Rutherford Reader: What is Islam . ...What is a Mosque
The following appeared as a guest editorial in The Rutherford Reader in the current weekly edition, July 29 to August 4, 2010.
'What is Islam . . . What is a Mosque?
by Jerry Gordon
I was interviewed by FoxNews for a forthcoming article about the dilemma facing the citizens of Rutherford County and its Commissioners on August 12th; the third and final stage approval for the planned expansion of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro (ICM). The conundrum, I noted, in Rutherford County hinged on whether Islam was a religion or was it a political doctrine with a thin veneer of religious practices seeking world domination. That issue is behind the public debate surrounding the controversy.
It is reflected in a recent Daily News Journal (DNJ) editorial,“Pro-Hamas allegations Raises flag on Mosque”, about statements made by Republican Congressional candidate Lou Ann Zelenik, that the Mosque expansion constituted a regional training center for spreading radical Muslim doctrine. That charge moved to the fore when the ICM board suspended Mosaad Rawash. Disclosures by investigator Steven Emerson had identified Rawash’s support of the terrorist group, Hamas, the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The DNJ editors suggested that the Imam of the ICM rebut these allegations. The ICM Imam, Sheik Ossama Bahloul is a distinguished graduate of Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He holds a MS degree with a thesis in Da’waah, proselytizing. Al-Azhar is the center of Sunni Salafism, and a hotbed of Muslim Brotherhood ideology. Imam Bahloul preached as Imam in Darmstadt, Germany, Corpus Christi and Irving, Texas and now in Mufreesboro. He has lectured on his Master’s thesis topic to Muslims and non-Muslims in Germany, Belgium and Holland.
. . . Rauf himself has refused to sign a straightforward pledge to "repudiate the threat from authoritative Sharia to the religious freedom and safety of former Muslims," a pledge issued nine months ago by ex-Muslims under threat for their "apostasy." That refusal is a tacit admission that [Imam] Rauf believes that Sharia trumps such fundamental Western principles as freedom of conscience.
Wahhabism -- whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists -- is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the "state Shintoism" of Imperial Japan. We would never have allowed a Shinto shrine at the site of the Pearl Harbor carnage -- especially one to serve as a recruiting station for Tokyo's militarists while World War II was still on.
For the same reasons, we must say no to a Wahhabi mosque at Ground Zero.
The ICM leaders organized a protest in January, 2009 at the Rutherford County Court House in support of Hamas and against Israel. Note the battle cry of Jihad, “Allahu Akbar”, captured in a You Tube video of the Murfreesboro Gaza war protest. Israel was defending itself from rocket and mortar barrages that originating in Gaza. Those attacks threatened the lives of Israeli citizens and claimed innocent lives over several years. During that limited defensive operation, IDF forces found and videoed weapons and stockpiles of ammunition in a Mosque.
Sam Solomon, a former Muslim and Sharia jurist, co- author of TheMosque Exposed noted in a New English Reviewinterview:
A Mosque, totally unlike a Church or a Synagogue, serves the function of orchestrating and mandating every aspect of “life” in a Muslim community from the religious, to the political, to the economic, to the social, to the military. In Islam, religion and life are not separate. They are indivisible. In Islam religion is not just a part of life, but “life” is absorbed and regulated to the tiniest detail by religion. In other words every aspect of a man or woman’s life must be defined and governed by religion. So there is no concept of personal choice whatsoever, or in theological terms, there is no “free will”, but only limited preferences between prescribed courses of action. In addition, there is no concept of a personal relationship between the person and the entity being worshiped, so “worship” itself, is of a different nature than that performed in a Church or Synagogue.
Is this how the leaders of the ICM and its members define themselves as professing Muslims and why they seek to expand their Mosque? That is the issue facing Rutherford County Commissioners on August 12th. The citizens demand that the Commissioners exercise local police powers to find out the answers.
