Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, presents Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic state, wherever it is.
The process of settlement is a "Civilization-Jihadist Process" with all the word means. The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.
Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism notes:
This May 1991 memo was written by Mohamed Akram, a.k.a. Mohamed Adlouni, for the Shura Council of the Muslim Brotherhood. In the introductory letter, Akram referenced a "long-term plan…approved and adopted" by the Shura Council in 1987 and proposed this memo as a supplement to that plan and requested that the memo be added to the agenda for an upcoming Council meeting. Appended to the document is a list of all Muslim Brotherhood organizations in North America as of 1991.
There are many fine, important, and informative essays and books on just how antithetical Islam is to Western values – to individualism, to private property, to freedom of speech – and on just how insidious and anti-life it is. But few are the books and essays on why Islam seems to be making progress in its "grand jihad" against the West.
Who or what is actually destroying Western Civilization from within? The Islamists? Or the West? What contributes to the Islamists' hubris, what encourages them and instills them with confidence that they can "conquer" the West, and especially the United States. Whose "hands" are working together with those of the "believers" to bring down Western civilization and establish Sharia law here and everywhere?
Islam would be as impotent as Scientology, or of a cult that ascribed mystical powers to pyramids, or a diet of bottles of Shaklee vitamins. Is Islam imbued with some inexorable and ineluctable power to conquer the West?
One thing is that Islamists are shrewd enough to exploit the corrosive policies of cultural relativism, multiculturalism, the commitment to "diversity," indiscriminate "tolerance," subjectivism, and a host of other policies that assault or negate reason and all standards of measurement of value, superiority and inferiority. Islam is as bankrupt of formal philosophy as is the culture it is "sabotaging." The intelligence exhibited by Islamists is merely a feral, predatory intelligence. Islam allows no other kind. Islam does not permit independent thought, only agreement with arbitrary assertions.
A wolf may be predatory, but that is how it is programmed by nature. It has no choice in the matter. A Muslim is a man imbued with volition and the capacity for choice; he chooses to limit himself to an ideology that permits him to be merely feral and predatory and submissive. His mind merely detects his enemy's weaknesses and vulnerabilities – weaknesses and vulnerabilities that are as self-inflicted as choosing to be a Muslim – and plots to exploit them.
Those weaknesses and vulnerabilities are the West's policies, noted above. And what are the philosophical foundations of those policies? The reigning philosophy is that one cannot know anything, either for certain or at all, that all values are relative, or subjective, that reality is whatever one wishes it to be. On one or more of those premises, there are no absolutes that a defender of the West can repair to or uphold.
The Seattle Times reprinted an Associated Press item about a Saudi religious figure warning Muslims and non-Muslims to "respect" the Muslim month of Ramadan.
Saudi authorities warned non-Muslim expatriates on Friday, the first day of Ramadan, not to eat, drink, or smoke in public until the end of the Muslim holy month's sunrise-to-sunset fast - or face expulsion…. The prince newly appointed to handle most aspects of law enforcement is known as a strict adherent to religious rules. Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz was governor of the holy city of Mecca before becoming Interior Minister.
I do not think very many people realize that showing respect and deference to Muslim practices and sensitivities outside of Muslim countries is a form of submission to Islam, regardless of the Islamic holiday or the day of the year. This is especially true of those who know little about Islam and have not grasped the implications of granting such respect. They are more concerned with not wanting to hurt Muslim "feelings" than they are with the content of those feelings.
According to the cultural relativism most Westerners are indoctrinated with today, Muslim "feelings" are sacrosanct and not to be troubled or offended. "Feelings," they are taught, are a tool of cognition, in themselves and in Muslims, so to offend Muslim feelings is to question a Muslim's world view, and a Muslim's world view – in which Allah owns everything and everyone and Mohammad was his prophet – is just as good as anyone else's. Showing disrespect for a Muslim's feelings implies that one's own feelings are somehow superior to his. So a Muslim's feelings must be respected.
