While Imam Rauf's slum tenants live in squalor.............
Imam Rauf waxes poetic on his favorite 'crafts": over at Forbes Designer clothes (hat tip Gulchgirl)
"I love clothing that exemplifies the philosophy of design. When you buy clothes of this high quality, they transcend their certain normal functions and are capable of simplifying one's life. For example, a well-cut suit fits better and a cashmere sweater is thin but keeps you warm. I am a man who takes great pleasure in wearing fine fabrics. I love Armani suits because Armani always uses the best fabrics. Also, of course, Brioni, the famous Italian designer, makes world-class suits with exquisite craftsmanship. My wife, Daisy, grew up in Kashmir, where you can find the world's finest cashmere scarves."
© Awad Awad /AFP/Getty ImagesRAUF: "Is there anything more alluring than a nicely engineered automobile? I currently drive a Lexus GS400 but am looking into the 2010 Mercedes E550. I like things of beauty--beauty in thought, beauty in spirit, beauty in creativity--and beauty in engineering is one of those things. I like a car that is beautiful, but also one that is functional, so I can use it all the time. I drive very often between our Manhattan apartment and our home in New Jersey. But if I could drive a car just on sunny, crisp Sunday afternoons, I would drive a Mercedes roadster."
RAUF: "Food preparation is about the art of quality. I agree with Julia Child who says, "You wouldn't cook a $30 lamb roast in a $15 dollar pan would you?" No, you wouldn't. A steak prepared to perfection has the ability to levitate a man, but a steak can also be cooked to taste like rubber."
All this while proselytizing to the clueless infidel readers:
RAUF: "....the difference between praying on a beautifully handcrafted Persian run and praying on an ordinary rug is like driving a Lexus vs. driving a dinky Ford. When it comes to rugs, like most works of art, it's a measure of quality that I look for. I own about 15 rugs, mostly prayer rugs, between my New York and New Jersey homes and about 15 more at my home in Malaysia. I love walking barefoot across a nice silk carpet because you can barely feel it. My favorite antique carpet is by Haji Jalili, one of the great carpet artists of the 19th century."
Rauf says,
"Something is fundamentally wrong right now," he says. "We are experiencing a crisis of commercial globalization, and we need one of spiritual globalization if we are going to heal."
A world living under Islam -- dar al islam. There are two worlds in Islam -- dar al Islam (house of Islam) and the rest, dar al harb (house of war). Spiritual globalization -- think about it.
And this from Daisy "the era of extremism is over" Khan:
"We enjoy our work so much," says Daisy, "That at any point in time we'd rather be working than anything else. We are having so much fun trying to heal the world."
Any more of their "healing" and we'll all need serious triage.
In a piece in Forbes late last year, (right before the Ground Zero Mosque was announced), Imam and slumlord Rauf extols the riches of fine living. Couture! Sports cars! Cuisine! And the world's finest prayer rugs (of course). This should solve the riddle of where our two million in taxpayer dollars were going, along with the million from the Dutch government, and his funding from Osama Bin Laden/AlQaeda-linked Saudi corporation XENEL, not to mention our funding his Middle East junkets.
While the tenants in Ground Zero mosque imam's slums in New Jersey suffer, Imam Rauf enjoys the finest offerings money can buy. Just last week, Rauf was summoned back to court (he didn't show, of course) as he was cited with more than 200 housing and health code violations over the past two months. A couple of months ago Union City filed suit against Rauf here.
The suit identified Rauf as the sole officer of Sage Development LLC, a company based at his home address in North Bergen and listed as the owner of the two buildings. The suit also alleges that Sage’s corporate status was revoked by the state in March 2005, for its failure to file annual reports.
The buildings occupy the same lot at 226 Central Ave., one containing 32 apartments and the other 16. The larger building has been vacant since Feb. 8, 2008, when a fire broke out there, one year after the city says it issued 12 separate fire code violations that Rauf ignored.
Rather than addressing the violations after the fire, the city says Rauf boarded up the building, barring residents from their apartments. A spokesman for Mayor Brian Stack said he could not immediately say what had become of the displaced families.
"He’s a terrible landlord who’s unresponsive to the residents who live in his building," said the spokesman, Mark Albiez.
Sewer pipes have not been not capped; also, an abandoned hot water heater in the basement could lead to a buildup of carbon monoxide in the building.
At buildings in Union City and Palisades Park, where Rauf reportedly got tax dollars to renovate low-income apartments, tenants said their gripes about their lousy housing conditions have been ignored.
"Why doesn't he help the tenants he has before he builds a new place, claiming he wants to help people?" said a disgusted Jamie Barillas, who lives in a Rauf-owned apartment at 2206 Central Ave. in Union City."Nothing gets done. We have to go through City Hall to get things done. . . . He doesn't care about his tenants," she said.
Barillas said that bedbugs plague the building -- but that when she tried to get building managers to respond, they claimed they didn't have the money to hire an exterminator.
Tenant Vilma Then chided Rauf as greedy.
"All he likes is money," she said. "Nothing ever gets fixed. I complain to the super, and all he says is that he has the same problem."
She also complained that Rauf's wife, Daisy Khan -- who has been the imam's spokesperson while he is touring overseas -- "listens to what you have to say and writes things down and leaves -- and nothing gets done."
"She gives nothing but false promises," the resident said.
