A must read article pertinent to the Ground Zero Mosque

'Islam's Double-Faced Triumphalism: Destruction and Mosque-Building' is a must read piece by Hugh Fitzgerald that explains the age-old Islamic concept of building mosques on the sites of destroyed monuments and artifacts of non-Islamic civilization. Here are just some of the examples described in the article:

'This practice of deliberately destroying the monuments and artifacts of non-Islamic civilization began at the very beginning of the Muslim conquest of India. Indeed, the very first mosque known to have been built in India was built using stone from a Jain temple (the Jains are those who refuse to kill, to hurt a fly). One opens "The World of Islam" by Ernst J. Grube (Curator, Islamic Department, Metropolitan Museum of Art), part of the series "Landmarks of the World's Art," and finds on p. 165 a picture of the "Kutb Mosque (Quwaat al-Islam) Delhi" shown and described:

"Built by Kutb al-din Aibak in his fortress of Lallkot near Old Delhi in 1193. This mosque is the earliest extant monument of Islamic architecture in India and its combination of local, pre-Muslim traditions and imported architectural forms is typical of the earliest period. The mosque is built on the ruins of a Jain temple..."

So the earliest "extant monument of Islamic architecture in India" was "built on the ruins of a Jain temple" -- that temple being made into "ruins," of course, by the Muslim invaders.

...

An early Umayyad caliph decided that "the furthest mosque" (al-masjid al-aksa), that mysterious place from which Muhammad was said to ascend to the Seventh Heaven on his winged horse Al-Buraq, and then return within the same 24-hour period, should be located in Jerusalem, a city never of Muslim interest (not mentioned even once in the Qur'an). Why did he decide that surely the place referred to must be Jerusalem, and the very spot from which the "Miraj" or Night Journey took place must surely be right on the highest spot, the one holiest of all those in the world to Jews, that is, the Temple Mount? It was there that the Mosque of Omar and the Dome of the Rock lay claim to Jerusalem for Islam, as over against the claims of the prior-in-time monotheisms, Judaism and Christianity.
...
What Muslims did in placing a mythical mosque ("al-masjid al-aksa") right there, and then building on the holiest site to Jews, in a city holy to Jews and Christians, was staking a claim that only other Muslims might believe. After all, you have to believe that a man named Muhammad had a fabulous creature, Al-Buraq, upon which he went back and forth to the Seventh Heaven, and then you further have to accept that "al-masjid al-aksa" must be a reference to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

But you do not have to be a Believer in Judaism to know that for more than a thousand years the Jews had made their capital, spiritual and political, in Jerusalem, where their history was made. You do not have to be a Believer in Christianity to know that Christianity has its origins in what Christians call the Holy Land, and especially in events that took place in Jerusalem. That difference matters.

...

In Constantinople, which for a thousand years was the largest, richest, most populous city in all of Christendom, there were hundreds of churches. The greatest of them all was the Hagia Sophia.

On May 29, 1453, after centuries of first the Seljuk, then the Osmanli Turks seizing control of ever larger parts of what had been the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim invaders finally conquered Constantinople. They razed many of the churches in the city. Western visitors can find a diorama of Constantinople, showing its hundreds of churches before the Muslim conquest, and be amazed at how on every corner there seemed to be another church. That diorama is discreetly tucked away on an upper floor of the Museum of Greek and Roman Antiquities, in the Topkapi complex, in present-day Istanbul. But not all the churches were razed. And the Hagia Sophia was not razed, but was turned into a mosque, a sign of what Mehmet Fatih, Mehmet the Conqueror, had done, a symbol of Muslim triumph.'

Yes but those all happened a long time ago, I hear some argue; so here is one more modern example:

'Two decades ago, as Muslims began to make their demands on the host countries that had so generously and heedlessly allowed them to settle deep within Western Europe, that is, behind the borders that Muslims themselves were taught to regard as enemy lines, the lines of Dar al-Harb, the Domain of War, in Italy President Pertino thought that Muslims in Italy might respond with gratitude, and Muslims outside of Italy might even make it more possible for the millions of Christians, both indigenous and among the millions of guest-workers in the rich oil states of the Gulf, to open churches and to practice their faith. It was not to be. Government land was donated for the building of a huge mosque, not a mile from the Vatican, but when it was built, and when the Arab Ambassadors arrived at the ceremonies to open the mosque, there was no talk of gratitude, and certainly no talk of any reciprocal gesture, by any Arab or Muslim state, anywhere. Italian witnesses of the event spoke of the air of triumphalism, the palpable feeling that a beachhead for Islam had, with this giant mosque, been created. Those Italians who watched, with growing unease, would have been still more uneasy, had they known that among Muslims there is a belief, based on a story, or Hadith, about Muhammad predicting that first Constantinople or Rum (Byzantium) would fall to Islam, and then Rome, the Rome in Italy, would fall to Islam. The giant mosque was a symbol for Pertini, and other Italians, of Western, of Italian, tolerance and goodwill and trust. But for the Muslims present, the giant mosque built on land donated by the Italian state had nothing to do with tolerance, or trust, or good will that needed to be, or might be, reciprocated by the Muslim beneficiaries of that tolerance, that trust, that good will.'

I leave you to consider where the Ground Zero mosque fits into this narrative in your own time.