Thank God for our quick thinking airport security services. Otherwise 6 dangerous Imams would have terrorized an entire plane of innocent Americans through the dastardly use of their new secret weapon in the Greater Islamofacist Drive for World Domination — Muslim prayers.
MINNEAPOLIS – Six Muslim imams were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Monday and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said. […]
The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, Calif., he said.
Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.
“I never felt bad in my life like that,” he said. “I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It’s terrible.”
(cont.)
Can’t have no praying heathen Muslim on American airplanes. Nosirree. Who knows what they were praying for after all. It might even have been this:
Muslim Prayer for Peace
In the name of Allah,
the beneficent, the merciful.
Praise be to the Lord of the
Universe who has created us and
made us into tribes and nations
That we may know each other, not that
we may despise each other.
If the enemy incline towards peace, do
thou also incline towards peace, and
trust God, for the Lord is the one that
heareth and knoweth all things.
And the servants of God,
Most gracious are those who walk on
the Earth in humility, and when we
address them, we say “PEACE.”
And God knows, no God-fearing, flag waving, bumper sticker troop supporter American wants that!
Thank god that because of quick action, those passengers were spared from unspeakable misery.
It’s a bit of a self-plug, but a blogger on the Minnesota Monitor team, Abdi Aynte, is speaking to the imams today and should have a piece up about it later today or tomorrow morning – watch out for it.
Thanks
Here’s the link to the article I mentioned was in the works…..
My preference would be that the imams had prayed while seated. If they stood, in most planes, that would mean in the aisle.
I never really liked the Hari Krishna in the airports, either. Religion doesn’t need to be intrusive to be effective.
I’m not sure you can pray while seated. To do the full prayer thing, if my experience is an accurate indication, you need to do stand, kneel, and bow in some combination. It’s not like you can just daven like you would in a synagogue or clasp your hands and pray silently like you would in church.
I think you’re also supposed to pray facing Mecca (specifically, the Kaba’a), Maybe if you’re in an airplane you do the best you can. An imam would presumably have researched this beforehand.
Disclaimer: I could be wrong about this. My experience consists of observation rather than asking questions and what little I’ve read and heard about it (which is mostly that “it is the manner of prayer that was revealed to Mohammed”).
I’d have been terrorized at a group of christianists standing and raising their palms to the sky. As far as I’m concerned any public display of religiosity is an affront or a provocation.
OTOH, no affront or provocation requires handcuffs. I pray for civilization.
Well. Good thing they switched offices on me a couple of weeks ago. I was sharing an office with a Muslim who had a corner of the office carved out for prayers, and at least once a day while I was in there he would do his prayers for about three or four minutes, then get back to work.
How compassionate of the facilities people to move me from an environment where I could be so terrorized!
I was listening to NPR this morning and a representative for the group said their 6 men prayed BEFORE they got onto the plane (in the gate/waiting area) and not ON the actual plane. I’m looking for a link…
That makes more sense. I think doing prayers on a plane would be uncomfortable at best. Heck, sitting on a plane is uncomfortable at best (unless you’re in first class).
Here’s a link to an article with that information:
http://www.in-forum.com/ap/index.cfm?page=view&id=D8LHGTH01
Not sure why the media is reporting the prayers were said on the plane if that’s not really the case. I’ll be interested to see if this issue is addressed and/or corrected in the media if it’s indeed the case.
Thanks very much for that alternate wording. The mechanics of the Muslim prayer would be next to impossible in the confined space of a plane.
Now, reading that the praying was done in the terminal, why not in the space called “chapel,” which is labeled non-denominational in the airports I frequent.
It now seems advisable to question everything. The Houston incident report from SEIU omitted that the demonstrators were sitting in the street. Guess I could have drawn that conclusion from the video stills, and from the mounted police also in the street. That, or hold off on forming a reaction.
Questioning everything reported is probably a good idea these days. As a journalism professor used to say, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out!” (I don’t know what they’re saying any more, or whether that advice just isn’t being followed.)
I wonder if Sam Brownback of Kansas and all the other fundies in Congress will decry this suppression of “religious expression in the public square.”