Why This Mosque? Why This Time?

El Cid writes to say that the New York Ground Zero mosque is to be completed on the anniversary of September 11th. I hadn’t realized that. Talk about salt in a wound…

He rhetorically asks why they want this “as close as you can get to ‘Ground Zero’?”

Then, as I knew he would, El Cid provides the answer:


What is shocking about the construction of a twelve-story “mega” mosque just two short blocks from Ground Zero, is not that one will be built; there are lots of mosques throughout America and many of them are in New York City. However, the erection of this one in such close proximity to what has become a sacred spot for countless people is an arrogant goad by Islam against America. And the people who will run this mosque are much the same as the hijacking killers of 9/11 in their beliefs.

Americans do not abide with religious discrimination; there is a place here for all religions willing to respect our constitution. But a political ideology posing as a religion and teaching that its shariah law must dominate our secular law has no place in our modern society.

The 9/11 hijackers were Muslims who believed that sharia trumped the constitution. They made war with us not only because we were Christian and Jews, but also because we did not submit to their law. From where they are, these mass murders must be looking up with approval to the building of this mosque.

Islam has always co-opted the civic and religious buildings and sites in those territories it managed to subdue. A well-known and recurring theme of Islam is to obliterate and then build over what was there before, using a symbol of Islam to replace a given culture’s own sacred symbols.

Here are just a few examples:
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• The great pagan temple in Mecca was destroyed by Mohammed. But the huge dark rock or Khab, venerated by pagans before Islam now forms the heart of the Muslim world and is Islam’s most scared object. Thus, Islam’s first building project was to establish a “ holiest spot” in Arabia by eradicating the history of what went before.
  
• The Dome of the Rock Mosque, a site at the center of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict, stands athwart the ruins of Judaism’s most holy site, the place where the Great Jewish Temple once stood.
  
• The main center of Eastern Christianity, the imposing Cathedral of Damascus, was, upon the capture of the city by Muslim armies, replaced by a great mosque. This once holy center of Byzantine Christian Syria now belongs to Islam. The persecuted remnant of that Christian culture persists, but it has no grand edifice in which to commemorate its holy days.
  
• Further west, the great mosque of Cordoba (from which the World Trade Center Mosque deliberately derives it name) rises over Visigothic Spain’s greatest Cathedral. Once again, the first act of Muslims after conquering Spain was to take over the sacred heart of the conquered peoples’ religion. Now that the Christians have reconquered it and re-consecrated their cathedral, Islam still clamors to have it “returned”.

The list goes on and on, in every place that the sword of Islam has won over history’s long arc. What was there before has been erased as apart of Islam’s victories. If Hindus complain about losing their temples, Muslims reply, in essence, “we won”.

America’s secular culture, so tolerant of many different religious views, has never established a symbol or scared religious spot for all her people. We do, however, have important symbols of our open and free society.

We are a modern nation that thrives on commerce and enterprise. Thus, the World Trade Center stood facing the Statue of Liberty in the largest city of America. It was our Cathedral of Commerce and Enterprise and many of us still feel the horror of its obliteration.

This symbol of America’s ideal was smashed by Islamic Jihad. It was merely another wave of destruction against yet another place it plans to conquer, just as other Islamic triumphs have done in other countries throughout history.

So what about 9/11, was it a victory for Islam? The answer must be yes if the men who believe that their Sharia Law is superior to our constitution are allowed to built over one of our sacred sites.

Again, why this mosque at this time in this place?

The utterances of the mass murderers who waged Jihad on us on September 11th, 2001, and the history of the West’s struggle with Islam’s horrific obliteration of whatever it conquers, gives us the answer.

A symbol of Al Qaeda’s victory will now overshadow the graves of its victims and indelibly tarnish our sacred ground.

They are telling us they won.