What Does Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Believe In?

From an article by Robert Spencer entitled Closed for Business:

Amid all the controversy surrounding the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque set to be constructed at Ground Zero, virtually everyone has ignored the question of what will be taught there. Yet mega-mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is an open advocate for Islamic law (Sharia) – and has never bothered to rule out the aspects of that law that deny the freedom of speech and the freedom of conscience, and that mandate the subjugation of women and non-Muslims as inferiors. He even calls for restrictions on the freedom of speech in his book What’s Right with Islam. Rauf has, moreover, refused to denounce Hamas. He has lied about his commitment to religious dialogue. He has lied about whether the Islamic center planned for the Ground Zero site will contain a mosque or not. And he has lied about whether or not the project is getting foreign funding. He is involved with a group that helped fund the jihad flotilla against Israel.

All this duplicity makes the universal designation of Rauf as a “moderate,” whose mega-mosque at Ground Zero will preach a benign, peaceful form of Islam that directly contradicts the Islam of the 9/11 plotters, curious in the extreme. While he may appear to be worlds apart from Mamoun Darkazanli, given his dishonesty it is not unreasonable to ask whether the difference between the two imams is more one of degree than of kind, and whether they share an overall goal but differ only as to the means to attain that goal.

If this is not the case, Rauf could dispel suspicions easily by coming clean about his sources of funding for the mega-mosque, and definitively renouncing the elements of Sharia that are incompatible with American freedoms and values, as well as American law – and showing his sincerity in deeds as well as words. That he is not making any move to do anything like that, but instead encourages the vilification of opponents of the Ground Zero mega-mosque as racists and bigots, is not a mark in his favor, and only serves further to arouse the suspicion of free and clear-sighted Americans.

Ultimately, if the Ground Zero mega-mosque is built and becomes a center for the propagation of Sharia in the United States, it could end up being as influential and as malignant a place as the mosque that was shut down Monday in Hamburg – even if it pursues, as does Rauf, non-violent rather than violent means to weaken Western societies and spread Sharia in the West.