A Harm-Causing Mosque in New York:
Historical and Wahabism-Based Fundamentals of the Proposed Project to Build a Mosque in Ground Zero
Published in Arabic in September 11, 2010
Translated by: Ahmed Fathy
INTRODUCTION:
1- Hypocrites during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad enjoyed absolute freedom of forming opposition movements in the city-state of Yathreb, to a degree that has surpassed any opposition movements in modern Western countries. We have detailed this in many of our previous articles and books. We focus here on the fact that their freedom included building a mosque that was used purposefully as a center of plotting and conspiring against early Muslims. Muhammad used to frequent this mosque, unaware of any conspiracies until the Quranic revelation has warned him; in the Quran, God has forbidden Muhammad from ever entering this mosque again. This mosque was never demolished during Muhammad's lifetime, as we discern from the following verses: "Then there are those who establish a mosque to cause harm, and disbelief, and disunity among the believers, and as an outpost for those who fight God and His Messenger. They will swear: "Our intentions are nothing but good." But God bears witness that they are liars. Do not stand in it, ever. A mosque founded upon piety from the first day is worthier of your standing in it. In it are men who love to be purified. God loves those who purify themselves. Do not stand in it, ever. A mosque founded upon piety from the first day is worthier of your standing in it. In it are men who love to be purified. God loves those who purify themselves. The structure which they built will remain questionable in their hearts, until their hearts are stopped. God is Knowing and Wise." (9:107-110).
2- This incident that occurred 14 centuries ago is recorded in the Quran for a good reason; it is repeated in history and at present. Its features are repeated partially in the proposed project to build a mosque in Ground Zero, NYC.
3- Such proposed project has provoked anger waves within Christian fanatics, and some extremists, like pastor Terry Jones, have called for public burnings of copes of the Quran. Our VA-based International Quranic Center (IQC) has issued a statement earlier denouncing such desecration. As Terry Jones stopped his hatred calls to desecrate copies of the Quran, another pastor gathered people to engage into burning copies of the Quran in public. Another Spanish fanatic has built a night-club in Spain, calling it Mecca. Hence, Islam has been verbally abused to pay for the bill of Sunnite extremism. Sunnite fanatics found nowhere else in the USA but Ground Zero to build a Sunnite mosque, indeed! They intentionally and ardently want to hurt feelings of millions of Americans to build this harm-causing mosque to commemorate the 'victory' of Wahabis in the 'battle of Manhattan'! They think that Wahabism has achieved victory over the USA by 9/11 terrorist attacks, nine years ago. This insistence of building a mosque in Ground Zero is NOT a political act to incite the ire of millions of American citizens, mostly Christians, because if it is a political action, it is akin to political suicide. How a reasonable person would dare to propose building a mosque in Ground Zero in particular, knowing beforehand the political results and propaganda consequences? Hence, this proposed project is NOT a political act; politics is the art of preserving interests and gaining advantages. This proposed projected is linked to the Wahabi tenets of the Sunnites who follow this earthly, man-made, fabricated religion of Sunnite Wahabism, which has nothing to do with Islam. This entails a brief fundamental analysis in terms of Wahabism and history.
Firstly:
1- One of the basic tenets to which Sunnite Wahabis adhere is to divide the world into two sides/camps: camp of belief/peace, and the camp of disbelief/war. This faulty, erroneous notion is directly linked to another notion of the inevitable military confrontation between the camp of belief, Wahabis, and the camp of disbelief, the West in general especially Jews and Christians, with the final victory to Sunnite Wahabis as per myths propagated in false hadiths fabricated two centuries after Muhammad's death and ascribed to him forcibly by liars over the past centuries until now. Such hadiths claim that Muhammad knew the future to pass off such lies and falsehoods, though the Quran tells us in two separate verses that Muhammad never knew the future.
2- In accordance with this horrid Wahabi notion of dividing the world of two warring camps, the Wahabi unified strategy is based on two parallel lines: 1) to unify 'Muslims', whom we call Muhammadans, into one caliphate empire, like the one of the Ottomans, that includes all 'Muslim' countries, after toppling regimes in such countries, and 2) to gain control and occupy the camp of enemies by starting to form a fifth column in the West countries from among Muslim minorities in these countries.