There is no such thing as an absolute, goes the line, only perceptions of things filtered by a person's bias or prepossession or taste, and molded by one's culture, and so a Muslim's perceptions are just as valid as anyone else's. These perceptions cannot be judged because there are no absolutes by which to judge them. A host of Western philosophers have said so, such as Descartes and Kant and Hegel, and vetted by thinkers such as William James, Sartre, and John Dewey and many lesser lights.
Who knows, ask the dhimmis-by-default when they bother to ponder the question, and who perhaps have never heard of Hegel or Kant or Descartes, Muslims might be right. "Muslims feel, therefore they exist," is how they might parody Descartes and characterize the Islamic mindset, if they dared to carry the thought to that point. Who is any non-Muslim to judge a Muslim, or what a Muslim believes? While what works for Muslims may not work for non-Muslims, that's just a matter of feeling and up-bringing. It just isn't practical to offend a Muslim's feelings. Who can blame them for rioting and killing when the cultures Muslims immigrate to are hostile to their confidence that theirs is the only true religion and that are not natural environments in which to practice their creed? It is irrelevant that Islam is antithetical and hostile to the notion of individual rights. Muslims must be cut some slack, and be accommodated whenever possible. Civilizational clashes must be avoided. How else can non-Muslims prove they are tolerant and civilized except by respecting Muslims on bent knee and with bowed head?
The rumors that Islam is "eliminating" Western civilization by "sabotaging" it from within it are only half true. Thanks to a philosophy of unreason, promulgated by Western thinkers and taught in the best schools in the West over the course of two centuries, Western civilization is destroying itself "by its own hand." And the United States is proving to be very, very accommodating. It has even elected an unbroken succession of Accommodators-in-Chief, beginning with the Peanut Farmer.
That Brotherhood fellow Mohamed Akram was on to something.
Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann dared to call for an investigation of Muslims in the federal government, especially of Muslims closely or remotely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. She was immediately attacked by the "gangster government" from all quarters, including that of the mainstream media.
Rep. Michele Bachmann says the Muslim Brotherhood, the international Islamist movement that recently came to power in Egypt, has made “deep penetration” within the U.S. government, and she wants an investigation of its influence within five federal agencies.
The Muslim Brotherhood, perhaps the world’s most influential Islamist organization, has long sought to unite traditional Islam with modern democracy in Middle Eastern nations. Its global influence further increased when one of its candidates, Mohamed Morsi, was declared winner of Egypt’s 2012 presidential election. But Bachmann, R-Stillwater, and four other members of Congress see the Muslim Brotherhood as a domestic threat.
The lawmakers singled out the movement last month in letters to federal defense, diplomatic, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies, requesting investigations into whether — and through whom — the Muslim Brotherhood is exerting influence within President Barack Obama’s administration.
Bachmann, who serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ratcheted up the rhetoric in an interview last month with radio host Sandy Rios.
“It appears that there has been deep penetration in the halls of our United States government by the Muslim Brotherhood,” Bachmann said. “It appears that there are individuals who are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood who have positions, very sensitive positions, in our Department of Justice, our Department of Homeland Security, potentially even in the National Intelligence Agency.”
One of those individuals is Huma Abedin. Abedin is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's long-time personal advisor, especially on things Islamic.
Robert Spencer wrote about the controversy:
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is at the center of a firestorm over her request that the State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice Departments, investigate potential “policies and activities that appear to be the result of influence operations conducted by individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.” This is an entirely legitimate call, as Bachmann abundantly illustrated in a 16-page letter to Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN), laying out the reasons for her concerns. Yet even Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who should know better, has upbraided Bachmann, criticizing her for including Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, among those she noted for having Brotherhood ties.
The Seattle Times also ran an editorial against Bachmann that concludes with a statement that should win the Politically Clueless Award for 2012:
While Abedin's 20 years of public service should save her reputation from assaults by an unthinking zealot who once equated the national debt to the Holocaust, Bachmann's latest actions deserve the same censure in Congress that Joseph McCarthy received for his witch hunt for Communists 60 years ago.
Not knowing or evading the fact that men dedicated to communism and totalitarianism are now running the government? This is an instance of either an appalling ignorance of history, or a willful evasion of the facts. But whichever diagnosis is correct, it underscores a critical disconnection from reality. In the first instance, it represents ignorance of reality; in the second, a willful dislike of reality. Mental lethargy can help to explain the first; mental evasion, the second (and evasion does require mental effort).
