Regardless Their Motive, Let Mosque be Built

Let the mosque be built.

This, even though one wonders if it is intended as a victory mosque, celebrating the great conquest of 9/11. Mosques built in tribute to great conquests are scattered throughout Islamic history. It is the Great Mosque of Cordoba that has been so much considered in news coverage of the Ground Zero mosque.

Cordoba, Spain, stood as one of the singular great cities of the world in ancient times.

Even as New York City is one of the greatest cities in the world today.

A Christian cathedral stood at that spot in Cordoba before the mosque. It was a magnificent building in its own right, before it was reworked into a Muslim mosque. So stunning the mosque was, it become known in medieval times as one of the wonders of the world. Even today, with the forest effect of hundreds of columns supporting its interior, the building is still considered by some to be a wonder of the world. A Catholic cathedral is now situated in the in middle of the building, so I assume the Catholics may own it.

The mosque/cultural center at Ground Zero, by comparison, for all we know will be but just another building along the Manhattan skyline. Still, as a $100-million, 13 story edifice, it will not exactly be a small, modest structure.

It is the name the Ground Zero mosque might take -- the Cordoba House -- that of course has drawn it to be compared to the Great Mosque of Cordoba, Spain.

Other great Muslim mosques built where Christian edifices previously stood, signifying conquest? I am told of these: Where once stood the Temple Mount, Judaism's most holy shrine, there came the Dome of the Rock -- and it became one of Islam's most holy shrines. Nor was that enough, a second mosque, the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built on the southern end of the Temple Mount, over the Basilica of St. Mary of Justinian. The Grand Mosque of Damascus was built where the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist had stood.

Take a Christian site, and built over it, stamping yourself as a conqueror. Those behind the mosque near Ground Zero might not be able to built right on top of where the World Trade Center was, but they are within nudging distance.

Of course we are going to wonder if the Ground Zero mosque will be a victory mosque. Mark Silverberg added to my wondering when he, in a Sept. 3 web post in the Hudson New York, said the Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf intends to raise funds for the cultural center/mosque by raising the funds from "the most authoritarian, least religiously tolerant Arab regimes in the Middle East."

Silverberg also reports that Rauf claims U.S. policy was responsible for the 9/11 attack.

Is he accurate on these two points? For, if he is, it leaves me wishing the mosque would not be built so near Ground Zero.

But, least we jump too quick to assume this is a victory mosque a-coming, read what Dwight Fine has to say on the the mydesert.com website. Fine says the Cordoba House is not a reminder of conquest, but rather of when Islam was at its best. He says the Islamic conquerors back then were tolerant of Christians, and tolerant of Jews. "The name can serve as a message to Muslims and non-Muslims alike not to drift into the religious fundamentalism that destroyed a great civilization," he writes.

Well, while I may lament that the mosque is coming, wondering if the same folks who brought us 9/11 are also behind the mosque and planning it as a victory lap, I say, let them built it. (If it is but another Muslim mosque, with no ties to terrorists, then without reservation, definitely let it be built.)

Let their religious rights and property rights be respected. Let them build, to be turning our other cheek. Let them build to be forgiving. Let them build because it really doesn't matter if they have a conquest shrine. Let them build because we should not judge, and don't know for certain what their motive is.