For those that don’t think prayers are answered….
They only own half the building… No Mosque… No Free State Land!!
PING TO NYC Mosque property not owned by applicants. Con Edison is in the mix.
This is absolutely GANG BUSTERS. They were not even supposed to file for a building commission application without ownership, or an agreement of purchase and sale in place on the entire property.
To put it bluntly, if this ownership discovery is true, this whole application and its approval is NOW absolutely faked!
The public service commission would have to review the sale of all utility owned buildings, and that in itself will take at least 6 months.
Sorry, no mosque will be built here. And besides, the Public Service Commission could condemn the adjacent block and start state expropriation proceedings, I’d love to see that!
Con Edison needs to expand its space!
half baked mosque (developer only own half the site)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 9:04:33 PM
Not so fast.
The developers of the controversial mosque proposed near Ground Zero own only half the site where they want to construct the $100 million building, The Post has learned.
One of the two buildings on Park Place is owned by Con Edison, even though Soho Properties told officials and the public that it owns the entire parcel. And any potential sale by Con Ed faces a review by the state Public Service Commission.
“We never heard anything about Con Ed whatsoever,” said a stunned Julie Menin, the chairwoman of Community Board 1, which passed a May resolution supporting the mosque.
CATHERINE NANCE
Daisy Khan, one of the mosque’s organizers, told The Post last week that both buildings on Park Place are needed to house the worship and cultural center. But she claimed ignorance about the Con Ed ownership of 49-51 Park Place and referred questions to Soho Properties, which bought the building at 45-47 Park Place in 2009.
Rep. Peter King, who opposes the mosque, said the developers seemed to be “operating under false pretenses.”
“I wonder what else they are hiding,” said King (R-LI). “If we can’t have the full truth on this, what can we believe?”
Sharif El-Gamal, the head of Soho Properties, first came forward in 2006 seeking to buy the empty building at 45-47 Park Place, said Melvin Pomerantz, whose family owned the property.
Pomerantz said El-Gamal eventually raised $4.8 million cash for 45-47 Park Place. El- Gamal paid an extra $700,000 to take over the lease with Con Ed for the building next door. The lease expires in 2071.
The two buildings were connected years ago — common walls were taken down — and housed a Burlington Coat Factory store.
Con Ed said El-Gamal told the utility in February that he wanted to exercise the purchase option in his $33,000- a-year lease for the former substation.
The utility is now doing an appraisal to determine the property value, and it would be up to El-Gamal to decide whether to accept the price, the utility said. The price is estimated at $10 million to $20 million.
“We are following our legal obligations under the lease. We will not allow other considerations to enter into this transaction,” Con Ed said.
The sale proposal will go to the Public Service Commission, where it could possibly face a vote by a five-member board controlled by Gov. Paterson.
El-Gamal told The Post his long-term lease was equivalent to ownership and that it even allowed him to demolish the building. Still, he said, he was determined to buy the property. “The cost is not an issue,” he said.
The building at 45-45 Park Place had been on the market for years with a sale price that at one point was $18 million. It was owned by Stephen Pomerantz, who died in 2006. His widow, Kukiko Mitani, said she was in debt and desperate to unload the property even at a bargain price of $4.8 million to El- Gamal.
She said she thought El-Gamal wanted to build condos, not a mosque — but he should build whatever he wants.
The Web site for the mosque and community-center project, now called Park 51, says it will be financed “with a mix of equity, financing and contributions.”
But just $200 in donations has come in so far, according to Ameena Meer, head of Muslims for Peace, the nonprofit accepting the contributions.
49-51 Park Place, owned by Con Edison, is being appraised for a possible sale to Soho Properties, the developer behind the controversial mosque. Sharif El-Gamal, the principal of Soho Properties, paid $700,000 to take over the 99-year lease in 2009.
Soho Properties spent $4.8 million to buy 45-47 Park Place in 2009. The building, which used to house a Burlington Coat Factory, had been on the market for years with a sale price that once reached $18 million.
melissa.klein@nypost.com
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Ground Zero Mosque’s Hidden Websites: Follow the Shariah
Posted by Christine Brim Aug 17th 2010 at 10:45 am in Featured Story, Islamic extremism |Comments (37)
Do the math. The 15 floors planned for the Ground Zero Mosque just don’t add up.
