Born in Kuwait in 1948, Feisal Abdul Rauf is the Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a New York City mosque. He holds a bachelor's degree in physics from Columbia University. His father was the late Muhammad Abdul Rauf (1917-2004).
In 1990 Feisal Abdul Rauf opened al-Farah Mosque in lower Manhattan. Seven years later, he established the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), a New-York based nonprofit organization which has been run by Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, since 2005.
Rauf is a permanent trustee of an Islamic Cultural Center (ICC) which his father founded in New York City. Until September 28, 2001 -- seventeen days after 9/11 -- the ICC employed Imam Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha, who later said that “only the Jews” could have perpetrated the 9/11 attacks; that if Americans only knew about this Jewish culpability, “they would have done to Jews what Hitler did”; and that Jews “disseminate corruption in the land” and spread “heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism, and drugs.” Gemeaha’s successor at the ICC, Omar Saleem Abu-Namous, said there was no “conclusive evidence” proving that Muslims were responsible for 9/11.
In a 60 Minutes interview that aired on September 30, 2001, Rauf said that the 9/11 attacks were part of a larger Islamic “reaction against the U.S. government politically, where we [the U.S.] espouse principles of democracy and human rights, and [yet] where we ally ourselves with oppressive regimes in many of these countries.” "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened," Rauf elaborated, "but United States policies were an accessory to the crime that happened." Rauf further stated that “because we [Americans] have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world,” it could be said that “n fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”
Rauf, who has been entrusted with the task of conducting post-9/11 sensitivity training for the FBI, contends that Muslims have been unfairly targeted by law-enforcement authorities in recent years. "There's no doubt we've been profiled since 9/11," he said in 2005. "The Patriot Act has kind of made Muslims -- there's a sense of 'guilty till proven innocent' rather than the other way around."
In the summer of 2002, Rauf began lecturing on Islam at the 750-acre campus of Chautauqua Institution, located in western New York State. Around that time, he also befriended Karen Armstrong, who later wrote the foreword for Rauf's 2004 book, What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America.
Rauf's book suggests that the “American Constitution and system of governance uphold the core principles of Islamic law” (i.e., sharia). The author concludes, therefore, that the “American political structure is sharia-compliant.” In December 2007 Rauf promoted What's Right with Islam at a Malaysia gathering of Hizb ut Tahrir, which seeks to impose sharia on the United States and other countries worldwide.
In July 2010, journalist Andrew McCarthy revealed that What's Right with Islam was originally published in Malaysia under a different title: A Call to Prayer from the World Trade Center Rubble: Islamic Dawa in the Heart of America Post-9/11. What's Right with Islam was a “special, non-commercial edition” of the book and was produced after the original, with Feisal’s cooperation, by the Islamic Society of North America and the International Institute of Islamic Thought. Both of those organizations are American tentacles of the Muslim Brotherhood. McCarthy explains the meaning of the term dawa, from the book's title:
"Dawa, whether done from the rubble of the World Trade Center or elsewhere, is the missionary work by which Islam is spread.... [D]awa is proselytism, but not involving only spiritual elements — for Islam is not merely a religion, and spiritual elements are just a small part of its doctrine. In truth, Islam is a comprehensive political, social, and economic system with its own authoritarian legal framework, sharia, which aspires to govern all aspects of life....
"The purpose of dawa, like the purpose of jihad, is to implement, spread, and defend sharia. Scholar Robert Spencer incisively refers to dawa practices as 'stealth jihad,' the advancement of the sharia agenda through means other than violence and agents other than terrorists. These include extortion, cultivation of sympathizers in the media and the universities, exploitation of our legal system and tradition of religious liberty, infiltration of our political system, and fundraising. This is why Yusuf Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the world’s most influential Islamic cleric, boldly promises that Islam will 'conquer America' and 'conquer Europe' through dawa."
Rauf depicts jihad as the Islamic world's defensive reaction to Western provocations, rather than as a seminal Islamic tradition of aggression that long predated any Muslim interactions with the West. In March 2004 the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Rauf as saying: “The Islamic method of waging war is not to kill innocent civilians. But it was Christians in World War II who bombed civilians in Dresden and Hiroshima, neither of which were military targets.” In one particularly significant passage, the Herald article stated: “Imam Feisal ... said there could be little progress [in American-Islamic relations] until the U.S. acknowledged backing dictators and the U.S. President gave an 'America Culpa' speech to the Muslim world.”
