Feisal Abdul Rauf (, born October 23, 1948) is a Kuwaiti-born Egyptian-American Sufi imam, author, and activist whose stated goal is to improve relations between the Muslim world and the West. From 1983 to 2009, he served as Imam of Masjid al-Farah, a mosque in New York City. He has written three books on Islam and its place in contemporary Western society, including What's Right with Islam Is What's Right with America, and founded two non-profit organizations whose stated missions are to enhance the discourse on Islam in society.
He has condemned the 9/11 attacks as un-Islamic and called on the U.S. government to reduce the threat of terrorism by altering its Middle Eastern foreign policy. Author Karen Armstrong, among others, has praised him for his attempts to build bridges between the West and the Muslim world. In 2010, Sufi Imam Rauf received national attention for his plans to build Park51, an Islamic Community Center, two blocks from Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.
Early life
Rauf was born in Kuwait to Egyptian parents. His father, imam and Sunni scholar Muhammad Abdul Rauf (1917–2004), moved with the younger Rauf to New York City in the 1960s. The elder Rauf assisted with efforts to create the multimillion-dollar Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the first building designed as a mosque in New York City, which took 25 years to complete and opened in 1991. Rauf studied physics at Columbia University, where he earned his bachelor's degree in nuclear engineering in 1969, before earning a master's degree in plasma physics at Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Career
After finishing college, Rauf focused on religion, and became the leader of a New York City mosque. Rauf has written three books on Islam and its place in contemporary Western society, including What's Right with Islam, later printed in paperback with the changed title What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America. Rauf served as imam of Masjid al-Farah in New York City's Tribeca district between 1983 and 2009.
Rauf is a friend of the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Order, and in 1983, he was appointed prayer leader at their Masjid al-Farah mosque. In 1997, he founded the American Sufi Muslim Society (ASMA), which has since been renamed the American Society for Muslim Advancement. Rauf worked to improve relationships between American society, the American Muslim community and the wider Muslim world. He founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement (originally named the American Sufi Muslim Association.)
The organization is now headed by his wife. He is a member of the Council of 100 Leaders (C-100) on West-Islamic World Dialogue at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and has received both the Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution's annual Alliance Peacebuilder Award and The Interfaith Center of New York's annual James Parks Morton Interfaith Award (2006). He was a major speaker at the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia. In 2003, Rauf founded the Cordoba Initiative, another registered nonprofit organization with offices in both New York and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. As CEO of Cordoba Initiative, Rauf coordinates projects that emphasize the bonds that connect the Muslim world and the West.
Post-9/11
Following the September 11 attacks, Rauf conducted training and speeches for the F.B.I. and U.S. State Department. However, some U.S. politicians have voiced concerns about his views, referring to comments Rauf made when interviewed by Ed Bradley on CBS 60 Minutes on September 30, 2001. Rauf's website says he was referring to the US CIA in the 1980s "financing Osama Bin Laden and strengthening the Taliban." Columnist Jonathan Rauch wrote that Rauf gave a "mixed, muddled, muttered" message after 9/11. Nineteen days after the attacks, he told CBS's 60 Minutes that fanaticism and terrorism have no place in Islam. Rauch said that the message was mixed, however, because when then asked if the U.S. deserved the attacks, Rauf answered, "I wouldn't say that the United States deserved what happened. But the United States' policies were an accessory to the crime that happened." When the interviewer asked Rauf how he considered the U.S. to be an accessory, he replied, "because we have been accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA." Although this CIA-Osama bin Laden controversy has been brought up by many others, Rudy Giuliani, Peter T. King, Rick Lazio, and Sarah Palin expressed concern about these remarks when discussing Rauf as the driving force behind the Park51 project.