What’s the goal? Maybe the Imam’s goal is not simply to force a provocative “insensitivity” about 9-11 on the American public, with the help of America’s elites. Maybe the Imam’s long-term goal is to force Shariah law on the American public – of course, again, with the help of America’s elites.
Why don’t the 15 floors add up? How many floors does Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf need for the mosque portion of this triumphal Islamic command center planned for the two building sites at 45-47 Park Place in New York City? Think about it: maybe 2 floors for the mosque itself and related offices. A 3rd floor for the swimming pool, a 4th for the 500 seat auditorium, a 5th for the halal restaurant and halal culinary school, a 6th for the art studios, the childcare center and library, a 7th for the gym and basketball court. Add an 8th floor for miscellaneous storage and offices. And then add a 9th floor for the September 11 memorial, an after-thought that was recently added to the Imam’s plan, although that may in fact be more of a room off to one side than a whole floor.
That leaves six mystery floors empty – or dedicated to other activities. Six floors – that’s a lot of offices, a lot of employees, maybe more than half of the 150 full-time and 500 part-time jobs the Imam says he’ll bring to Lower Manhattan. What are Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s plans for those six mystery floors?
Follow the Shariah Index Project to solve the puzzle of the 6 mystery floors: We found two hidden websites with copiously deleted information, all about the Imam’s Cordoba Institute Shariah Index Project. For reference, here’s the Imam’s most recent hidden website (also available here as a pdf). And here’s the Imam’s earlierhidden website (also available here as a pdf). The information on those websites – information that the Imam tried to hide with a new whitewashed version – suggests that the six mystery floors of the Ground Zero Mosque will be dedicated to the Imam’s long-term goal: the Shariah Index Project, designed to benchmark Shariah compliance, to distribute Shariah propaganda, and to enforce Shariah law in America and worldwide.
Drawing from those hidden webpages and other sites, we’ve constructed a timeline for the Shariah Index Project and a partial list of Rauf’s partners in the Project. In Part 2, we’ll reveal the disturbing background and views of those partners. And in Part 3, we’ll present the bottom line – how this all ties together as a historic Islamist effort to market and to enforce Shariah in America, starting from Ground Zero.
Numbered Documents, for everyone’s convenience! Below, from the hidden websites, is the evidence Rauf tried to cover-up. We’ve even numbered the Shariah Index Project documents he mentioned, to make it easy for the Imam and his staff – for example, Courtney Erwin, attorney and director of the Shariah Index Project andcorporate contact for the Cordoba Institute - to provide copies to the American public.
Courtney Erwin could end the cover-up of these documents today, given her leading role in the Shariah Index Project since its inception. Erwin, by the way, has been working in Doha (Qatar, home of jihad-supporter Sheik Qaradawi, so admired by Imam Rauf) for the past three months. She states that her team includes a “Qatari legal researcher,” presumably for ongoing work on the Shariah Index Project. She may also be working with one of the core Shariah experts partnering in the Shariah Index Project, Dr. Jasser Auda, since January 2010 an Associate Professor in the Public Policy Program, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar Foundation in Qatar. (Qatar is also one of the countries Imam Rauf is scheduled to visit on his State Department-funded trip this summer.) Look for much more on Erwin and Auda in Part 2.
American citizens and their elected officials should ask Rauf, Erwin and their associates to end the Shariah Index Project cover-up, and to disclose all documents, meeting notes, emails and attendee lists from 2006 to the present day. You don’t ask, you don’t get.
