8 questions with Dr. Zuhdi Jasser of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

7.) What do you think the best solution for the Ground Zero mosque controversy would be?

I don’t see how, in its current shape it will happen, even if they try to ram it down the throat of the population. I more importantly, don’t see that it will achieve what the imam says he wants it to — true healing. I think as a spiritual leader I hope that he will come out of his hiding and come forth to tell Americans, that he is sorry this is the way it has evolved and sincerely apologize.

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As a reformist, I believe that history has shown that when American Muslims are funded from abroad, they become apologists for Islamism and terrorism [and] avoid the hard work of real reform. I would like for them to sign a pledge or at least say publicly that they will not take foreign money, because I am not aware of any majority Muslim countries that share our principles of freedom and liberty of our Constitution and are not in some form an ideological threat to the principles that we want to teach our own children in this country.

8.) Do you have a good estimate of how many Muslims share your point of view?

That is a great question that is really relevant to this. If you look at the population of Muslims in America — and it is about 3 million — I would say that most of the studies I’ve seen and my own experience is that 20-30 percent believe in the Islamist construct, which is political Islam. Now that parallels somewhat with the fact that 20-30 percent of Muslims go to mosque regularly. So there is about 60 percent — over half of Muslims — do not go to mosque or are estranged from the mosque and I would say that is our primary constituency. It is not that they are not religious, but organized Islam in America has failed them because the majority of mosques and Islamic institutions are advocates of political Islam and not just the faith of Islam. In fact, most Muslims will tell you that those institutions being built here so far are a product of something they were running away from in the Middle East.

I think over 60 percent of Muslims probably agree with us in the primary tenet of the need to separate mosque and state. But at some point, we hope we can legitimately and academically address this issue though scientific measures and genuine polling.

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