A far grander vision: an Islamic center near Ground Zero

Get this: The location was a major selling point for the Muslims...

They have some damn nerve, that's all I'll say. To me this is nothing but another example of the Muslims extending a big middle finger to the Great Satan and the Great Satan just sitting there and taking it. (h/t FReeperNY)

Muslim Prayers fuel spiritual rebuilding project near Ground Zero

"Parts of a landing gear from one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center on 9/11 broke through the roof and two floors. The Burlington Coat Factory had not yet opened, and employees were having breakfast in the basement. No one there was injured." ---->

On that still-quiet Tuesday morning, the sales staff was in a basement room eating breakfast, waiting to open the doors to the first shoppers at 10 a.m.

There was no immediate sign of the fiery cataclysm that erupted overhead starting at 8:46. But out of a baby-blue sky suddenly stained with smoke, a plane’s landing-gear assembly the size of a World War II torpedo crashed through the roof and down through two empty selling floors of the Burlington Coat Factory.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attack killed 2,752 people downtown and doomed the five-story building at 45 Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center, keeping it abandoned for eight years.

"A five-story building at 45 Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, now houses a Muslim prayer space. Burlington Coat Factory operated a store there until Sept. 11, 2001, but it had been vacant since then, until a group of Muslims bought it in July." --->

The building has no sign that hints at its use as a Muslim prayer space, but these modest beginnings point to a far grander vision: an Islamic center near the city’s most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero’s more unexpected and striking neighbors.

The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July. A presence so close to the World Trade Center, “where a piece of the wreckage fell,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.” (editor's note: how do you figure?)

<--- "Every Friday afternoon, with the rumblings of construction at ground zero as a backdrop, hundreds of Muslims crowd inside, facing Mecca in prayer and listening to their imam read in Arabic from the Koran."

“We want to push back against the infidels extremists,” added Imam Feisal, 61.

Although organizers have sought to avoid publicizing their project because they say plans are too preliminary, it has drawn early encouragement from city officials and the surrounding neighborhood.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said through a spokesman that Imam Feisal told him of the project last September at a celebration to observe the end of Ramadan. As for whether Mr. Bloomberg supported it, the spokesman, Andrew Brent, said, “If it’s legal, the building owners have a right to do what they want.”

"Carts belonging to street vendors are lined up while their owners attend a Friday afternoon prayer service. The location is not designated a mosque, but rather an overflow prayer space for another mosque, Al Farah at 245 West Broadway in TriBeCa." Why am I thinking of street cart vendor turned terrorist, Najibullah Zazi? ---->

The mayor’s director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs, Fatima Shama, went further. “We as New York Muslims have as much of a commitment to rebuilding New York as anybody,” Ms. Shama said. Imam Feisal’s wife, Daisy Khan, serves on an advisory team for the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, and Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the memorial, said, “The idea of a cultural center that strengthens ties between Muslims and people of all faiths and backgrounds is positive.”

Maybe for the freaking Muslims - the rest of the civilized world? Not so much. The evidence of the horrific way Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Copts, etc. are treated in Muslim world is thick on the ground. Wake up, sheeple!

There's more here. Read it and weep.