Leonard Peikoff, in his seminal, 1967 essay, "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy" in the Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand*, explains this disconnection. After demonstrating the false distinction between "logical" and "empirical" arguments about ice sinking in water, he writes:
This argument confuses Walt Disney with metaphysics. That a man can project an image or draw an animated cartoon at variance with the facts of reality, does not alter the facts….An image of ice sinking in water does not alter the nature of ice [that it floats in water]; it does not constitute evidence that it is possible for ice to sink in water. It is evidence only of man's capacity to engage in fantasy. Fantasy is not a form of cognition.
"Logically," Huma Abedin has been in government service since 1996 (beginning with the Clinton administration) and so must be a loyal American and not dedicated to the overthrow or transformation of the government into a totalitarian, Islamic one. "Empirically," she cannot be a Muslim Brotherhood operative because she has not been seen wearing a suicide vest or caught using a secret decoder ring or photographed using an Islamic drop box to deposit classified government documents. Besides, she is a snappy dresser, something most Muslim women are not. Ergo, it is unconscionable to accuse her of having dangerous and sympathetic Islamic associations.
Peikoff continues:
Further: the fact that man possesses the capacity to fantasize does not mean that the opposite of demonstrated truths is "imaginable" or "conceivable." In a serious, epistemological sense of the word, a man cannot conceive the opposite of a proposition he knows to be true (as apart from propositions dealing with man-made facts). If a proposition asserting a metaphysical fact has been demonstrated to be true, this means that that fact has been demonstrated to be inherent in the identities of the entities in question, and that any alternative to it would require the existence of a contradiction. Only ignorance or evasion can enable a man to attempt to project such an alternative. If a man does not know that a certain fact has been demonstrated, he will not know that its denial involves a contradiction. If a man does know it, but evades the knowledge and drops his full cognitive context, there is no limit to what he can pretend to conceive. But what one can project by means of ignorance or evasion, is philosophically irrelevant. It does not constitute a basis for instituting two separate categories of possibility. (p. 116, Italics mine)
The illegitimate possibilities? According to Senator John McCain, Speaker of the House John Boehner, the MSM, and all those other dhimmis-by-default, Huma Abedin, a Muslim, may or may not be an influence on Obama's foreign policy via Hillary Clinton, regardless of her association or her family's association with an organization dedicated to conquering America and establishing totalitarian rule. As Robert Spencer relates, they are asking Bachmann for evidence now of an investigation that has not been undertaken by those responsible it. That is the "logical" position.
The "empirical" position is: So what if she's a Muslim? She's a nice, hard-working person.
The Western hands helping the hands of Islamic believers to "sabotage" the miserable house of Western civilization are many, small, and mean. Their owners' minds are either permanently lost in a Fantasy Land divorced from reality, or so myopically concrete-bound that they are in pathetic need of the corrective lenses of a rational epistemology.
Ignorant or evasive, together their minds constitute a "brotherhood" of another kind.
*Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand. (1966, 1967, 1979) Eds. Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff. New York: Meridian-Penguin. Second Edition, 1990. 314 pp.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteYour post is awesome as usual. You more so than any other Objectivist exposes the evil of Islam and of Sharia faithful Muslims. But this raises the question: should Islam be banned?
I think that under Objectivism a case can be made that Islam is a military organization dedicated to the destruction of America and as such represents a ceaseless, never-ending threat of violence against all non-Muslims. It does not matter if a Muslim is peaceful or well dressed. As a Muslim they represent the support structure for a hostile enemy army and ideology that seeks the conquest of all non-Muslim humanity.
And this is the point that most Objectivists don't get. For Islam the concept of sublimity and piety are expressed through killing and war. Islam is sui generis when it comes to religion. It is a religious version of Nazism and I don't believe that ANY Muslims should be allowed in the country. It goes without saying that ALL Mosques should be closed.
I know most Objectivists will say that I'm being a "collectivist". But this just points to the sad fact that most Objectivists treat Objectivism as a suicide pact.
