As the fierce debate continues over plans to build a Muslim community centre in Lower Manhattan near the site of terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, one of the project’s central figures, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is on a mission from the United States government to promote religious tolerance in the Arab world.
As P.J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, explained at a briefing last week: Imam Feisal will be travelling to Qatar, Bahrain and the U.A.E. on a U.S. government-sponsored trip to the Middle East. He will discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance…. His work on tolerance and religious diversity is well-known and he brings a moderate perspective to foreign audiences on what it’s like to be a practising Muslim in the United States. And our discussions with him about taking this trip preceded the current debate in New York over the centre.
In an interview on August 18, Mr. Crowley said that the two-week speaking tour will begin on August 19 in Bahrain. He added that Imam Feisal had visited the same countries on behalf of the State Department in 2007, during two trips he made in support of the Bush administration’s outreach to the Muslim world.
Now, more than a year after President Obama’s address to the Muslim world in Cairo signalled an effort to broaden that outreach, the plan to build a centre with a mosque near the site of the World Trade Centre attacks has provoked a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment.