Islamic Center in Lower Manhattan?

Cordoba House is a proposed Islamic community center to be located in New York City at 45 Park Place in lower Manhattan, about four blocks away from where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf heads the Cordoba Initiative, an American non-profit group dedicated to "improving Muslim-Western relations," which is sponsoring the project. 

The initiative has sparked controversy between those who argue that survivors and the families of victims of the 9/11 attacks would be further wounded by a Muslim edifice so near the site of the disaster and others who seek to uphold the principes of religious freedom and non-governmental interference in religious practice. The New York Jewish Week on August 3, 2010 provided a good summary of the debate.

This Dialogika page offers selected essays, especially from writers involved in interreligious relations.