Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid, general manager of Al-Arabiya, underlined his opposition to the building of the mosque near Ground Zero in Asharq-Alawsat. “This is because the mosque is not an issue for Muslims, and they have not heard of it until the shouting became loud between the supporters and the objectors, which is mostly an argument between non-Muslim US citizens!” he argues.

Al-Rashid explains that the community center in New York would become “an arena for promoters of hatred, and a symbol of those who committed the crime.” He points out that Muslims do not actually need to have place of worship in a commercial city district.

As for the mosque's supporters, Al-Rashid questions whether the building applicant is a man who wants a mosque aiming for reconciliation or whether he is an investor who simply wants quick profits. He adds, “The last thing Muslims want today is to build just a religious center out of defiance to others, or a symbolic mosque that people visit as a museum next to a cemetery.”

Al-Rashid points out that Americans fail to understand that the battle against terrorism is not theirs to fight, but rather it is a struggle for Muslims attempting to reclaim Islam from extremists in more than twenty countries. Some may fear that building a mosque near Ground Zero may crystallize this notion forever. Al-Rashid expresses his doubts that Muslims would want to see the site become “a shrine for Islam haters whose aim is to turn the public opinion against Islam.” He fears that this process has already started.

In fact, Al-Rashid believes that the media are missing the point about Muslim desires and aspirations, as Eileen Toplansky for American Thinker reports the general manager of Al-Arabiya stating “Muslims are [more] concerned about issues that involve the destinies of [entire] peoples...such as the establishment of the Palestinian state."

Toplansky also disagrees with Al-Rashid’s comments that terrorism is solely an intra-faith battle. She asserts that it is in fact an American battle in which the nation must identify “the enemy” in order to defeat it. She also questions whether the “forces within the Muslim world who truly want to destroy the jihadist terrorists” are a significant enough presence to take on the battle.

Toplansky identifies Al-Rashid as a voice of reason when he stated that Muslims do not want “to build a monument or a place of worship that tomorrow may become a source of pride for the terrorists and their Muslim followers, nor do they want a mosque that will become a shrine for the haters of Islam."

American Muslims who support the proposed mosque and Islamic center near ground zero are facing skeptics within their own faith — those who argue that the project is insensitive to Sept. 11 victims and needlessly provocative at a time when Muslims are pressing for wider acceptance in the US, reports the Associated Press.

"For most Americans, 9/11 remains as an open wound, and anything associated with Islam, even for Americans who want to understand Islam — to have an Islamic center with so much publicity is like rubbing salt in open wounds," remarks Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American University, a former Pakistani ambassador to Britain and author of "Journey Into America, The Challenge of Islam."

"Winning in the court of law is not going to help improve the image of Muslims nationwide," said Asmal, a Massachusetts physician. "You have to win the hearts and minds of the ordinary American people." Few American Muslims who lost relatives in the terrorist strikes have spoken out, but those who have are also divided, according to the Associated Press.

Talat Hamdani, a Muslim whose son Salman, a New York police cadet and emergency medical technician, was killed on Sept. 11, supports the proposal. "I'm not fighting for a mosque. I'm fighting for my rights," she said. By contrast, Neda Bolourchi of Los Angeles, a native of Iran whose mother was on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, opposes the plan.

Expressing her fear that it may cultivate a fundamentalist version of the faith, Bolourchi wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post, “To the supporters of this new Islamic cultural center, I must ask: Build your ideological monument somewhere else, far from my mother's grave, and let her rest."