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Chronology of Islam in America (2011)
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
May 2011
Three Imams removed from plane after pilot refuses to fly them
May 7: Three imams including a US-born Muslim bound for a conference on Islamophobia were kicked off US domestic flights out of security fears, Imams and an airline said. Two imams boarded a flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Charlotte, North Carolina today only to have it return to the terminal so they could be put through "additional screening," said a spokesman for Atlantic South Airlines (ASA), the Delta Connection airline operating the flight. Masudur Rahman, a permanent US resident from India and former Memphis imam who teaches Arabic at the University of Memphis, said he and another Imam, a US permanent resident from Egypt and dressed in a shoulder-to-ankle Islamic robe, were pulled off ASA flight 5452 and cleared through new security checks. "But when we went to re-enter the plane, the Delta supervisor said 'Sorry, the pilot is not allowing you to enter,'" Rahman said. Delta negotiated at length with the pilot, noted Rahman, who said he was told that "some passengers might be uncomfortable" with their presence on the plane.
US-born imam Al-Amin Abdul-Latif of Long Island was barred from boarding an American Airlines flight from New York to Charlotte late Friday and told to return to LaGuardia airport for a morning flight Saturday, only to be refused boarding again, without explanation, his son said. "This morning we get to the airline, and the ticket agent told my father that the airline does not want him to fly. Those were her exact words," Abu Bakr Abdul-Latif said. "There was nothing he could do," said the son, who traveled on to the Charlotte conference without his father. The imams were flying to Charlotte to attend the North American Imams Federation 2011 Conference this weekend. Organizers said more than 150 religious leaders from across the country were meeting to discuss prejudice and fear of Islam or Muslims.
Rahman said the experience reminded him of Rosa Parks and her famous 1955 stand against riding in the back of an Alabama bus because she was black. "That racism, I felt today in the plane," he said. "It's racism and bias because of our religion and appearance and because of misinformation about our religion," Rahman said. "If they understood Islam, they wouldn't do this," Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the men called the council after the incident. Hooper said his group would review the incident to see if further action is warranted. Calling it a "Juan Williams thing," a reference to the fired PBS correspondent who said he was leery of flying with people in Muslim garb, Hooper added, "I think it's possible the whole bin Laden situation factored into this with heightened sensitivity all around." "I think they were obviously upset to the extent that they were inconvenienced, but, you know, they understand what's going on in the world and particularly in the heightened sensitivities after the death of Osama bin Laden," Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations told CNN. (AMP Report)
NY mosque moves forward despite 'terrorism'
May 10: A state judge ruled that the construction of a controversial mosque in Sheepshead Bay can move forward shortly after a lawyer for the developer hinted that opponents of the plan are terrorists -- citing inflammatory graffiti cheering the death of Osama bin Laden at the mosque site. Judge Mark Partnow dismissed a lawsuit filed by the anti-mosque organization Bay People and neighbors of the as-of-right project on Voorhies Avenue between E. 28th and E. 29th streets, ruling that the mosque wouldn't adversely effect the neighborhood. The ruling came shortly after the lawyer for mosque builder Ahmed Allowey accused opponents of the plan of acting like racist terrorists. "This is entirely motivated by racism," said attorney Lamis Deek. "[The Bay People] has forced my client to expend his resources for no good cause and terrorize people with the vitriolic rallies that they hold." She added that the anti-mosque group would never have complained if a church or synagogue was being constructed. "[They] claim that the mosque will be a nuisance and will be out of character with the neighborhood," she said. "They've held rallies, protests and filed repeated complaints with the city, but have never done anything like this to a nearby church that doesn't have any on site parking or a nearby synagogue that's twice the size of the mosque." (The Brooklyn Paper)
Mosques vandalized after Osama Bin Laden's death
May 10: Muslim-Americans in Louisiana's Shreveport-Bossier City metropolitan area reported the defacement of a local mosque by a man in a blue pickup truck, the most recent incident in a string of possible hate crimes following the killing of Osama bin Laden. According to police reports, a white male was seen tampering with the doors of a local mosque on Monday, and raw pork was found hanging from the door handles after his departure. Adherents of Islam do not consume pork, which they consider unclean. Although members of the mosque will not press charges, police have said the incident could be classified as a hate crime. "It appears that the individual who did this tried to intimidate the individuals at this location," Bossier City Police Department spokesman Mark Natale told KSLA-TV's Brittany Pieper. The Council on American-Islamic Relations asked the Federal Bureau of Investigation to launch an investigation into the incident. "These types of incidents will continue to occur as long as our nation's leaders fail to speak out forcefully against the growing anti-Islam sentiment in American society," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said in a statement. (Huffington Post)
