Regarding “A Mosque Near Ground Zero” (Editorial, July 30): Naming this project after Cordoba, the capital of Islamic Spain, and placing such an edifice at the site, or even near, the World Trade Center hallowed ground, is not the act of a friend. It far more resembles, as in past Islamic conquest efforts, the placing of mosques atop the sacred — or even semi-sacred — structures of the vanquished. This has been true from having placed the mosque atop the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem to the changing of the name of the Sancta Sofia in Constantinople to the Hajia Sophie in Istanbul.
Your readers deserve to know the whole story, not selected pieces casting one group as “victim” while the truth remains hidden in the guilt peddling covered by ignorance of historical behavior patterns. Imam Rauf may or may not be the noble person he might appear, but, given the clearly recorded history [of] attempted attacks, it is the height of foolishness to fail to be cautious and, yes, even suspicious.
Putting a mosque so near the hallowed ground of the World Trade Center bombing would be like putting a Shinto shrine atop the USS Arizona that still lies beneath the waters of Pearl Harbor.
Lake Worth, Fla.
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