August 11th, 2010 9:01 pm
The Imam Feisal Vanishing Act
In the Ground Zero mosque saga now playing out under the grim shadow of the Sept. 11 Islamist attacks, one of the weirdest motifs is the summer vanishing act of the imam who peddled this project, Feisal Abdul Rauf. His name is all over the project, and much-mentioned in the fierce debate. Yet Rauf himself has disappeared from New York, and left the country for the summer. Apparently he’s not even talking to the New York Times — which, in a long piece Wednesday included what in recent weeks has become a refrain: “Imam Feisal is in Malaysia and could not be reached for comment.”
After days of hemming and hawing, the State Department finally confirmed this week that Rauf will round out August with a taxpayer-funded swing through some of the oil-rich capitals of the Middle East. He’ll be going to Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia has dropped off Rauf’s State-sponsored itinerary. (Will he go there anyway? Who knows?). Though, piecing together information from Rauf’s wife and partner in Islamic nonprofits, Daisy Khan, it looks like that a Saudi stop on Rauf’s taxpayer-funded tour might have been quietly scrubbed within the past week — and according to both Khan and a State Department press guidance memo, State has merely postponed Rauf’s taxpayer-funded travel to Saudi Arabia, not scrapped the prospect entirely. For more on all this, plus Rauf’s vanishing Malaysia office coordinates, the two spellings of Daisy Kahn/Khan’s last name, and the lone date this summer on which I have been able discover where, exactly, Rauf on that day might be located, here’s a link to my latest column: Mysteries of the Absent Imam Feisal. [see below]
Basically, what on earth is going on here? In New York, emotions are rubbed raw. The questions keep multiplying. Instead of showing up to answer them, the imam who wants a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero, so he can reach out to New Yorkers, isn’t even taking calls from the U.S. press.
Freedom's Edge
Mysteries Of The Absent Imam Feisal
08.11.10, 6:53 PM ET
For a man whom one would hope has nothing to hide, the imam behind the Ground Zero mosque project sure has dropped out of sight. Having triggered an uproar in the U.S., Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf ducked out of the country weeks ago and, apart from a potted statement last week praising his own project, has pretty much clammed up.
In New York Rauf has become a sort of phantom celebrity. His name is plastered all over the public debate, but Rauf himself has been absent and oddly unavailable, even by phone or e-mail, to answer questions. From his New York colleagues, the refrain has been that he is in Malaysia, and "unavailable."
If this behavior is any guide to how Rauf might handle matters of disclosure and American sensitivities should he go ahead with his planned high-rise $100 million Islamic Center and mosque near the site of the former Twin Towers, it does not bode well.
In broad outline it's now confirmed that after his veiled sojourn in Malaysia, Rauf is scheduled to spend the rest of the August hosted by the U.S. State Department on a taxpayer-funded "bridge-building" tour to speak at Ramadan-related events in assorted petro-dollar hubs of the Arabian Gulf.
None of this information has been volunteered directly to the press or public by Rauf. Whatever he has been doing during his weeks abroad--whether building bridges or burning them--it seems that openly sharing the details has not been one of his priorities.
Yet, according to the New York office of Rauf's nonprofit Cordoba Initiative foundation, which has been his vehicle for launching the Ground Zero "Cordoba House" project, Rauf--Imam Feisal, to his followers--is still running the show. In response to some of my queries, a staffer at the New York office of his Cordoba Initiative e-mailed me last Friday that "Imam Feisal is the leader of the project." Together with his wife and Cordoba Initiative fellow director, Daisy Khan, plus their for-profit real-estate partner, Sharif El-Gamal, Rauf is now formulating "a governance structure" and "advisory board" for a new entity that will run the lower Manhattan project.
Why has Rauf been doing this for weeks now out of Malaysia, instead of New York? Has he dropped by anyplace else overseas without mentioning it? And why, in response to media questions, has he effectively unplugged the phone?
A fortnight ago, staffers at the New York office of his Cordoba Initiative foundation replied to my requests for an interview with Rauf by saying he was traveling overseas, not feeling well, unavailable and unreachable. Later that same day I found him by phoning a Malaysian office that was listed on the "Contact Us" page of his Cordoba Initiative, just under the New York office coordinates. In Malaysia, the street address is that of a luxury high rise in the capital of Kuala Lumpur. Rauf came to the phone. When I began asking about the funding of his Malaysian office, he got right off again, saying he was in an "important meeting." Personnel at his Malaysian number then told me all media questions should be referred to Khan, at the their office in New York.
Reached by phone in New York last Wednesday, Khan said there is no connection between the Malaysian and New York offices. Never mind that they appear to share the same name, are used by the same imam, and at the time of that conversation both offices were listed under "Contact Us" on the same page of the Cordoba Initiative website. According to Khan, they are "two separate entities." She said she is "not involved" in the Malaysian office and is under no obligation to disclose anything about its funding. She added "I don't know what the status of that organization is"; and referred all questions about it back to her husband, the unavailable and traveling Imam Feisal.
The Cordoba Initiative did, however, have one additional response. Within 48 hours of my questions to Khan about links between the Cordoba offices in Malaysia and New York, the coordinates of the Malaysian office disappeared from the Cordoba Initiative website.
On other matters, there has been similar murk. Last week I winnowed second-hand news of Rauf's imminent Middle East trip out of his New York colleagues, and then spent days trying to pry confirmation out of the State Department. This week State finally confirmed that on the taxpayer dime, Rauf will be visiting Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. According to a "Press Q&A" memo now circulating at State, the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia had also considered inviting Rauf, "but ultimately decided not to participate in this program in favor of participating in future programs." That might help explain why Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan, said in response to my questions last Wednesday that Rauf's tour would include Saudi Arabia, and then revised that on Monday to say the Saudi portion of his trip has been "postponed till a later date."
