Cordoba Initiative

Reactions and overreactions to the plan to build a mosque (or not a mosque) at Ground Zero (or not at ground zero). Indeed it is not going to be at Ground Zero (i.e. on the site of the World Trade Center): it is going to be near ground zero, and replacing a building that was damaged in the 9/11 attack, but not actually replacing the World Trade Center so not strictly speaking at Ground Zero. A technical win for the liberals there.

And indeed it is not going to be a mosque - it is planned to be "a world-class facility which will house a mosque". So it will have a mosque but not be one. Whether this "have" is one of aggregation (like a horse has 4 legs) or one of composition (like a square has 4 sides) is a moot point to leave for another day. But the point is that the building will have strong elements of mosquiness, and even if it didn't it would have strong elements of Islam, and anybody who thought it valid to be offended by a mosque on the site would I suspect still think it valid to be offended by an Islamic organisation on the site. We will probably have to score that one to the conservatives.

The other question is how prominent it will be. The picture shown here is from Wikipedia and the only one I could find (in the half hour allotted for my blog posts). The official websites for the Cordoba Initiative and Park 51 don't use it, so I shouldn't rely on it. Anyway it has no domes, minarets or giant crescents, but nor is it shrinking hand-wringingly into the background.

 Now, this is a history blog, and what interests me most is the name. Not the name of the building (Park 51) but the name of the project to build it (Cordoba House) which was also at one point the intended name for the building. I think that is true at the time of writing but it is all very confusing and it may not be true next month. According to the Cordoba Initiative, "The name Cordoba was chosen carefully to reflect a period of time during which Islam played a monumental role in the enrichment of human civilization and knowledge". Much of the promotional information about this decision stresses the peaceful coexistence of Muslim, Christian and Jewish citizens, just as the Koran requires, in 8th-11th century Cordoba (in Andalucia). Of course, as is to be expected from a 360 year period of history, there were wrinkles in the general theme of tolerance: as the 48 Martyrs of Cordoba were keen to testify at the time. However the main element of controversy is that this peaceful coexistence was under an Islamic caliphate that was established by the decidedly non-peaceful conquest of Cordoba in 711. For a centre dedicated to exploring questions of the price of peaceful coexistence it is an excellent choice of name.

History xls: the history of the world in a spreadsheet