Who is Behind the Cordoba Initiative?

"THE PROSPECTIVE developer of a $100 million, 13-story mosque 600 feet from Ground Zero presents himself as a Muslim moderate. Yet Kuwait-born Faisal Abdul Rauf also boasts of his issue from an 'Egyptian family steeped in religious scholarship.' Indeed, Feisal Rauf’s Muslim Brotherhood provenance, radical by definition, is as authentic as it gets." says Alyssa Lappen.

"Ground Zero mosque wanna-be developers show their true radical colors," she says. "On October 20, 2009, American Society of Muslim Advancement leader Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan, both received a letter from Former Muslims United requesting that they each sign the latter's Freedom Pledge. Neither has yet signed." Read the whole article.

The 878-word Freedom Pledge outlines the principles of Islamic law under which apostates from Islam are subject to the death penalty. It notes that the four schools of Sunni Islam — Hanafi, Miliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali — “unanimously agree that a former Muslim male, also known as an apostate, must be executed” and that a woman, at best must be “imprisoned or beaten five times a day until she repents or dies” and at worst, like men executed outright. It then goes on to cite 1978 and 1989 religious rulings — from the Fatwa Council at Al Azhar University, the closest Muslim equivalent to the Vatican, and the Mufti of Lebanon, each, respectively consigning a renegade Muslim to death if they “do not repent.” Perhaps “a misunderstanding on his part may have taken place, and there would thus be an opportunity to rectify it,” intones the Mufti. But he must do so within three days, or die.

“Overwhelmingly, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan ... do not honor freedom to choose one’s beliefs as guaranteed under our [U.S.] First Amendment,” said Nonie Darwish in response to their dead silence since October 20, 2009. “That is the only conclusion we can draw” by their failure to acknowledge or sign the Freedom Pledge.