Summer is here, and I am looking forward to ice-cream cones with my kids in the park and long walks in the warm evenings. But I am also remembering the less-than-happy events of two summers back, when Cordoba House (also known as the “Ground Zero mosque”) became the subject of deep controversy in American discourse.
The strangest part of the Cordoba House debate for me was around “sacred ground.” People opposed to Cordoba House insisted that the blocks around Ground Zero constituted a holy area. Those who believed that Cordoba House ought to stay in Lower Manhattan liked to point to the nearby strip joint and off-track betting parlor and say that this patch of land was just like any other.
“Why can’t you just move it 10 or 20 blocks away?” a CNN anchor asked me on air at the height of the controversy. But that would still be sacred ground, I thought to myself. A hundred miles north, 1,000 miles south, 2,000 miles west—it’s all holy.
I believe every inch of America is sacred, from sea to shining sea. I believe we make it holy by who we welcome and how we relate to each other. Call it my Muslim eyes on the American project. “We ... made you nations and tribes that you may come to know one another,” says the Quran. While that vision is for all countries, there is no better place to enact it than here. The promise of America is the promise of pluralism, of welcoming the contributions of all communities and fostering right relationship among them.
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