Secondly: this entails a brief historical analysis:
1- The Umayyads were military and trade leaders of the Meccan Qorayish tribe during the lifetime of Muhammad. The Umayyads opposed Islam and persecuted early Muslims in Mecca, driving them to immigrate to Yathreb. The city-state of Yathreb is the very first and last state to apply real Islam – the Quran – and it was led by Muhammad himself. The Umayyads and the Qorayish tribe fought this burgeoning city-state with all their military might. Later on, a Quranic verse was revealed to Muhammad about God's permission of self-defense fighting to ward off military attacks led by Qorayish against Yathreb. This Yathreb city-state was established based on Quranic values of justice, tolerance, peace, and all sorts of freedom: absolute religious freedom, freedom of expression, thought, and belief, as well as political freedom. These values are incorporated in the Quranic text when we read it within its unique terminology, a mission that only Quranists do it so well. As per the Quran itself, early Muslims in this city-state were at various degrees of belief and adherence to the Quran/Islam. Among them were those whom the Quran has called hypocrites, who opposed Islam as a religion and opposed the policies of the Yathreb city-state. Those hypocrites were busy plotting and conspiring against Muhammad and early Muslims, making use of the atmosphere of absolutely freedom of speech as well as religious and political freedom, untypical and unprecedented in the 7th century Arabia. Hypocrites were many groups, as hundreds of Quranic verses tackle them. Among such hypocritical groups was one that included believers who mixed good deeds with bad ones, and many Quranic verses have rebuked and warned them. The believing groups in Yathreb at the time included one that contained those who were true believers with good deeds, and the Quran tells us that they were a minority among the Yathreb dwellers at the time. Such Quranic classification into groups goes with historical circumstances and conditions during Muhammad's lifetime when the Quran was revealed by God. Within the whole world at large in the 7th century, the dominant culture was that of tyranny, injustices, and corruption as well as using an earthly, man-made, fabricated religion in service of tyranny, oppression, and injustice, and to use it to make people accept tyranny. Such classification into groups goes with the nature of Arabian life of nomads and Bedouins, as desert-Arabs at the time engaged into raids and military strife, as well as burying baby-girls alive, enslavement, tribalism, and being faithful and loyal to one's faction. Islam in the Quran makes one faithful and loyal to higher values in the Quran: justice, freedom, equality, peace, and tolerance, and above all to dedicate faith and belief to God alone without deifying mortals (prophets or otherwise) or things (pagan idols, tombs, stone edifices, etc.). hence, the Quran tells us that even those who convert overtly or apparently to Islam at the time in Yathreb were divided into three groups: 1) those hypocrites who absorbed values of the dominant culture and had to cope with the emergence of Muslims to protect their interests, 2) those who had inner struggle or conflict between Islamic/Quranic values and values absorbed earlier before the advent of Islam, and they fluctuated and mixed good deeds with bad ones, and 3) those true minority of believers that got rid of the dominant culture values and absorbed Quranic values instead. Their years spent with Muhammad made them do so. Hence, the vast majority of people in Arabia at the time could not really leave the dominant culture values, especially the Umayyads who opposed, persecuted, and fought Muslims in Mecca and fought against them when they left for Yathreb, in order to preserve their hegemony and their economic and political interests. Shortly before Muhammad's death, the Umayyads realized that to serve their interests, they had to feign conversion to Islam, after most tribes converted in Arabia, a fact that posed a threat to the Qorayish trade in India and Europe through Yemen and the Levant, respectively.
2- Thus, the Umayyads converted to Islam months before Muhammad's death, after years of enmity and animosity toward Islam and fighting against Muslims. We focus here only on the historical fact that the Umayyads united with their Qorayish relatives who converted to Islam before them to form a unified Qorayish front to serve main interests. Once Muhammad died, the Umayyads unified all Arabs in Arabia to enter a new phase: manipulating the new religion, Islam, to unify all men to conquer, invade and occupy other countries around Arabia, i.e., most of the Ancient World known at the time. Hence, Arabs committed aggressions against peaceful nations that never fought or harmed them, and even never heard of Arabia. Such military aggression went against the Quranic teachings; within later decades, the gap widened between the Quranic sharia of Islam and acts and deeds of caliphs, Arabs, and the so-called companions of Muhammad who were contemporary to him, after Muhammad's death. Such military aggression leading to the crime of conquests had to be justified under the banner of Islam, as a motto to unify Arabs within one goal: to conquer the world. Hence, within decades, Arab empire reached between borders of China to that of France, while crushing kingdoms of North Africa and the Persian empire, while Europe was threatened all the time, especially within the Byzantines' capital, Constantinople, and Byzantines fought Arabs back for centuries. A sad historical fact that crimes of invasion committed by Arabs have been ascribed to Islam. This grave error is shown by Quranists now; Arabs of the 7th century contradicted the Quran by committing the crime of conquests seeking worldly gains. This is against Islam of course, however religious the mottoes and banners at the time.
