ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2010, a major controversy erupted in the United States centred at Ground Zero of lower Manhattan. Media reports uncovered the story that Muslims from New York were intent on building an Islamic Center two blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center. The Park 51 project was the brainchild of Feisal Abdul Rauf, an American Muslim of Pakistani descent. Rauf’s 2004 book, What’s right with Islam is what’s right with America, argues that the general ethos of the United States provides an ideal context for Muslims to live out their faith. Furthermore, he asserts that American Republican democracy shares many of the ideals of classical Islamic thought. Rauf also formed the Cordoba initiative, a dialogue centre to engage in interfaith and intercultural dialogue. However, the Park 51 project was quickly dubbed the ‘Ground Zero mosque’ and touched a national nerve that still harbours pain from the tragedy of 9/11. In the public furore that followed, the Islamic community centre was portrayed as a radical Islamist plot to plant the flag of Islam over the ashes of the Twin Towers. Within days, Rauf was branded as an al-Qaeda operative and Islam was back on the front pages. This event provided a litmus test for the status and identity of post 9/11 Islam in the United States. The controversy demonstrated that the majority of Americans believed that Islam was foreign, ‘un-American’ and a threat (Altman 2010). For many American Muslims there followed a sense of despondency that if a prominent American Muslim spearheading interfaith dialogue in a very multicultural city such as New York was painted as a foreigner and a terrorist, then there was no need for others to try and engage the larger society.
