Ground Zero 'mosque' or 'rabat'?

The name Cordoba House is the first indication that the "mosque" planned for Ground Zero is actually a rabat and not really a mosque. In Islam, every building associated with the faith and its rituals has a specific, prescribed character. I have been in mosques in various places around the world, including the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. A mosque is a one-story building with a mihrab, or atrium. That one story can be 10 feet high or hundreds of feet high, but it must have only one floor.

The owner of the property, Sharif el-Gamal, has referred to Cordoba House, or Park 51, as an outreach center for Islam, or a Dar al-Tabligh, which is a place to proselytize for Islam. However, the prescribed structure is not consistent with the construction plans as described by el-Gamal and Imam Feisel Rauf. The plans for Cordoba House do, however, describe a building known well to Islamic purposes and that is a "rabat."

A New York Post article by Amir Taheri Sept. 10 clearly laid out the differences between a mosque and a rabat. Beginning during the time of Muhammad's military conquests, rabats were built after an invasion of a new territory. The purpose of the rabat was to act as a place for raiders to return to from "ghazvas" against the infidels who had not yet been conquered. Ghazvas, also known as razzias, were acts of terror against infidels designed to convince them to surrender their land and themselves to the submission of Islam. (Taheri points out that the English word raid comes from the Arab razzia.)

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Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born imam who preaches terror and was the spiritual coach to Muslim psychologist Maj. Nidal Hasan (who murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas) has referred to ghazvas (or ghazwas) in his various Internet lectures. Many other Internet sites operated by Islamic terrorists also refer to the attack on the USA as the 9/11 ghazva.

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The Ground Zero rabat is designed to be a symbolic place of rest for raiders. Planned as a 13- to 19-story structure, several floors will be dormitories for young men from all over the world, making their pilgrimage to the site of the 9/11 ghazva. The building will also contain cafeterias and swimming pools. While some rooms may be set aside for prayer, there will be no mosque as defined in Islam. There will be numerous classrooms, the purpose of which we have not been told.

At least 85 percent of the mosques in the United States, those funded by Saudi Arabia, and nearly 100 percent of the Islamic schools here, teach that democracy is an apostate religion that must be destroyed. A valedictorian graduate of the Saudi Islamic Academy in Virginia, a school attended by most of the children of the embassy staff of Islamic nations, has been convicted of planning the assassination of President George W. Bush. Who can really believe that the teaching in the classrooms of the Cordoba House will be any different?

Despite the whitewash of the political elitists and the major network news consortiums, the truth is obvious to the majority of Americans who oppose the construction of a "9/11 rabat" at Ground Zero. Cordoba House is not to be a place of prayers for peace; it is a launching point in the heart of the financial district of the world to establish Shariah finance and Shariah law.

Americans who are educated about the threat of Shariah must continue to warn elected officials such as New York's Mayor Bloomberg not to submit to creeping Islamic dominance. Constant pressure must be brought with letter-writing and petition campaigns.

William J. Murray is the chairman of the
Religious Freedom Coalition, which operates
the no911mosque.org website.