Why aren't we hearing about any of this extended overseas outreach from Rauf himself? State Department officials say Rauf is not supposed to do any fundraising during his taxpayer-sponsored program. But this is an imam whose projects, in order to roll ahead, now entail raising $100 million. Where exactly does he now expect to get the money? What, if anything, has he been discussing about this with his overseas contacts? And when does he plan to make himself available to start answering questions?
It's not only abroad that the mysteries keep multiplying. In this article I have used the spelling of Daisy Khan's last name--Khan--which appears on the current website of the nonprofit American Society for Muslim Advancement, which she and Rauf run out of the same New York office as their Cordoba Initiative. In previous articles I have used a different spelling for her last name, which appears on three recent consecutive federal tax returns for their Cordoba Initiative--for 2007, 2008 and an amended 2007 return filed in October 2009. On all those federal returns, where Daisy is listed as one of three directors, her last name is spelled not "Khan," but "Kahn." Asked by phone about this on Monday, Khan said: "People are always mistakenly writing my name all kinds of ways." A minor mistake, perhaps, but what kind of a shop do they run that, with her own husband as chairman of the board, such a mistake has somehow lingered on the tax returns?
Far more significantly, the New York Post reported this week that Rauf's for-profit real estate partner, Sharif El-Gamal, with his $4.85 million investment last year, actually owns only about half the site where he has been proposing to replace the current structures with a high-rise Islamic center. The rest belongs to
And where, exactly, might the absent Rauf be found while this plays out? Amid the haze surrounding his summer travels to Malaysia and the Arabian Gulf, the only solid information I have so far been able to eke out about where he will be on a given date between now and September comes from Bahrain. Last I heard, the U.S. embassy there is expecting him Aug. 19.
Claudia Rosett, a journalist in residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.
News Flash: Ground Zero Imam Heading to Saudi Arabia, UAE …
Next stops for Feisal Abdul Rauf, imam of the plan for a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero: Courtesy of the U.S. State Department, Rauf — a.k.a. Imam Feisal – is scheduled to spend the rest of the summer on a swing through the petro-dollar palaces of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain, and Qatar.
For more details, here’s the column in which yesterday evening I broke this bit of news (I have not found it reported anywhere else so far — which leaves me wondering why, amid the emoting and editorializing splashed all over the MSM by defenders and commenders of Rauf, no one seems to be asking where he’s actually disappeared to):“Further Travels of Imam Feisal.”
Rauf’s summer itinerary suggests odd priorities for a man who, in the name of harmony and bridge-building, has stirred up a furious debate in the U.S. — and then quietly left the country last month, leaving many questions unanswered about such matters as where and how he plans to raise the $100 million he’ll need to realize his dream of a high-rise Islamic hub right up the street from where the Twin Towers stood.
Neither Rauf nor the State Department seems eager to publicize his summer trip to Saudi Arabia and points nearby, though his tour appears imminent — as in, he’ll probably be touching down in the Middle East this coming week, and he’s not due back till early September. My source for this information is the New York office of his Cordoba Initiative foundation, and his wife and co-director at the Cordoba Initiative, Daisy Khan. But they didn’t exactly volunteer the information unbidden. Rauf himself came briefly to the phone last week, at his Cordoba Initiative office in Malaysia, when I tracked him down there on a hunch — after his New York office said he was traveling, not feeling well, and could not be reached. As soon as I asked about funding, he said he was in an “important meeting,” and got off the phone.
Since then, Rauf has been “unavailable” at his Cordoba Initiative office in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. When I phoned there and asked for him earlier this week, one of his assistants told me: “All media requests have to go through his office in New York.” At the New York office, I was told they were giving no more interviews, and for questions about the Malaysian office, I was referred back in a circle to the Cordoba Initiative in Malaysia. Finally, uninvited and with no appointment, I called the mobile phone of his wife and work partner, Daisy Khan. In answer to my specific questions, she said that Rauf was about to visit Saudi Arabia, etc., on a trip hosted by the State Department. In response to further questions, she allowed as how the State Department was sending her, as well, on a trip to Dubai and Abu Dhabi later this month. She said there would be no fund-raising on these trips. But no one at the Cordoba Initiative seems ready to rule out the possibility of taking large sums of money from these places, should it at some point happen to be offered.
As for the State Department: After three days of my repeated questions and phone calls, State by Friday’s close of business had yet to provide any response to my request for confirmation of Rauf’s trip, Khan’s trip, or details about their State-sponsored summer outreach excursions to the Middle East. Apparently, it takes quite a while at State to get “clearance” for disclosure to the American public of such basic details as who, exactly, is engaging in public outreach at our expense and on our behalf.
Anyway, in the quest to discover Where in the World is Imam Feisal? — it looks like after his sojourn in Malaysia he’ll be turning up soon in Doha, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Manama, and Riyadh. Whom he or his wife will meet with on their State-sponsored bridge-building tours, how their expenses will be handled, whether they will be paid any fees or honoraria, and what other arrangements have been made on their behalf are all matters that State apparently finds it a bridge too far to disclose. Why? New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg may find all this to be of absolutely no interest — see Bill Kristol’s terrific editorial, “Shut Up, He Explained.” But there are a lot of Americans, most of them not billionaires a-la-Bloomberg, who think that sometimes money, and its origins, does matter. When is Feisal Abdul Rauf planning to fill us in on the real sources of all funds flowing toward the coffers of his projects near Ground Zero?
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