Six imams returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation were ordered off their flight and questioned by police for several hours after doing something the passengers and flight crew perceived as suspicious.
What was that offending act, you might ask? Three of them stood up to pray their evening prayer in congregation. The rest of the passengers were re-screened before the plane departed. This is newly elected representative Keith Ellison’s state, so we hope to hear some statements from him but CAIR has already jumped to the defense of these imams.
I would have been at the CAIR fundraiser last weekend had I not been studying ulum al-Quran with AlMaghrib Institute at George Mason University. On the last day, we had Dr. Mamdouh Mohamed, Muhammad ibn Faqih, and Yasir Qadhi teaching us, simply amazing.
Recommendations:
If you are in the DC area, take Dr. Mamdouh’s Quranic Arabic class at the Fairfax Institute in Herdon, Virginia which has six levels and goes through this set of textbooks.
Read Yasir Qadhi’s scholarly work: An Introducution to the Sciences of the Qur’aan.
Kramer is a racist. Whatever the excuses, anyone that resorts to racial epithets when feeling a bit under pressure is a racist. The fact that most of the time when things are going smoothly, one is able to keep up that “I’m not a racist” facade doesn’t mean your not a racist. Michael Richards and George Allen can whine about how they have been unfairly portrayed in the media or how they got the joke wrong but they made their own beds.
Excellent article written by a Nigerian (and no I’m not linking to him just because we are from the same tribe) linked over at Third Resurrection on the persistent and pervasive Arab denial of their racism towards black Africans.
Umm Yasmin has some articles on the meaning of the word Islam and a speech she gave at the Make Poverty History Forum alongside Father Frank Brennan and Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane.
Umm Zaid explains why media experiments like a day in the life of a Muslim or hijab/niqab for a day are inherently racist and akin to blackface skits in her series the The Pretenders Part I and Part II.
Viewer discretion is seriously adivised due to language and violence. Most shocking of all, a young Muslim student was tazed five times last week by over-zealous campus police at UCLA for forgetting his student ID card while using the library. Read more here.
Another reason to love cellphone cameras and video.
Ify Okoye 
I’m trying to get this image of Samuel L. Jackson as an iman out of my head. It’s not working.
I caught some of the pictures from that UCLA incident — found multiple references to it on PopURLs. Have to say, I think his being a Muslim was secondary. Looked to me more like an underpaid campus cop losing control of a situation and freaking out. Could be wrong, of course.
Hope you liked that URL pointer to the CSM article.
Sure, I used to work closely with some law enforcement types and I have a great deal of sympathy for them and I’m pretty sure most Americans would not be able to identify this guy as a Muslim.
Personally, I am of the opinion that you should never resist police instructions or direction and if you do then do not expect to be treated nicely.
Yeah, the article was interesting. Thanks.
RE: UCLA student – Yes, thank goodness for little brother and his cousin the internerd. Apparently the student didn’t forget his student card, reports are that he refused to show it until the security guards or whoever asked other more “white-looking” (my words) students. He thought he was being unfairly singled out. I will see if I can chase up the video of the interview with his lawyer inshaAllah.
Thanks for the update.
It’s unfortunate if he was the only one singled out. The librarian said the police routinely do ID checks during the late night hours at the library.
This reminds me of the time I was detained for about 90 minutes at the US-Canadian border by US Customs. A hijabi woman with 6 or 7 kids and I were the only ones there “randomly selected” and then when I began filling out a complaint form, some “white-looking” folks suddenly were also brought into the station but all of them departed before the Muslims.
Resisting police officers is never effective, it seems better to compile with their instructions and then follow-up with a written complaint, call CAIR, and possibly file a lawsuit.