August 2006 – The Planning Meeting – Meeting #1
We know from the first hidden website that the Shariah Index Project (SIP) had its initial meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in August 2006. Attendees explored the idea of creating an “index” to measure the degree of Shariah governance for ALL nations, and deliverables from the meeting were (1) a “vision” statement and (2) a roadmap for the project. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf convened and chaired this meeting, which included “four scholars from India, Malaysia, and Pakistan.” From the second hidden website, we know that these first four participants Rauf recruited were international leaders affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood - and on key advisory boards in Shariah Compliant Finance:
Professor Dr. Mahmood Ahmad Ghazi, Pakistan, (Chairman of the Shariah Board for the State Bank of Pakistan and former president of International Islamic University);
Professor Dr. Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Malaysia (Dean of the International Institute of Islamic Thought & Civilization and Former Interim Chairman, Constitutional Review Committee, Afghanistan);
Professor Dr. Tahir Mahmood, India (Founder/Chairman, Amity University Institute for Advanced Legal Studies, New Delhi, and former Dean of the Faculty of Law, Delhi University);
Dato’ Abdul Hamid Mohamad, Malaysia (Judge, Federal Court of Malaysia … Malaysian Supreme Court). [Such a small world here at Big Peace - this is the same judge honored by Elena Kagan in the Al-Sanhuri lecture series at Harvard on November 11, 2008, as we reported here a couple weeks ago.]
February, 2007 - Expanding the Core Group – Meeting #2
The original five Shariah authorities (1 from Pakistan, 3 including Rauf from Malaysia, 1 from India) met again, adding five more members from Indonesia, Iran (to “represent the Shi’a perspective,” possibly Mohammad Javad Larijani – see Bayefsky’s research below for August 2008), Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia. This new Group of Ten Shariah Index Authorities created a new (3) Roadmap (2.0), and a new (4) Basis for Evaluation Document,which sets out an initial list of Islamic legal principles relating to governance. The group also distributed (5) Research Assignments, which would support the project and which they would present at the next meeting.
May 2007 – The First Draft of the Shariah Index – Meeting #3
This was a very productive session, involving the same ten Shariah experts. They refined the Basis for Evaluation document, resulting in the “creation of two new documents: (6) Essential Features of Shariah-Compliant Governance and the first iteration of the (7) Shariah Index (1.0), inclusive of seventy-four principles of Islamic governance derived from Islamic law.”
“Additionally, the group developed a (8) Strategic Plan for the project, which highlighted key dates and tasks.They also identified a (9) short and long-list of scholars to approach for support.”
October 2007 - Expansion and Operations Plans – Meeting #4
The Core Group of Ten grew to at least 14 members, with new Shariah authorities from Bahrain, England (possibly Dr. Jasser Auda who may have been in the UK at the time?), Morocco, and Lebanon (to “include the Arab Shi’a perspective”). Interestingly, it also included three ratings experts – identified later as unnamed representatives from Gallup Organization, Pew Research Center, and Dr. Robert Rotberg of Harvard University. The meeting’s deliverables were closing in on the final product:
“the group further refined the (10) Index [ie, Shariah Index 2.0], which they organized into four major sections—1)Normative Declarations, 2) Qualifications ofLeaders, 3) Governance, and 4) Maqasid al Shariah—with each of these sections broken down into a number of measurable principles derived from Shariah. “
The group also revisited and refined their (11) strategic plan [2.0] and committed to (12) three detailed research and writing tasks: 1) long articles, 2) sourcing and citing principles, 3) proxy questions for each principle.
November 2007 – July 2008 – Building the Shariah Index Apparatus – Individual Meetings #5
Over the next eight months, the Cordoba Initiative staff worked with the 14 Shariah experts – and the 3 “ratings experts” from Gallup, Pew and Harvard – to write the (13) Preamble to the Project and “further refine the philosophy, overall structure, and organization of the (14) Index [ie, Shariah Index 3.0] as well as each of the principles.”
August 2008 - Final Publication Plans – Meeting #6
Anne Bayefsky identified the Iranian participant in Shariah Index Project from this photo from the August 2008 meeting: Iranian Mohammad Javad Larijani, who has justified torture of Iranian dissidents as legal punishments under Shariah law. This August 2008 meeting planned the publication of the Shariah Index Project book – and associated polls done by Gallup and Pew – for March 2009:
At the most recent meeting in August 2008, the scholars agreed that the index would be a Maqasid al Shariah Index [the influence of Jasser Auda who had possibly joined in October 2007], measuring a state’s Islamicity through both its governance and society. Representatives from the Gallup Organization governance index pioneer, Dr. Robert Rotberg, joined the discussion by phone on the second day. Following these conversations with rating and indexing specialists, the scholars worked to (15) finalize the index, including its methodology and measurable indicators [ie, Shariah Index 4.0]. The scholars also finalized preparations for the book to be published concurrently with the Index and findings. After the formal meetings concluded, Cordoba staff worked one-on-one with a number of the scholars, soliciting additional information requested by the ratings experts prior to their formal work on the Index as well about the Indexing methodology and the book, with significant work with Gallup and Dr. Rotberg as well as production of the book scheduled for the upcoming 6 months. The target date for the (16) Index results and book is March 2009, with the public launch to follow.
