Islamic Cultural Center of New York

The Islamic Cultural Center of New York is a mosque and an Islamic cultural center in New York district of Manhattan in the United States. It is located on the 1711 Third Avenue, between East 96th Street and 97th Street. The Islamic Cultural Center was the first mosque built in New York City.

Construction

Plans for a large Islamic cultural center in New York originally created back in the 1960s. After years of delay, within which to make donations for the building gathered in Muslim countries and vonstattenging an extensive process of resettlement of the previous tenant, finally began in October 1984, the demolition of the building, which was to make way for the mosque. Construction of the mosque began on May 28, 1987 - the day that marks the end of Ramadan. The cornerstone of the minaret was laid on 26 September 1988.

The construction was delayed during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent Gulf War. The mosque was opened on 15 April 1991, again on the occasion of Eid ul -Fitr.

Ultimately, more than 46 Muslim countries collectively donated a sum of 17 million U.S. dollars to the construction costs to cover. The mosque was designed by the Chicago architectural firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill.

Controversies

Two imams of the Islamic Cultural Center gave controversial utterances; Egyptian Sheik Muhammad Gemeaha said in an interview that would have been " only the Jews " unable to perform the attacks of September 11, and " if the American people would know about it, they would do with the Jews the same as Hitler". He claimed further that " as Allah has stated it ", " would the spread of corruption in the country blame and responsible for the spread of heresy, homosexuality, alcoholism and drugs," the Jews are. The interview was conducted in October 2001, a week after Gemeaha suddenly gave up his position as imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and returned to his native Egypt.

In another controversial remarks while condemning the successor of Gemeaha, Omar Saleem Abu- Namous, the attacks, but said that there was no clear evidence that Muslims were responsible for it.