Feisal Abdul Rauf

The AP reports that one of the men behind the Ground Zero mosque, Feisal Abdul Rauf, will now have a "reduced" role in the project:

The organization planning to build an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center said the imam who has been the public face of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, will be playing a reduced role in the facility.

The nonprofit group Park51 announced Friday that it had named a new imam to help lead religious programing so that Rauf could focus on other initiatives.

Rauf announced late this fall that he would be starting a global movement that would fight extremism and promote better relations between people of different faiths and cultures. He is set to start a national speaking tour Saturday in Detroit.

Rauf will remain on the Islamic center's board, Park51 said in a statement, but the group needed someone who could be more focused on the day–to–day business of building a local congregation.

"Due to the fact that Imam Feisal is focusing most of his energies and passion on launching this new and separate initiative, it is important that the needs of Park51, the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan, take precedence," the group said.

The group said that while his vision is "truly exceptional, our community in lower Manhattan is local. Our focus is and must remain the residents of lower Manhattan and the Muslim American community in the greater New York area."

In his widely quoted memorial address for Daniel Pearl at an Upper West Side synagogue, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said, "not only today I am a Jew, I have always been one." But that's only the part that's getting all the attention. 

When Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahhar threw his support behind the Ground Zero mosque, it became clear that what started as a political controversy is also a national security issue.