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US Muslims
plan summit over Islamic centre near Ground Zero
Sunday, September 19, 2010 10:29:18 AM,
Agencies
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New York:
A summit of US Muslim organizations is planned for Saturday and
Sunday in New York City to address the proposed construction of
the Islamic centre near ground zero and a rise in anti-Muslim
sentiments and rhetoric that has accompanied the debate over the
project.
The primary purpose of the two-day
meeting is to talk about ways to combat religious bigotry.
Shaik Ubaid of the Islamic Leadership Council of Metropolitan New
York, one of the groups organizing the gathering, said he has a
growing sense that the project is being embraced by American
Muslims and Muslim groups after some initial trepidation.
"Once it became a rallying cry for extremists, we had no choice
but to stand with Feisal Rauf," he said, referring to the New York
City imam who has been leading the drive for the center.
Groups scheduled to participate in the summit include the Islamic
Society of North America, the Islamic Circle of North America, the
Muslim Alliance of North America and the Council on American
Islamic Relations.
Imam Faisal Rauf has called for the
13-story Islamic center to be open to people of all faiths, while
his co-leader of the project, Manhattan real estate developer
Sharif El-Gamal, has stressed its non-religious aspects, which
include a health club and culinary school.
The weekend summit comes as some supporters of the center have
encouraged its organizers to include prayer space for Jews,
Christians and other religious groups as a way of countering
critics who say it will be a monument to Islamic supremacy.
Julie Menin, the chairwoman of the Manhattan community board that
endorsed the project months ago, said she is scheduled to meet
with Rauf to discuss the interfaith possibility in the coming
weeks.
The center's location two blocks
from the World Trade Center site has upset some relatives of Sept.
11, 2001, victims and stirred nationwide debate and angry demands
that it be moved. Critics say the site of mass murder by
extremists is no place for an Islamic institution.
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