DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The imam leading plans for an Islamic centre near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York said yesterday that the fight was over more than “a piece of real estate” and could shape the future of Muslim relations in America.
The dispute “has expanded beyond a piece of real estate and expanded to Islam in America and what it means for America”, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf told a group that included professors and policy researchers in Dubai.
Rauf suggested that the fierce challenges to the planned mosque and community centre in lower Manhattan could leave many Muslims questioning their place in American political and civic life.
But he avoided questions over whether an alternative site was possible. Instead, he repeatedly stressed the need to embrace the religious and political freedoms in the United States.
“I am happy to be American,” Rauf told about 200 people at the Dubai School of Government think tank.
It was his last scheduled public appearance during a 15-day State Department-funded trip to the Gulf that was intended to promote religious tolerance. He is scheduled to return to the United States later this week.
He said he became closer to Islam after moving to America, where he had the choice to either follow the faith or drift away.
“Like many of our fellow Muslims, we found our faith in America,” he said.
During his Middle East trip, Rauf has generally sidestepped questions over the backlash to the Islamic centre location about two blocks from the former site of the World Trade Centre towers.
But in an interview published Monday in the Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National, he linked the protests to the US elections slated for November. (AP)