Mad Max: It was only until recently that the official Objectivist position on Islam was that it was just another Amish type cult in which a few of its crazies went on killing sprees, so we should just focus on secular statism (e.g., Obama et al.). Now I think a few more Objectivists are wising up to the peril posed by Islam. This is especially true because of Obama's penchant for things Islamic. Still, Islam and the issues surrounding it are put on a back burner, when before they weren’t even on the stove. That whole dust-up a while back about the "property rights" of the owners of the Ground Zero mosque – with Objectivists claiming that as a religion, Islamists had a "right" to erect a mosque there – was indicative of how myopic many Objectivists can be when it comes to specific issues. Now I think many of them have accepted the fact that Islam has declared war on the U.S. and is continuing its path to conquest.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I don’t hear or read discussed on official Objectivist sites and blogs is the scale of atrocities committed by immigrant Muslims in Europe and here – from the gang rapes of Caucasian women in Scandinavia to the antisemitism rife and campaigns against Christians in France and Germany to the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. I think the door should be shut hard and permanently to all further Muslim immigration to the U.S., and I agree that all mosques should be shut down, because virtually every one of them preaches internal jihad against this country and its values. We didn't allow the immigration of card-carrying Nazis during WWII (although, to its shame, we also blocked the immigration of most Jews from Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe). So, why should we allow the immigration of more Muslims? If one is a Muslim, one is automatically a member of a fifth column.
I respectfully disagree with the argument that there is an "official" Objectivist position on specifics not addressed by Ayn Rand in her writings or in writings that Rand personally approved. I also disagree there is an "official" Objectivist organization.
ReplyDeleteI think that there are clear and convincing applications of Objectivist principles that make sense when applied to today's concretes, but that does not make these applications "official." And I think that there are great experts in Objectivism who have mastered the philosophy, but such mastery does not elevate their claims into "official" Objectivism.
Lastly, I respectfully submit that debate on the NY mosque was more nuanced than it has been portrayed by some. The United States has not declared war upon Islam or its states. Absent such a declaration, is it proper to use local zoning power to forbid Islamic shrines?
I respectfully submit that it is not. I think that there is a proper order to such things, and proper powers to protect against sedition and/or to wage war. To show that Islam is a threat, one must show that it is more than a privately practiced faith or belief with no coercive implications for non-adherents. One must show that it is a threatening political force that demands submission incompatible with American freedom.
I think Ed has done a masterful job marking these arguments, but until they gel with the American people, I think it is highly problematic to use the wrong government power to achieve even a righteous end. As I alluded to above, I think that there is a proper order to such things that must be adhered to, or we risk creating other perils that we will have to face—tyranny being one of them.
I'd like to clarify something I wrote.
ReplyDeleteI wrote:
>I think Ed has done a masterful job marking these arguments, but until they gel with the American people, I think it is highly problematic to use the wrong government power to achieve even a righteous end.
This is more clear:
I think Ed has done a masterful job marking these arguments, but they have not yet jelled with the American people. In the mean time, I think it is highly problematic to use the wrong government power to achieve even a righteous end.
Reply to Nick Provenzo, point by point:
ReplyDelete"I respectfully disagree with the argument that there is an "official" Objectivist position on specifics not addressed by Ayn Rand in her writings or in writings that Rand personally approved. I also disagree there is an "official" Objectivist organization."
Ayn Rand never addressed the problem is Islamic jihad or the U.S.'s Mideast policies, or anything relating to Islam. She died in 1982, long before it became known that a jihad was being waged against the West and the U.S. Her philosophical and moral principles are certainly and eternally applicable to all crises, but she didn't need to deal with a government and a culture that virtually invites our enemies to attack us. As for the "official" Objectivist organization, that's ARI. Its spokesmen articulate "official" Objectivist positions on specific issues. This is how most Objectivists view anything said by ARI spokesmen, as "official." And, as I noted in my original comment, they've only just recently taken cognizance of the peril posed by Islam.
"I think that there are clear and convincing applications of Objectivist principles that make sense when applied to today's concretes, but that does not make these applications "official." And I think that there are great experts in Objectivism who have mastered the philosophy, but such mastery does not elevate their claims into "official" Objectivism."
