>Muslim-born Miss USA says she opposes Ground Zero Islamic center
POST WIRE SERVICES
Last Updated: 4:30 PM, August 20, 2010
Posted: 10:06 AM, August 20, 2010
https://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ground_zero_mosque_imam_says_radical_7rGRZmCD1Lh7sf2QSiYSRJ
The reigning Miss USA has come out against the Ground Zero mosque, saying “it shouldn’t be so close” to Ground Zero.
The 24-year-old Rima Fakih, is the first Muslim winner of the Miss USA contest and is preparing for the Miss Universe Pageant, scheduled for Monday in Las Vegas.
“I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on Constitutional rights of freedom of religion,” Fakih told “Inside Edition” in an interview that will air tonight.
“I also agree that it shouldn’t be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.”
This comes as the imam spearheading controversial plans for the mosque and Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks said today that extremism poses a security threat in both the West and the Muslim world — and is even working on a plan to “Americanize” Islam.
The comments by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf come during the first leg of a 15-day Middle East tour — funded by the US State Department — to discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance.
Speaking after leading prayers at a neighborhood mosque in Bahrain’s capital Manama, Rauf said he hopes to draw attention during his trip to the region to the common challenges to battle radical religious beliefs.
“This issue of extremism is something that has been a national security issue — not only for the United States but also for many countries and nations in the Muslim world,” Rauf told Associated Press Television News.
“This is why this particular trip has a great importance because all countries in the Muslim world — as well as the Western world — are facing this … major security challenge.”
Rauf also said he has been working on a way to “Americanize Islam,” although he did not elaborate on what an American version of Islam might look like.
“The same principles and rituals were everywhere, but what happened in different regions was there were different interpretations,” he said. “So we recognize that our heritage allows for re-expressing the internal principles of our religion in different cultural times and places.”
The comments differ greatly from what Rauf said in December 2001. Just two months after the 9/11 attacks, the imam wasn’t so quick to condemn radical religious beliefs in his own faith.
“The United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened, because we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world,” he said during an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes. “In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”
Rauf, meanwhile, refused to discuss the political firestorm over plans for an Islamic cultural center near the site of the World Trade Center towers. The center would include a mosque, a swimming pool, gym auditorium and other facilities on a plot of land some two blocks from the World Trade Center site.
Foes of the project say it is insensitive and disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families. The debate has become politicized ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.
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