Above The Law And Into Culture [Reader Post]

Few people know that this giant crescent actually points to Mecca, or understand the religious significance of this orientation. A crescent that points the direction to Mecca is a very familiar construct in the Islamic world. Because Muslims face Mecca for prayer , every mosque is built around a Mecca direction indicator called a mihrab. The classic mihrab is crescent shaped. Here are the two most famous mihrabs in the world:

Left: the Mihrab of the Prophet, at the Prophet’s mosque in Medina. Right: the mihrab of the Great Mosque in Cordoba Spain.

Face into the crescent to face Mecca

As with the Medina and Cordoba mihrabs, a person facing into the Crescent of Embrace will be facing Mecca. In the image below, superimposed red lines show the orientation of the Flight 93 crescent. The green qibla circle is from an online Mecca-direction calculator:

Cordoba Center, is it a symbol of Muslim imperialism or a gesture of friendship and understanding? Only Imam Rauf has the answer; if it is a symbol of Muslim imperialism, he will never admit it, if it is a gesture of friendship and understanding, he has almost no one convinced. If Imam Rauf is manipulating our laws to build his Coroba Center as a method of asserting the omnipotence of Muslim influence in the land of the Infidel, a strict reading of the Constitution and our laws can find precious little to prevent this travesty from transpiring. Thus we find ourselves echoing Antony’s cry in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “O Judgement! thou art fled to brutish beasts…”. If Imam Rauf is genuinely reaching out a hand of friendship to the Great Satan, he has already generated enough ill will to neutralize any feelings of compassion and understanding the Cordoba Center might have generated and his idea is at best ill conceived.

Like the building of the Islamic Crescent that points to Mecca over the crash site of Flight 93 as a memorial, the building of a Mosque or Islamic Community Center near the site of the Twin Tower atrocity is circumspect causing resentment and anger among Americans and especially among the relatives of those who perished. Understandably, no Muslims have been bold enough or stupid enough to suggest an Islamic Memorial on the grounds of the Pentagon, to commemorate the Islamic struggle in North America nor a Muslim Prayer room to commemorate the site Major Hassan’s homicidal Jihad contribution to the improvement of relationships between Muslim and Infidel.

If the Imam is truly concerned with showing compassion, he should have realized by now that his great plan has failed miserably and that his idea might be better served by building a University and offering scholarships to the relatives of those killed and to the first responders and their children who suffer health problems because of these cowardly Muslim assaults on America.

Americans would be more likely to trust the extended hand of a Muslim, whose Koran encourages Muslims to lie to the Infidel, if the offers of compassion were actually helping to undue the effects of Muslim atrocities, rather than building a community center/mosque that can be interpreted as a monument to the blood lust of the Muslim and their quest to subjugate the Great Satan that will provide a new sense of pride to the braggadocio inclined illiterate and perverted Muslim mind of the Middle Ages.

The public feeling against Imam Rauf and his overtures of compassion and community goodwill are obvious, if he wants to really work to reverse the resentment and distrust Americans have for the Muslim, it is obvious he should try a different strategy; if he refuses to change course, his plan will come under even more scrutiny and and distrust. In America, his plan is distasteful and disrespectful, like it or not, that is the country he emigrated to and that is the culture of America; perhaps Imam Rauf should consider assimilating into the culture rather than changing the culture.