3- Military conflict and struggle went on between Arabs and Byzantines for centuries, leading to the Sunnite notion that the whole world is divided into two camps: war camp of infidels and peace camp of believers. This struggle was similar to the previous one between Persians and the Byzantines, as religion was used as an element in all wars and fights to provide pretexts and justifications for crimes of aggressions. Hence, military divisions led to religious ones, with each camp thinking it was on the right and the other was on the wrong, in terms of the 'true' creed and politics. Hence, the faulty notion of camps was adopted by the followers of the Sunnite religion, which contradicts the Quran: the camp of faith/peace must be fighting forever the camp of war/disbelief. Of course, applying such notions preceded theorizing about them; a massive Arab empire was established and posed a threat to the West (Europe), and such Arab empire contradicted the Quranic sharia in everything, a fact that entailed fabrications of new sharia legislations that would be parallel to, and of course higher than, the Quran itself: the so-called hadiths and narratives of similar nature, which would justify heinous crimes committed by Arabs within sharia laws tailored to serve their purposes. This has been the source of distortion of Islam and twisting meanings and interpretations of the Quranic verses. Such fabricated narratives have been forcibly imposed on people as part of Islam, as such narratives (the so-called hadiths) have been for centuries until now ascribed to Muhammad, a crime that began more than 200 years after his death. Hence, the Quran has been rejected and discarded, with its sharia laws twisted and misinterpreted intentionally to serve purposes of caliphs, as we have detailed in our previous writings. The Sunnite religion is thus reflecting mentalities of the Arab empire rulers and men: the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Mamelukes, and the Ottomans, and their likes for centuries.
4- Arab empire stretched and expanded by the Umayyads: from borders of India and China to the borders of France. Arabs whom we call the Muhammadans were the power of the East against Europe in the West. Europe paid a heavy price for being unable to defeat Arabs who at one point took over the rule of Spain, Mediterranean islands, and south of Italy and controlled and monopolize trade with India. The Byzantines empire suffered as a result; it lost its awe and power detrimentally as well as its regions in Asia Minor. The Umayyads tried twice to conquer Constantinople.
5- In their first attempt to conquer Constantinople, under the reign of the very first caliph Umayyad Mu'aweiya, the Umayyads made their high-rank clergymen and scholars fashion the notion of two camps at war for eternity, calling camps of soldiers at borders with the Byzantines as locations of God's warriors who will enter Paradise for their military endeavors! The Arab massive army had to retreat in 670 A.D., and one of the leaders, Abou Ayoub Al-Ansari, who was a companion of Muhammad at one time, was dying, and he wrote a will expressing a wish to be buried in a location at the farthest borders with the Byzantine empire, in order to urge Arabs to fight Europe later on in the next decades. Hence, he made his grave a spiritual landmark for Sunnites in the East of Europe, as was the tomb of Qotayba, another military leader in the West of Europe in Spain.
6- During the reign of the Abbasids, Arabs and Byzantines fought many times, and both sides achieved victories and were defeated within their borders. Both parties conquered and lost many regions in Asia Minor throughout decades. A creed emerged in the Sunnite religion that tombs of 'Muslims' in lands captured by the Byzantines enemies must be venerated and worshipped as mausoleums, in areas that symbolized Muslim presence in enemies' lands that must be recaptured one day. Eventually, the Abbasids grew weaker and the Byzantines achieved more victories over them, capturing at one time parts of the Levant, especially Aleppo. When the Byzantines grew weaker in their turn, European crusaders took the torch and established a crusaders' kingdom in the Levant and parts of Asia Minor. Later on, the Mamelukes, sultans of Egypt, conquered the Levant and eliminated crusaders' presence in Arab lands forever, when the Mameluke sultan, Qalawun, captured Acre, the last city of crusaders, in 690 A.H.
