Sacred space: Muslim and Arab belonging at Ground Zero

Abstract

The area surrounding New York’s World Trade Center was politicized immediately after the 9/11 attacks and named ‘Ground Zero’. This article discusses how orientalist tropes as well as narratives of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘sacred space’ came to be embedded there. It uses two examples to examine how such spatialized politics have impacted Arab and Muslims New Yorkers: the Park51 community centre (popularized through media as ‘The Ground Zero Mosque’), and the lesserknown Little Syria district. It sheds light on Ground Zero’s significance for Arab and Muslim belonging in the United States – specifically, how Arab and Muslim claims to space around the World Trade Center subvert Islamophobic rhetoric that casts them as outsiders and enemies, and position them instead as fully American.