At first I ignored this whole Mosque at Ground Zero thing.

It felt like a non-scandal driven by media desperate for ratings, and politicians lusting for attention. It seemed fueled by an ugly sector of our country that believes loving Jesus means actively denying any other savior.

Maybe worst of all, none of it will probably matter much in the end. Have you ever been to the section of New York City where the Twin Towers were? Hundreds of thousands of people of every race and nationality swarm the area on a daily basis. Thousands of establishments do business there. According to an article in the Times last year, “the Financial District is now truly on the verge of becoming a 24-hour, seven-day neighborhood that is genuinely family friendly.”

In other words, if they had just quietly built this thing, it probably would have gone largely unnoticed, like everything else in New York.

Where lunatics killed.

But, sadly, this is a controversy that just won’t die. It has legs, as we say in the news business, and the media and demi-politicians are going to get on its back and let it run them from solid ground over the cliff.

To oppose the Cordoba mosque near Ground Zero is to make the argument that Islam had something to do with 9/11. I’m here to tell you that 9/11 had nothing to do with Islam, a religion as beautiful (and potentially ugly) as all the rest.

My buddy Tyler Ugolyn was killed in the Towers that day. I know in my heart that it wasn’t Muslims that killed him. It was a crew of lunatics. They could just as easily have been inspired by the Bible or the Legend of Zelda. I mean, wasn’t Charles Manson driven to kill by The Beatles?

Crazy people do crazy things and blame it on uncrazy reasons. End of story. Please, from now on, let’s stop referring to the 9/11 terrorists as “Muslim extremists,” and just call them what they are: terrorists. No further adjectives or qualifiers necessary.

I decided to call the Mosque and Islamic Center of Hampton Roads to get some clarity on the situation. I enjoyed a long talk with Ahmed Noor, trustee of the center. I asked him if Islam had anything to do with 9/11.

Mosque and Islamic Center of Hampton Roads.

“Absolutely not,” he said. “There is a verse in the Koran that says killing one innocent person is like killing all people on earth.”

But didn’t the terrorists identify themselves as Muslims?

“We call them non-practicing Muslims,” said Noor, who is also an engineering professor at ODU. “We believe a terrorist is not practicing any religion when they commit acts of terrorism.”

Noor believes that much of the controversy is based on misinformation.

“To begin with the facts, actually it is an Islamic community center and mosque,” he said.

According to an article in the Boston Globe, the center is slated to be 15 stories, with a mosque, 500-seat auditorium, swimming pool, restaurant, and bookstore.

“Another fact that should be taken into account is that the Cordoba project organizers have owned the property since before 9/11, and have been wanting to build the center for a long time. Is it fair to ask them to sell it because they are Muslims and some terrorists that called themselves Muslims committed horrible acts in the name of our religion?” Noor asked.

Noor, who was born in Egypt but has lived in Hampton Roads since 1971, said that he has met with the local FBI director, and has assured him that the center will not tolerate any lawlessness. He noted that several terrorist attacks on American soil have been foiled by American Muslims.

“The events of 9/11 were carried out by terrorists that held beliefs that are not shared by the vast majority of Muslims,” Noor said. “Muslims overwhelmingly condemn those terrorists for violating and contorting our beliefs.”

Noor compared blaming all Muslims to pointing a finger at Christians for the Oklahoma City Bombing, carried out by Timothy McVeigh, who was raised Catholic.

“Should we equate all Christians with the acts of Tim McVeigh in Oklahoma? Would we be arguing about the same issue if a Christian group was seeking to build a church near the Oklahoma City bomb site?” he asked. “Can a church be built within two blocks of a Planned Parenthood clinic, where Christians blew up abortion clinics, when we know that 99.9% of Christians are peaceful?”

He answered his own question.

“Christianity has nothing to do with the people who blow up abortion clinics,” he said.

Noor did have some suggestions for planners of the Cordoba Center, whom he does not know.

“I feel from reading the news, and knowing the facts, it was intended to bring people together,” he said. “But unfortunately, it is fueling divisiveness. My feeling is that the Cordoba Center sponsors did not anticipate the strong opposition by few that resulted in it being a national issue.”

He suggested that the sponsors “win the hearts and minds of their fellow New Yorkers” by creating health care clinics and offering accelerated work force training programs.

“Once people see that the Muslims are having a positive impact on the community there, building a place of worship is not a problem there,” he said.

Noor clarified that–despite what has become, in some circles, a common belief–Muslims are not trying to take over the world.

“Islam very strongly believes in pluralism, and having peaceful coexistence with all people, believers and non-believers,” he said.

He cited the 12th Century, when Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, defeated the Crusaders, but allowed the Christians to stay in the city of Jerusalem.

“And he invited the Jews to return, and members of all faiths lived alongside each other all throughout Jerusalem,” Noor said. “That is what Islam stands for. That is what practicing Muslims would do.”

It’s a story we can learn from today. It is long past time to invite Muslims back into lower Manhattan, and into all our communities.

For more information on the Mosque and Islamic Center of Hampton Roads, click here.