7- Once crusaders were crushed forever, the Ottomans emerged in Asia Minor, as Byzantines became very weak and so were Arab small monarchies at the time. The Ottomans conquered Byzantines lands until only Constantinople remained with the Byzantines, like a body-less head. Ottomans became representatives of camp of faith/peace against the war camp of European infidels. The Ottomans discovered by chance the long-lost location of the tomb of Abou Ayoub Al-Ansari within the conquered Byzantines lands, and this mausoleum became a source of inspiration for the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed the Conqueror, to conquer Constantinople, and he rejuvenated the mausoleum and built a mosque and a massive shrine over it, swearing by this tomb to conquer Constantinople and all the rest of Byzantine lands. His soldiers were enthusiastic because of such charismatic leader, and Constantinople was finally conquered in May 1453 A.D., and Mehmed the Conqueror renamed it Istanbul and turned its biggest church, Hagia Sophia, into a mosque. The Ottoman armies reached gates of Vienna. The Ottomans were inspired by the example set by the tomb of Abou Ayoub Al-Ansari, and Ottoman sultans were required to be crowned in this particular mausoleum, to make them learn traditions of Sunnite 'jihad' against the camp of war: Europe. Centuries later, the Ottoman empire grew weaker and it was called sick man of Europe. Russia was poised ready to conquer the Ottoman lands from the East and Europe from the West, and thus began the era of colonialism in the modern times.
8- We conclude here two things from such wars between Arab Muhammadans and the West: 1) Sunnite Muhammadans were those who began such aggressive wars, making their Sunnite 'jihad' acquiring the main feature of uncalled-for violence and aggression, contrary to real Quranic jihad which is fighting for the purpose of self-defense ONLY and exclusively when attacked by aggressors and when peaceful negotiations fail, and 2) such wars initiated by Arab Sunnite Muhammadans were centered over transient worldly possessions, crystalized in monopolizing trade in Europe and India by Qorayish and the Umayyads before and after the advent of Islam. Because of material gains and political hegemony, Arabs resisted and fought against Islam at first, and then changed loyalties and converted overtly, with ulterior motives, to Islam to protect their interests. One of the main motives behind crusades was geographic discoveries to reach India within a route away from Arab lands, especially by Europeans themselves to the Christian Abyssinia. Geographic discoveries led later on to modern-era colonialism that put an end to the Ottoman caliphate.
9- European colonialism of Arab lands of the Muhammadans led to a reaction that is summarized in the emergence of Wahabism and the KSA that has revived forefathers' traditional notions and applied them by the sword, as opposed to the Western-style secular model of modernization led by Egypt at the time. The KSA was established three times and collapsed twice. The third, current KSA will certainly collapse soon enough in the 21th century. The third, current KSA managed to go on exiting thanks to oil revenues and to allying itself to the USA. Among the steps to maintain its existence, the KSA spend trillions of $ to spread Sunnite Wahabism among the Arab Muhammadans, disguised as 'true' form of Islam; hence, Wahabi Salafism with its fiqh (theology and jurisprudence) spread all over the Arab world and 'Muslim' world, posing a threat to secularism. Among Sunnite Wahabi notions is certainly the two warring camps of 'believers' against 'infidels'. The KSA took advantage of religious freedom in the USA and the rest of the West countries to control and brainwash most of immigrants of Arab origins among the Muhammadans by infusing them with Wahabi ideology. The KSA managed to ally itself to the USA and the West in their war against the USSR and communism, making the West countries allow it to establish Wahabi mosques, schools, and centers as if they were teaching 'Islam'.