American Muslims still live in a climate of hate
May 11: News of Osama bin Laden's death has not come without more incidents of backlash towards American Muslims. These individual episodes reflect not only the Islamophobia rampant in this country, but also the government policies that have fostered a culture of hate and suspicion towards law-abiding Muslims. A mosque in Maine was vandalized with the messages "Osama today, Islam tomorrow" and "Go Home." In Houston, a schoolteacher was disciplined for racially profiling a Muslim ninth-grader by asking if she was grieving her uncle's death on Monday. Also this week, Mohamed Kotbi, an Arab waiter who is suing his employer, the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, for religious and racial discrimination following the 9/11 attacks, has reported more taunts from co-workers following bin Laden's death. (Illume)
Muslim offers invocation at Calf. city council meeting
May 12: Before the Huntington Beach City Council (CA) meets every other week, someone walks up to the podium to lead a prayer after the flag salute. Prayers in public meetings often end with a phrase like "in Jesus' name," which reflects the country's dominant faith. But on the day following the announcement of the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden, a woman in a long, flowing, sky-blue dress and a blue scarf covering her hair walked to the podium. With her head down, she led the prayer. Maria Khani, a representative of the Islamic faith on the Greater Huntington Beach Interfaith Council, didn't lead the prayer on that Monday evening as a result of the news about the killing of an extremist who used her faith to commit terrorist acts that changed the world almost 10 years ago. In fact, it wasn't Khani's first time leading the prayer at the council meeting. ... While some continue to look at Muslims with suspicion, Khani's prayer at the council meeting is an example of the real story that is being written about Muslims in America today, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "It's a story of Muslims being accepted and recognized as part and parcel of our diverse American religious and social fabric," Ayloush said. "In America, for the most part, the face of Islam is the Muslim teacher, the Muslim doctor, the Muslim member of Congress, the Muslim student, the Muslim neighbor and the Muslim friend. And Bin Laden and his group are becoming and were becoming what they are: mostly an irrelevant, extremist and rejected phenomenon." (Los Angeles Times)
Jewish groups support CAIR’s lawsuit challenging Oklahoma Sharia ban
May 16: AJC is urging a federal appeals court to block implementing a new Oklahoma provision targeting Sharia law. "Singling out the religious law of one faith is simply unconstitutional and smacks of fear-mongering," said AJC Associate General Counsel Marc D. Stern. In a brief filed today with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in the case of Awad v. Ziriax, AJC argues that an Oklahoma constitutional provision adopted by referendum last November banning Oklahoma courts from relying on Sharia law is "flagrantly unconstitutional" for violating the "core nondiscrimination command of the Establishment Clause." The brief points out that there is no mistaking the discriminatory purposes of the provision's sponsors. They and their supporters repeatedly said that the proposal was intended to ward off the threat -- of which there was no evidence -- of an Islamic law takeover of Oklahoma's courts. The proposal, AJC notes, did not ban reliance on other forms of religious law, including Jewish and canon law. AJC is asking the appellate court to uphold a lower court decision granting a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the provision, known as State Question 755. (PRNewswire-USNewswire)
Clergy plan Quran readinings to combat anti-Muslim bigotry
May 17: Christian clergy at churches across the country will host readings from the Qur'an and other sacred religious texts as they welcome their Muslim and Jewish colleagues on Sunday, June 26, 2011 for Faith Shared: Uniting in Prayer and Understanding. Faith Shared is a project of Interfaith Alliance and Human Rights First, which seeks to send a message both here at home and to the Arab and Muslim world about our respect for Islam. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, along with 50 churches in 26 states have committed to participating in this effort. "The anti-Muslim rhetoric that has pervaded our national conversation recently has shocked and saddened me," said Interfaith Alliance President Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy. "Appreciation for pluralism and respect for religious freedom and other human rights are at the core of our democracy. We believe that demonstrating our commitment to those core American values will help counteract the intensified level of negative stereotypes and anti-Muslim bigotry in our recent public discourse." (Orlando Sentinel)
Will American Muslims vote for Obama?
