What might 9/11 sound like in the future?

Few stones are left unturned in the debate over the Ground Zero mosque. I’ve tipped a few of those stones myself. But there remains one stone that, to my knowledge, has been left undisturbed. I discovered this stone today (tripped over it actually), on the anniversary of al-Qaeda’s greatest strike to date against their “great Satan.”

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf’s building near Ground Zero will house more than a mosque; that much is true. But let there be no question, it will house a mosque. And where there is a mosque there is the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer. The adhan will sound from Rauf’s mosque five times each day, meaning that the Muslim call to Islamic prayer will reverberate around the World Trade Center site on a daily basis, and be heard quite clear. But that isn’t the worst part.

Each 9/11, on each anniversary of the attack on our homeland, while the names of the dead are recalled and the nation remembers, the Muslim call to prayer will be heard at Ground Zero. It will mingle with the solemn roll call of victims and the haunting memories of the burned and dying. The climactic event will come on September 11, 2015. That’s when 9/11’s anniversary next falls on a Friday, Islam’s holy day.

I’ve never felt the cold steel of a sword pierce my heart. But I can’t imagine it being much worse than hearing a Muslim incantation recited via loudspeaker at Ground Zero, on their holy day, on our 9/11.

Don’t think our shame will be private. Don’t think it will be lost on the Islamic world. They will see our solemn memorial yield to the tune of the adhan and they will be pleased. The much-feared “Muslim street” will rally in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and anywhere fanatical Muslims gather, rallying to laugh at Western Civilization’s “paper tiger” and jeer at our tolerance.

Are we so tolerant, America? Will we stand meekly, prideful in our open-mindedness, while radicalized Muslims trample our neighbor’s graves? Can we sit idly while Muslims blare their call to prayer on the very block where their brethren presented our countrymen as human sacrifices to the god toward whom they pray? Are we so weak and spineless?

I hope not, for all that is holy I hope not. For if we are prepared to tolerate such an insult we are doomed as a culture, relegated to the ashbin of bygone civilizations. Who could argue that we won’t deserve it?