10- As communism collapsed along with the USSR, the camp of 'infidels' has nothing left but Europe and the USA, in Wahabis' view. The Wahabi strategy and tactics had to be changed and modified in order to achieve the ultimate goal of one unified Sunnite empire similar to caliphates of the Middle Ages, within the 'camp of peace'. As for Wahabi plans within the 'camp of war', Muhammadans in the West have been brainwashed by Wahabism to be turned into a fifth column inside the West countries to conquer them from within! Hence, Wahabis have two faces in dealing with the West: to ally themselves to it politically and economically, and to insidiously infiltrate West countries from inside, all the while deceiving the West citizens worldwide, to conquer their lands sooner or later. Of course, many Wahabi youths have no patience to follow policies adopted by the KSA, policies forged by Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud the founder of the third, current KSA in 1932, and they formed terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda. Other terrorist groups imitate the KSA in the long patience-periods to conquer the West by insidious infiltration on the economic, political, and media: the terrorist MB group is an obvious example in the West, especially the USA. Of course, other Wahabi dissidents that left the MB to form their own Salafist jihadists groups in Egypt and the rest of the Arab world seek to accelerate the plan: to topple regimes and reach power in as many countries as possible to establish the Sunnite Wahabi caliphate, and simultaneously working against the West, by organizing terrorist crimes and operations and acts of violence inside West countries as a short-cut to accelerate putting their plan into effect. All Islamist terrorist groups do this, under various names. Their terror has nothing to do with Islam: the Quran alone as adopted and embraced by Quranists: the only reformist trend refuting Wahabism successfully. Terrorism reached a higher level when leaders of Al-Qaeda terrorist group, like Bin Laden and Al-Zawahiri, have declared war against Christians and Jews, culminating in 9/11 attacks in New York.
11- hence, we conclude from the above brief historical review that the proposed project to build a mosque in Ground Zero serve tactics and strategies of terrorist Wahabis; by making this mosque a sort of symbolic mausoleum, for terrorists died while committing the heinous crime of the 9/11 attacks, and a source of inspiration to all Sunnite Wahabis inside the USA, to conquer the USA one day to make it the United Islamic States, just like the mausoleums of Qotayba in Andalusia, Cordova, and Abou Ayoub Al-Ansari in Asia Minor, so that one day, a generation of Wahabis would re-capture Spain, Asia Minor, and conquer the USA itself. It is no longer surprising that many mosques are named Cordova and that Sunnite Wahabi imams in Switzerland declare that 'Muslim' cemeteries in Switzerland are sanctified grounds that must be visited regularly in the 'camp of war' countries all over Europe and the West. One can discern how Middle-Ages notions are revived to serve Wahabi purposes.
Thirdly:
1- We pose these questions: why Wahabi Sunnites are bent to build a mosque in Ground Zero in particular?! Is American soil has no room for it elsewhere?! Do American 'Muslims' or Muhammadans in bad need for more mosques?! There are far too many mosques already in the USA; why on earth building a new one in Ground Zero to incite animosity of American citizens?! Would it be wiser that the Sunnite Wahabis would offer apologies and fund a memorial building to commemorate victims of 9/11 in Ground Zero instead? We think that American Sunnite Wahabis must curse Bin laden and his likes in public.
2- We imagine the following: if at one point in time later on, Western Christian fanatics would attack and destroy Al-Saud palaces and Military Ministry in Riyadh, while West citizens all over the world express their happiness and jubilation in public and in media, and then, Christians inside the KSA (if still alive and enjoy religious freedom there!) would build churches within the destroyed ruined grounds. Let us imagine how the Saudi king would help in building these churches and attend formal openings of them, while praising Christianity and Christians worldwide. Would such imagined episodes occur in one's wildest dreams?! This is the difference between American tolerance and Wahabi criminal terrorism.
3- We pose these questions: if we would believe in the theory of two camps of war/peace and belief/disbelief, where in real-life would we find values of tolerance, justice, and freedom: in the West world or in the Arab world?! Where one could find injustice, tyranny, oppression, suppression, enslavement, corruption, torture, genocide, civil strife, and suicide bombings killing thousands?! Where one could find harm-causing mosques turned into military barracks or targets?! Would we find such mosques built by West citizens or Christians? No, we find them built by the Shiites and the Sunnite Wahabis Muhammadans in Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, and Egypt, and later on in the West (Europe + the USA), to plot and conspire and cause bloodshed of the innocent victims.
4- We pose these questions: if real Islam (the Quran alone) is applied by dealing peacefully with people and treating them fairly, kindly, and charitably within higher moralistic values like patience, peace, charity, justice, altruism, freedom of thought, speech, expression, and religion, mercy, and kindness to both human beings and animals, and if Muhammad was sent as a mercy to the humankind, not to massacre and terrorize humankind, then which countries are nearer to the application of the real Quranic sharia of real Islam: the countries of the Muhammadans or the West countries? Where does the camp of war/disbelief/evil/bloodshed lie exactly?!
Lastly: is there still a sense of shame left?!