See my previous remark. When Yaron Brook or Don Watson speak, or when some other ARI spokesman says something in an ARI-released publication, most Objectivists treat the statements as "official" positions, as do I. However, I have, as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows, often disagreed or contested or differed from those positions, especially on the subjects of Islam and "open borders."
"Lastly, I respectfully submit that debate on the NY mosque was more nuanced than it has been portrayed by some. The United States has not declared war upon Islam or its states. Absent such a declaration, is it proper to use local zoning power to forbid Islamic shrines?"
I more or less made the same argument against the Ground Zero mosque that Leonard Peikoff (in his "official" capacity as the top expert on Objectivism) later made, which was to blow it up if it were ever built. We were attacked by the proxies of states that sponsor terrorism. They declared war on us. But the fact that no president has asked Congress for a declaration of war against them doesn't change the fact that there is a war being waged. That is the tragic and perilous irony of the whole sickening spectacle. Further, the Ground Zero mosque was not intended to be a "shrine." It would have been as bizarrely irrational a symbol of Islamic conquest (as it was intended to be, claims that it was to serve as a "bridge to interfaith dialogue" to the contrary notwithstanding) as would have been a monument to Hitler or Tojo plunked in the middle of an American city during WWII. It was never an issue of "property rights." And the intrusion of the illegitimate power of zoning by the city government is irrelevant.
Continued in next comment.
"I respectfully submit that it is not. I think that there is a proper order to such things, and proper powers to protect against sedition and/or to wage war. To show that Islam is a threat, one must show that it is more than a privately practiced faith or belief with no coercive implications for non-adherents. One must show that it is a threatening political force that demands submission incompatible with American freedom."
ReplyDeleteI have continuously demonstrated, with my limited resources, what other well-informed (and better financed) writers and bloggers have demonstrated for years (e.g., Steve Emerson, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, many others), that Islam is a threat and not just a privately practiced faith with no coercive implications for non-adherents. In my columns I have included links to documents in which Islamic supremacists assert that their purpose is to conquer the U.S. and replace the Constitution with Sharia law (e.g., in this column, to the Muslim Brotherhood memorandum that outlines the plan of conquest), I have mentioned the crimes committed by Muslims against Americans in this country (e.g., Major Hassan) and the many instances of honor killings of Muslim women by Muslims in this country who were following "the path of Allah." I've written about how Muslims game the welfare state and the judiciary in Europe to advance their purposes there. We now have Muslims sitting on American benches, when ten or so years ago that would have been unthinkable. It's all the same stealth or "civilizational" jihad (as it's termed in the 1991 Brotherhood document), tailored to an American environment. It's threatening, and it demands submission incompatible with American freedom – what is left of it.
So, what is the proper order to such things in a culture that's committing suicide? Was it proper for a local zoning authority to prohibit the conversion of a building damaged on 9/11 into a mosque? No, because there should be no zoning authority over private property. But if we had governments that respected private property, we wouldn’t need to deal with Islamic intentions to erect a victory monument. States that sponsor terrorism would have been dealt with decades ago, and 9/11 would never have happened. Islam would have remained in the outhouse cultures where it belonged.
"I think Ed has done a masterful job marking these arguments, but they have not yet jelled with the American people. In the mean time, I think it is highly problematic to use the wrong government power to achieve even a righteous end."
Yes, it is problematic to use the wrong government power to achieve a righteous end. And for years I have been doing my best to help "jell" the issues in the minds of Americans.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteAwesome responses. You give me hope for the Objectivist movement. I must admit that I have become VERY disillusioned with the Objectivist movement over the last two years. Objectivist bloggers are living in a dream world where Islam doesn't exist, black and hispanic crime doesn't exist, anti-white prejudice doesn't exist, anti-male prejudice doesn't exist, the stealth Jihad doesn't exist and where the Left are potential allies because they are "secular" and where there is a danger of a "imminent Christian theocracy". For an example see Diana Hseih's blog.
Even official Objectivism has been TERRIBLE disappointing. Yaron Brook treats the Jihad threat as only a military problem; ie if we bombed enough targets that would be the end of it. That is wrong. It is an Islam problem and that means the problem is with MUSLIMS. But Brook wont touch that because then he would have to deal with immigration and he's an open-bordersist like most O'ists.
