RUTHFULLY YOURS

Freedom’s Edge
Mysteries Of The Absent Imam Feisal
Claudia Rosett, 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 Con Edison, with El-Gamal now holding a long-term lease. Meanwhile, New York Gov. David Paterson, noting that Rauf’s Cordoba House plan “obviously ignites tremendous feelings of anger and frustration,” has offered state help in finding a less controversial location for the project.

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.