the political Left show their moral and intellectual bankruptcy with their infantile rants of "religious intolerance".
Clearly, a 3rd grader ( this is one catagory higher than Chris Matthews) comprehends that it is not religious intolerance to insist that this mosque not be built at G.Z. Therefore, one can only conclude that the Left, with Obama as their cheerleader for the mosque at G.Z., is in lockstep with the aims, desires and goals of Sharia.
It's so simple, even an Ivy League graduate can connect these dots.!!! Unfortunately, Chris Matthews will remain in the dark. Oh well.
Paul Milenkovic| 8.31.10 @ 10:35AM
Within a one-block circle of the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church on 7th Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin is (1) the Red Letter News Adult Bookstore, in its new location after a reformer chased them out of their Downtown location two blocks from the State Capitol, and (2) the Madison Muslim Dawa Circle, which by appearances, is a store-front mosque.
The pastor of that congregation is an old-style ethnic-Eleniki from "the 'hood" (polis?) whom I haven't seen in quite the well, but the poor man must be suffering in silence.
Doctor Right| 8.31.10 @ 12:54PM
I don't know which is more frustrating, the continued incursion ("dawa") of Muslims and their evil philosophies into our country, or the absolute, block-headed refusal of so many Americans to see it for what it actually is - an attempt to colonize and ultimately convert the USA to "sharia" law.
Has anyone else noticed that wherever you have concentrated pockets of Muslims embedded in western societies, you inevitably have trouble?
I'm sick-to-death of hearing that the vast majority of Muslims are peace-loving people. Bullcrap! Like "dawa", embedding themselves into western communities and fitting-in without making waves is also a part of their grand strategy to proselytize and convert by any means necessary. As in other parts of the world, once these embedded Muslims feel sufficiently secure to begin attacking western culture from within, they abandon their aura of "peace" and show us who they truly are.
Islam CANNOT coexist with the United States Constitution. The two philosophies are mutually exclusive. Islam is vehemently and openly opposed to the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. Ultimately, one MUST win-out over the other.
So which one will it be, folks? Do we have the stomach for this fight? Because it's going to make the Cold War look like a picnic. At least the Communist Russians were ultimately rational people. The Islamists are the polar opposite. There will be no negotiations, no cooperation, and no detente. They understand one thing, and one thing only - strength.
And right now, with Obama in the White House, we're projecting nothing but weakness.
Obama is the worst person at the worst possible time for this problem. In fact, I'll go so far as to say he is more sympathetic to the cause of radical Islam than he is to the cause of the US Constitution.
For that reason alone, he MUST be defeated in 2012.
Texas Mom| 8.31.10 @ 1:00PM
Not to mention the waiter is a tax cheat who owes over $214K in taxes on this property. Or the fact that the Orthodox church crushed by the fall of the towers on 9/11 still has not been able to get permits to rebuild their church. Something smells really rotten in New York City.
hardcard| 8.31.10 @ 2:33PM
To the author please take note: the first WTC Bombing was in 1993 not 1983.
Jim Bob| 8.31.10 @ 2:35PM
No WTC garage bombing in 1983. 1993 was the year.
hunter| 8.31.10 @ 6:08PM
Islam is a goverment, not a religion. Basically it is I repeat a goverment without a country. Like a cancer in moves in and takes over. Thought of by Satan as a way to mock God and take souls Islam should be reconized for what it is. A goverment looking at our country to take. When they can skate across Hell.
Mimi| 8.31.10 @ 8:49PM
This mess should never have come about. I blame this Mayor and all the other city officials...They should have...YEARS ago set aside blocks and blocks surrounding this Sacred place. Made it into a huge park memorial in HONOR of those who perished on 9/11. Shame on them all.
Now ... What is going on with the MAYOR and DUBAI in 2008?...Is it RUMOR or something nefarious. Is this all about MONEY? Listen N.Y. city do the right thing here.... Enough of this
Mosque nonsense...Do right by your people. For the next 100 years and more America will come to this site from far and wide to Honor those who lost their lives on that day of infamy..... and will need more space....Ward off the area to all!!!!
Yosemeti Sam| 8.31.10 @ 11:53PM
Yo, why does not the nyc mayor who BTW spent 100 million to buy a third term in office not offer the 100 million being sought to build this new Mecca of the East?
Putting his money where his mOuth is!
Osamas Pajamas| 9.1.10 @ 1:39AM
Build the mosque in Mecca. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf states that a Ground Zero Mosque is intended to promote "an atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect." Physician --- heal thyself, as the old saying goes. Where in Mecca or Saudi Arabia, or in all of the Muslim-dominated world can we find "an atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect?" Nowhere, of course. A mosque at ground zero makes as much sense as having the UN human rights commission run by a bunch of dictatorships and thugocracies.
Vincent Indelicato| 9.1.10 @ 1:10PM
I will begin to consider the positions of the equivocators and Islamic apologists when I am invited to tour the city of Mecca (or any place in Saudi Arabia, for that matter) with my Christian Bible in hand and my wife and three daughters dressed in their everyday attire.
We in the United States bend over backwards to prove to the world and ourselves that we are tolerant and freedom loving, yet we turn a blind eye to the the intolerance and hatred approaching us from an enemy far more insidious than was Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Islam, Radical Islam, or whatever you prefer to call it, has succeeded in identifying the precise formula by which our free nation can be conquered ---- infiltrate, penetrate and pervade American society from within by taking full advantage of that very tolerance and love of liberty. If history is any predictor of future events, the end result of this strategy, if successful, can't be one that is vested in freedom and personal liberty.
I fear for the liberty of future generations.
Where have you gone Ronald Reagan?
Who are you, REALLY, Barack Obama?
Roy| 9.1.10 @ 6:07PM
I'd like to be able to share this article, but it really needs to be proofread and the numerous typos and grammatical errors corrected. I would find it a little embarrassing to share it while in its present state.
gary siebel| 9.2.10 @ 1:38AM
I really must disagree. It's about making a shrine rather than dawa. In light of the fact there has been no Islamic victory, the site cannot qualify as triumphalsim. That would come later, when they change the name from New York to New Istanbul.
Robert L Hamilton| 9.2.10 @ 1:49AM
I'll bet the first stoning will draw a crowd . . .