Feisal Rauf, the Washington Times, and the Global Peace Festival

From Media Matters:

In an August 16 editorial, The Washington Times baselessly claimed that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is leading efforts to build the Islamic community center in New York City, “has supported” Hamas’ “cause.” The Times offered no evidence to support its claim.

Perhaps the Washington Times should give us a full account of Rauf’s questionable religious associations. For instance, the picture below shows Rauf speaking at a “Global Peace Festival” event in Malaysia in 2008; the GPF is an outreach programme of a controversial New Religious Movement whose leader has served time in prison in the USA:

That religious leader, of course, is Rev Sun Myung Moon – who founded the Washington Times to promote his political and cultural views, and whose son Preston Moon chairs both the Washington Times (although he’s currently trying to sell it off) and the GPF. According to a report in Unification News at the time (in a column directly below a picture of Preston Moon):

Speakers at the [GPF] International Leadership Conference called for a greater understanding between Islam and other Abrahamic faiths. “We share the same two commandments,” said Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative. “We are to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Today, everyone is my neighbor. But we are not actually living the commandments.” Rauf, a leader of US/Muslim dialogue, heads a mosque near Ground Zero in New York, and is author of the book What’s Right with Islam.

It’s not known whether Rauf has one of Rev Moon’s “Ambassador for Peace” awards, but he appeared on a video that was shown at the Seventh Annual Ambassadors for Peace Awards Banquet. Apparently, his heading “a mosque near Ground Zero” wasn’t particularly controversial at that time.

16 Responses

  1. Mohammed wrote the Koran around 700 ad. He had
    associations with Christians and Jews – so in the Koran we have many Biblical Characters such as Mary
    the mother of Jesus – Jesus himself – Moses – Daniel the prophet etc.
    And the Sons of Abraham and Hagar – the Ishmaelites have been blessed with their land and oil wealth just as the Bible predicted.

    HOWEVER THE GIGANTIC CHASM REMAINS IS IT JESUS OR MOHAMMED WHO CAN GIVE US ETERNAL LIFE :-
    Christians believe that through the horrendous agony
    of his crucifixion Jesus absorbed the punishment and substituted his sinless purity to pay the price of the punishment that we deserve through our endless breaking of God’s Commandments.

    In other words he paid for our sins to a Holy God of Justice who cannot tolerate our sin and anything unclean in Heaven – all sin must be paid for as the Muslims admit.
    But only by the shedding of blood can sins be forgiven
    and one tiny drop of the precious blood of Jesus can cancel out trillions and trillions of sins since he himself
    was The spotless Lamb of God – never sinned once.
    A perfect offerering – unblemished was Jesus .

    Just to put it in a rough human way – someone comes
    to your 70th Birthday and gives you a present which has been reduced – passed it sell by date – what will you think of that friend for such a small misdemeanour
    compared with a Hol;y God of Justice seeing our vilest sins and deeds.

    HOWEVER
    Muslims believe that Mohammed is superior to Jesus
    and that Jesus was merely a prophet – not the Son of God . But Mohammed did not go through a crucifixion
    to pay to God our just penalty. So although we have some things in common the Chasm remains – WHO
    SUFFERED FOR OUR SINS JESUS OR MOHAMMED.

    Jesus’s cheque for the court FINE before God will not bounce as he tells us – as long as we follow him and his commandments . Can you imagine it – say you have murdered someone or left your family and there is no way out of your regrets – and Jesus comes to you and says I have already paid your penalty – on my own – no one even stayed awake to strengthen me with prayer – I sweated blood and took the punishment
    which you should have got for causing such pain.

    SO WHO DO THINK CAN SAVE YOU FROM PUNISHMENT YOU DESERVE – I KNOW WHO I TRUST IN – THE ONE WHO SPILLED HIS BLOOD FOR ME . ????

    • How is your theology relevant to the point at issue? The U.S. constitution is not based on anyone’s theology. It does not even mention God.

      • Diane – you say the US constitution is not based on Christianity – that amazes me I thought the whole country was based on Christianity. Methinks you should do a litlle study in this area – and I am not even
        American – All the founders of America were Christians. What about George Washington and Lincoln.
        Are their speeches to be ignored,
        The US was founded on Christianity just like Saudi Arabia was founded on Mohammedism.

  2. Rauf was recently given the opportunity to clarify his views of Hamas (and other terrorist groups). But he insisted that such issues are “political”, that “terrorism is a very complex question”, and that as a “peace builder” he could not allow himself to be put “in a position where I am seen by any party in the world as an adversary or as an enemy”.