In a June 2005 interview, Rauf was asked whether non-Muslims should be troubled by the Qur'an's assertion that people from other religious traditions should be mistreated, subjugated, or killed. Rauf replied that “many of these verses were revealed in certain contexts where the Prophet [Muhammad] and his followers were not allowed to practice their religion,” and thus “permission was granted to the Muslims to fight those who fought them for that reason.” “The vast history of Islam through the 14 centuries of history,” Rauf added, “has proven that except for certain moments in history, the predominant attitude of Muslims toward non-Muslims, especially to Jews and Christians, was one of friendship, was one of engagement.” In 2009, Rauf took up this theme again, writing: “Religious freedom is at the core of Islam.”
Rauf believes that Muslim charities have been subject to undue scrutiny since 9/11. In 2005 an interviewer asked him to comment on the fact that “some Islamic charities are being investigated for terrorist ties.” Rauf replied: “We believe that a certain portion of every [Islamic] charity has been legitimate. To say that you have connections with terrorism is a very gray area. It's like the accusation that Saddam Hussein had links to Osama bin Laden. Well, America had links to Osama bin Laden – does that mean that America is a terrorist country or has ties to terrorism? It's that type of logic.”
In 2008 Rauf revisited the question of whether sharia could be effectively incorporated into Western legal and political systems. He hailed Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams for the “forward thinking” that had led Williams to advocate on behalf of “plural jurisdiction,” which would permit Muslim enclaves in Britain to be governed by a separate set of laws consistent with sharia. In March 2009, Rauf said that “Islamic law and American democratic principles have many things in common,” and he claimed that sharia's endorsement of “political justice” and “economic justice … for the weak and impoverished” is a creed that “sounds suspiciously like the Declaration of Independence.”
Rauf contends that authentic Islam is highly respectful of women's rights and freedoms. In a 2009 piece he penned for the Huffington Post, Rauf stated: “The Prophet Muhammad has been known as the first feminist. … Gender equality is an intrinsic part of Islamic belief.”
In a May 7, 2010 sermon he delivered in New York City, Rauf seemed to suggest that the perpetrators of 9/11 may not actually have been Muslims. “Some people say it was Muslims who attacked [the U.S.] on 9/11,” he said, before drifting into another topic.
In a June 2010 interview with newsman Aaron Klein on New York's WABC Radio, Rauf was asked whether he agreed with the State Department's designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization. Rauf replied:
"I'm not a politician. I try to avoid the issues. The issue of terrorism is a very complex question.... I'm a bridge builder. I define my work as a bridge builder. I do not want to be placed, nor do I accept to be placed in a position of being put in a position where I am the target of one side or another."
In recent years, Rauf and ASMA have pursued a project known as the Cordoba Initiative, whose mission is to recapture an “atmosphere of interfaith tolerance and respect” in “Muslim-West relations.” Funded by numerous countries that are members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, this Initiative aims to build a 13-story, $100 million mosque/Islamic Center just 600 feet from Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. The proposed name of the structure -- "Cordoba House" -- implies conquest. Indeed, the first Cordoba mosque was built in the Spanish city of Cordoba after the Muslim conquest of Christian Spain in the 8th century AD.
In August 2010, the State Department announced that it would be sending Rauf on a trip through the Middle East to foster "greater understanding" about Islam and Muslim life in the United States. The Washington Times observed:
“[I]mportant questions are being raised about whether this is simply a taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt to underwrite his reviled [mosque] project, which is moving ahead in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Rauf is scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, the usual stops for Gulf-based fundraising.... [The trip] gives Mr. Rauf not only access but imprimatur to gather up foreign cash. And because Mr. Rauf has refused to reveal how he plans to finance his costly venture, the American public is left with the impression it will be a wholly foreign enterprise.”
In addition to his work with ASMA, the New York-based Rauf teaches Islam and Sufism at the Center for Religious Inquiry at St. Bartholomew's Church. He also is a member of the World Economic Forum Council of 100 Leaders (Islamic West dialogue); sits on the board of trustees of the Islamic Center of New York; and serves as an adviser to the Interfaith Center of New York.
Moreover, Rauf is a key member in the Malaysian-based Perdana Global Peace Organization, the single biggest donor ($366,000 as of June 2010) to the Free Gaza Movement.
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