May 17: Two years ago after President Obama stepped to a podium in Cairo and delivered a landmark speech to the Muslim world, he's trying it again. But among American Muslims, this week's speech will be received with a great deal more skepticism. "Just like the last time, we're quite happy if any president offers positive rhetoric toward the Muslim world or Islam, but it really needs to be backed up with concrete policy initiatives," says Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading American Muslim group. "We're still in Afghanistan, we're still in Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian situation has gone south. We're not there -- we're just continuing with the previous policies."It's not just foreign policy. Across the board, Muslims are expressing disappointment with Obama's progress on issues relevant to them in the domestic policy realm. What they express is not so much anger as disillusionment, a recognition that the president hasn't remade the political landscape for Muslims. (American Muslim opinions mirror international opinions. A Pew survey released Tuesday finds that citizens in majority Muslim countries remain skeptical of Obama.) The complaint mirrors, in many ways, one liberals have voiced: Pie-in-the-sky hopes, some encouraged by Obama and others projected on him, are proving more difficult to achieve than had been hoped. But it's been especially hard for American Muslims, of whom -- according to a CAIR survey in November 2008 -- a stunning 89 percent voted for Obama. And these disappointments are triggering an emotion that is surprising even the American Muslims feeling it: nostalgia for the George W. Bush administration. (David A. Graham, The Daily Beast)
Muslims targeted in U.S. terrorism cases, report says
May 18: The use of informants in high-profile terror cases constitutes a form of entrapment that targets Muslim Americans, says a new report issued today by said the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law. The report said that the government’s use of intrusive surveillance, untrained paid informants, and manufactured terrorism plots raise serious human rights concerns that must immediately be addressed. It urged the U.S. government to stop its discriminatory targeting of Muslim communities in counter-terrorism investigations. The Report, Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the “Homegrown Threat” in the United States, critically examines three high-profile domestic terrorism prosecutions - Shahawar Matin Siraj, the Fort Dix 5 and Newburgh 4 - and raises serious questions about the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in constructing the specter of “homegrown” terrorism through the deployment of paid informants to encourage terrorist plots in Muslim communities. "In the cases this report examines, the government's informants held themselves out as Muslims and looked in particular to incite other Muslims to commit acts of violence," according to the report. "The government's informants introduced and aggressively pushed ideas about violent jihad and, moreover, actually encouraged the defendants to believe it was their duty to take action against the United States."In all three cases examined in Targeted and Entrapped, government informants played a critical role in instigating and constructing the plots that eventually led to prosecution. In all three, the government also sent paid informants into Muslim communities, without any basis for suspicion of current or eventual criminal activity. The government’s informants introduced, cultivated, and then aggressively pushed ideas about violent jihad, encouraging the defendants to believe that it was their duty to take action against the United States. The informants also selected or encouraged the proposed locations that the defendants would later be accused of targeting, and provided the defendants with—or encouraged the defendants to acquire—material evidence, such as weaponry or violent videos, which would later be used to convict them. The defendants in these cases have all been convicted and currently face prison sentences ranging from 25 years to life. (AMP Report)
Anti-Islam speaker paid $5,000 for Rapid City, SD, appearance
May 21: A speaker at a Homeland Security conference in Rapid City whose remarks about Muslims sparked controversy earlier this month was paid $5,000 plus expenses for his appearance, Rapid City Journal reported today. The Rapid City Journal originally requested the fee amount immediately after the May 11 event, but Alexa White, assistant coordinator of Rapid City-Pennington County Emergency Management, denied the request. The Journal subsequently filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act with White, who released the fee information May 19. The speaker, Walid Shoebat, is an author and professional speaker who says he is a former terrorist in the Palestine Liberation Organization. Now converted to Christianity, Shoebat says that terrorism is inherent in Islam. His appearance at a state-sponsored conference attended by law enforcement was criticized by local Muslims and by national organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the American Civil Liberties Union. Shoebat spoke at the 2011 South Dakota Homeland Security Conference in Rapid City on May 11. He also spoke at the South Dakota Homeland Security Conference the previous year.
. . .Shoebat once told a Missouri newspaper that he sees "many parallels between the Antichrist and Islam" and "Islam is not the religion of God -- Islam is the devil." (Springfield News-Leader, 9/24/07) In a YouTube video, Shoebat said, "[I]f Islam is not playing the major role in Antichrist spirit, why do you think the devil wants to appoint somebody connected to Islam in the White House?" He told radio host G. Gordon Liddy, "No one is called Hussein unless he is Muslim. So it is very clear that Barack Hussein Obama is definitely a Muslim." According to an official who attended a similar Shoebat lecture at a conference in Las Vegas, the solution he offered for the threat of "militant Muslims" was to "Kill them...including the children." (AMP Report)
Congressional report says anti-Sharia bills violate constitution
May 24: Controversy has surrounded attempts by several state legislatures to limit the consideration of Islamic religious law (commonly referred to as sharia) or religious law generally, in domestic courts. In one of the most publicized examples, Oklahoma voters definitively approved a state constitutional amendment that prohibited state courts from considering “sharia law,” but the amendment has not taken effect pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. Other states have introduced variations of this limitation, with some generally prohibiting the use of religious principles in domestic courts. Critics have questioned the constitutionality of several recently proposed or enacted measures under the religion clauses of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Establishment Clause prohibits the government from establishing an official religion or showing preference among religions or between religion and non-religion. The Free Exercise Clause prohibits the government from burdening an individual’s ability to exercise his or her religious beliefs if the burden does not arise from neutral law of general applicability but instead infringes upon a particular set of beliefs. Any bill that would specifically ban sharia may be challenged as a disapproval of Islam in violation of the Establishment Clause or as an infringement on the ability of Muslims to freely exercise their beliefs under the Free Exercise Clause. Broader proposals that address religion generally would not necessarily comport with the First Amendment either, however. This report discusses proposals to limit the consideration by domestic courts of religious principles in general, and Islamic law in particular. It explains the role that religious law and beliefs may play in U.S. courts and analyzes the constitutional protections for religion in the First Amendment. Finally, the report also addresses the role of foreign and international law generally in U.S. courts and potential unintended consequences of restrictions on the consideration of religious or foreign law. (Penny Hill Press)
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