As I said, most Objectivists treat Objectivism as a suicide pact. Its depressing to witness. I find myself thinking that only the anti-Islam conservatives are making the right arguments and many of those are real nasty Paleo-Cons. But they understand the evil of Islam and the problem with allowing ANY Muslim presence in Western nations. And yeah, Muslims are raping white women like crazy in Europe. But for Objectivists that doesn't exist. Depressing.
Somewhat relevant and funny, but highlighting the cultural "no-fly zone" of Islam, is this story of a reporter who dressed up an 14-year old boy to buy booze from the government-run liqour stores in Ontario, and was never once asked for ID? If the the boy was wearing a mask of any other sort, or a motorcycle helmet, they would have asked it to be removed. But this was a "culturally sensitive issue". But just like Ed said, this is thinly veiled (pardon the pun) fear of offending muslims. It's ingrained into our culture.
ReplyDeleteMy other point was that Peikoff gave that infamous "End States" speach right after 9/11 it's taken about a decade for even the most rational conservatives to come on board with the arguments made back then, let alone the culture at large. Remember how Peikoff was treated by O'Reilly? Basically said he was crazy.
Anyway, why are we bringing up the Ground Zero Mosque again?
Read below:
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/07/24/customers-must-show-their-faces-lcbo-reminds-staff
"TORONTO - The LCBO has taken immediate action after it was revealed alcohol was sold to a burka-wearing 14 year old last week."
"The teen was served at three different GTA liquor store locations where he bought booze without a problem."
It was filmed by Sun News host David Menzies, who sent the eighth grader, dressed in Islamic female’s traditional clothes of a burka, headscarf and facial covering.
"In each incident, the cashier rang up the booze for the teenager without asking for identification."
"Layton said with the new culturally sensitive segment in their training program and the notifications that went out, he is confident that LCBO employees will be well-equipped to deal with scenarios of facial covering."
Drew: I read about the Sun News "experiment" with the disguised boy. It's very odd that for all the publicity about Muslims not being allowed to drink alcohol, these government store clerks didn't question why a Muslim woman no less wanted to buy it. Or perhaps they did know it and decided the tactful thing was just to sell the alcohol. Did the local Muslims declare they were insulted by the stunt or raise any kind of fuss?
ReplyDeleteMad Max: I don't think most Objectivists are living in a "dream world" where none of those things happen. I could've included in my response to Nick all the honor-killings of girls and women by their own families because the victims wanted to live and not merely exist as pawns of Allah and the local imams. Then there are all the accommodations for Muslims in government and the private sector, in the way of foot baths and prayer rooms and time off to do the Muslim moon walk for Allah (originally a pagan moon god, believe it or not). I think many of them are simply blinkered, focused too much on specific issues without taking in the broader canvas. You're right that there is a very able and articulate anti-jihadist corps of writers and speakers. Unfortunately, many of them are neocons or paleo-cons. Virtually all the news blogs I subscribe to are run by Christians of one stripe or another. They provide news and rational arguments about specific issues, but every now and then the crucifix comes out of the closet and they make absurd statements about the "true" Christian foundations of the country.
ReplyDeleteGranted, I'm taxed to the limit of my focusing abilities because so much is going on that isn't good. I simply cannot write about all the issues because there's no time and I've done all this writing on my own dime and time.
Drew: The GZ mosque subject came up because there was a veritable knock-down-drag-out fight over a year ago over the alleged "property rights" of a Muslim outfit whose head, Imam Rauf, assured everyone that it was to be merely a "cultural center" for "interfaith dialogue." Rauf was proven to be a liar. He had Saudi and Gulf connections and when in the Mideast made statements about the GZ mosque that were diametrically the opposite of what he told the West. Then it was revealed that he was a slum landlord and was claiming that his living room was a mosque, as well, and got friendlier tax treatment. Further, the "suited" Muslim who was in charge of the finances of the mosque turned out to be a common embezzler and slime ball. And the actual funding of the place remained a mystery, but it was likely a Saudi-funded project.