    That was on June 19. Rauf has had plenty of time to clarify his position since then — and he obviously has the world’s attention.

    Link:
    http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/imam_terror_error_efmizkHuBUaVnfuQcrcabL#ixzz0x3NgUH44

  3. Raudf is an obnoxious deceitful dirtbag. His islamist evasiveness and dissembling is so cliché, you’d think he was in the running for the Tariq Ramadan trophey for doublespeak.

  4. I heard that the Koran teaches it is alright to lie to deceive and confuse your supposed enemies. The end justifies the means. So Allah claims it is alright
    to deceive to further his cause. Correct me if I am wrong.

  5. True – but that is expected in war not with someone you
    are making a deal or covenant with under the guise of
    friendship.
    Eg Supposing you agree with the Salesman to buy a car for £15000 and shake on it .
    When you get the bill it is £19,000 and the salesman denies all knowledge – this is deception .
    Or supposing you agree with your neighbour to cut down your Leylandi if he will cut down his. So you go ahead – get yours cut down and your neighbour grows
    even taller Leylandi – this is lying and deception.
    Everyone expects deception in war. However even the
    Romans were known to respect agreements eg of surrender and even spies do deals which are respected.
    EG The Germans offered to agree to fight only outside the walls of Monte Casino since many of the officers were Catholic. I believe they would have stuck to this agreement and interviewed german officers said they would not have broken the contract.
    But the Americans distrusted the deal and bombed it to smithereens – hardly killing a single German.

    God does not lie – he is not like man and he does not expect us to lie and deceive our friends.
    I think it was Jacob who said to his sons -you have made me a stink in the land because of your deception.

    They encouraged a tribe ( after the rapeof one of Jacobs daughters who the rapist offered marriage ) to be circumcised – while they were recovering (ouch) they massacered the lot..

    But in the Koran it says lying and falsehood is fine since we are only unbelievers . So this is what Amindinejad ( spelling? )is up to now .

  6. Most people believe “it is alright to lie to deceive and confuse your supposed enemies”. How do you think wars get won?

    Priceless.

    So The Almighty, in all his wisdom, sends humanity, not a sage, but a viscious war-monger as his last prophet?

  7. It now appears that anti-terror expert Steve Emerson has uncovered hours and hours of audio tape in which Imam Rauf demonstrates and expands upon his hair-raising moderation.

    But even if the truth about Raufs ‘moderation” were to come directly from man’s mouth, you still wouldn’t believe it, would you?

    • Just so long as we get to hear the whole thing, since I dimly recall that the last time a fringe-right news source revealed shocking recorded evidence of a conspiracy it turned out to be misleadingly edited race-baiting bunk. But that must have been at least a full six weeks ago by now.

  8. The Christians stopped the muslim invasion at the the
    gates of Vienna and also in Spain. That’s how important they regarded the Christian faith – they were
    not lukewarm – much blood was spilled. Now we just
    sit back and wait for something to happen – labelling
    anyone who wants to stand up to the Muslim invasion
    of Europe and America as a crank. Why are they coming here if they prefer their own culture ??????
    They want the freedom to do what they want. We are mugs.

  9. Immigration does not equal military invasion. And the medieval battles you speak of occurred at a time when Christian countries were WORSE than Muslim countries in their treatment of religious minorities. Of course, that’s no longer true, at least here in the West.

  10. Diane – agree to a certain extent – even St Francis condemned the crusades since many were mainly after booty. Saladdin was known for his mercy he conversed with St Francis and Richard the Lionheart.
    Also the Christians attacked their own kind.
    However the crusades were brought about because Christian pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem were being attacked and killed.
    We do have many things in common with the Muslims but my post above was about the main difference Jesus or Mohammed – who can give you
    eternal life. Jesus was God’s son not just a prophet. The post above was because Mr Rauf was highlighting the similarities as a reason for building
    the mosque.
    But because the Muslims believe only in Mohammed
    (Jesus who went through crucifixion is regarded as a minor prophet ????????? under Islam) .
    Once they achieve dominance they will enforce this
    belief in Mohammed as they did in eg in Bosnia a few hundred years ago – Sharia law will take over and this
    is mainly based on the law of Moses which is written
    in stone – So do we walk in the Spirit or are we choosing the law of Moses.
    By the way walking in the Spirit is not a licence to sin. – in fact it can be stricter.

  11. […] remind ourselves once again who founded the paper and whose son (who, by the way, purports to be friendly to Muslims) still controls […]

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