November 21, 2008 – The Book Launch Celebration with the Muslim Brotherhood’s IIIT- Meeting #7
The International Institute of Islamist Thought (IIIT), a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organization in Northern Virginia,met to launch the publication (pdf here) of an abridged edition of Rauf’s “What is Right with Islam is what is Right for America.” The meeting was chaired by IIIT Vice President Jamal Barzinji, and the publisher of the abridged edition is a group called American Muslims for Constructive Engagement (AMCE). Also promoted in that series of “Reader’s Digest Condensed Islamism”: Harvard’s Noah Feldman’s “Fall and Rise of the Islamic State,” “1) Who Speaks for Islam: By John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed. Dalia Mogahed is head of the Gallup project on Muslim public opinion, the most likely contact at Gallup for the earlier meetings on the Shariah Index Project (more on that relationship, and on the AMCE and their U.S. government backers in Part 2).
The book series, by the way, was funded by the Kingdom Foundation – as in the Alwaleed Bin Talal Kingdom Foundation of Saudi Arabia.
December 19, 2008 – Final Coordination with the Muslim Brotherhood’s IIIT – Meeting #8
Rauf met with Muslim Brotherhood’s IIIT leadership to discuss the Shariah Index Project (here as pdf). A key figure, Dr. Jasser Auda, met with Rauf at IIIT Headquarters in Northern Virginia. Auda has the background and the brains to be coordinating the Shariah Index Project behind the scenes from Qatar, making Rauf simply a U.S. salesman for an effort that may actually be directed by others. More on Auda in Part 2.
Let’s Review. All those numbers begin to add up:
The Ground Zero Mosque has at least 6 mystery floors. We suggest that they’ll be used by the Shariah Index Project.
The Shariah Index Project was built by at least 14 Shariah experts. We have the identities probably of 7 of them, and Rauf should reveal the other 7 right away.
The Shariah Index Project generated at least 16 documents and maybe a final book, and Rauf should release all of these – right away.
The issues at stake in the Ground Zero Mosque and the Shariah Index Project are not about Americans supporting the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom. Americans support that protection.
The issues at stake here are about Americans protecting the Constitution from Shariah-adherent groups using the protective guise of religious freedom to attack the Constitution itself – using a triumphal Ground Zero mosque as “the base” for a project to institutionalize Shariah in America.
Keep Praying Patriots and Continue Standing!!!
Update: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called for an investigation of those who are protesting the building of the Ground Zero Mosque on Tuesday???Really??? The families of 9/11 victims and other concerned Americans??? She told San Francisco's KCBS radio When you see this (Video) and hear what Pelosi says… she wants to investigate who is financing and supporting those who are against the Mosque (you mean 9/11 victim families, 65% of New Yorkers, people who understand Shariah Law and the game plan, American Patriots…etc?) but isn’t interested in investigating who is funding the building of the Mosque? As Charles Krauthammer said earlier today… he is against the building of the Ground Zero Mosque… and nobody is putting him up to it or paying him!!
Strange reactions don’t you think? Perhaps the information is getting too close to more questionable and illegal connections between this Mosque and government funding his trips as a so-called emissary for them? Maybe the questions about why our government promotes an Imam who promotes the spread of Shariah Law throughout the U.S. is pointing too close to home? Perhaps the questions of who the players are that are funding this Mosque are worth protecting. Perhaps people are starting to ask why Jewish (Bilderberger and CFR member) billionaire NYC mayor Bloomberg is so compliant to the Imam and so deaf to his own constituents? Perhaps ‘the whats’ we don’t see are much worse than what we can even imagine?
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