Cordoba Institute

While checking BBC-Parliament for the start of the transmission from Liverpool and the Liberal Democrat Conference, I chanced on the repeat of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's talk to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York last Monday. (There is an audio version on the Council's web-site.)

It occurred to me that here was a man who was intellectually head-and-shoulders above those orchestrating the campaign against a Muslim cultural centre in Lower Manhattan. (It should be noted that there is already a Muslim meeting place ten blocks away from where the twin towers stood.)

Rauf's Cordoba Institute takes its name from the Muslim regime in Spain, before it was swept away in 1492. Under the Muslims, all were allowed to practise their religion freely and arts, science & philosophy thrived.