Imam: “I Would Never Have Done It”

The imam behind the proposed Islamic cultural center near ground zero in New York says the Islamophobic backlash over the project rivaled, if not exceeded, the anger felt toward the Muslim community after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 — and that, if given the choice to do it over again, he would have never proposed building it near ground zero.

In an interview with Christiane Amanpour that aired Sunday on ABC’s "This Week," Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf said that he never expected the proposed mosque to become engulfed in controversy.

“I would never have done it,” he said when asked what he would have done had he anticipated what would happen. “I'm a man of peace. I mean the whole objective of peace work is not to do something that would provoke controversy.”

Rauf said that developers were still deciding whether they would relocate the proposed mosque, but that he feared moving it could cause an uproar in the Muslim world.

"My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America, this will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment, this will put our people — our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens — under attack in the Muslim world and we have expanded and given and fueled terrorism," he said.

Rauf's remarks come a day after a Sept. 11 anniversary marked by protests for and against the proposed cultural center, which would be situated blocks from the site of the attacks.

Rauf also responded to the threat by a Florida pastor to burn Qurans if the mosque weren’t moved by saying: “You can't equate the two. ... How can you equate burning of any person's scripture with an attempt to build interfaith dialogue?”