www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall 6 Imams Removed from Flight - will File Suit

On a personal note, while I am all for the right to pray anywhere and everywhere, I have flown numerous Arab airlines including Emirates, GulfAir, Royal Jordanain, and others - never has one Muslim ever gotten up and prayed in the middle of the aisle during any flight I've been in, not once. I think the Qur'an even specifically makes exceptions for travelers. I also wonder how these Imams performed the required ablutions properly in a tiny airplane washroom. Something smells really fishy, but I don't think most Americans or the media will catch it.

Michael,

I think you are right. Either they were:

1. Setting up the passangers so that they would react the way they did and garner media attention.

2. Performing a public ritual as a way to display their righteousness to others on the plane. I have prayed the Horologion on a plane, especially on long flights. I have yet to chant, bow, make multiple signs of the cross or light incense and candles on the plane. These men were clearly imprudent, especially in the climate where Muslims have gone through martyrdom rituals in private and then flown planes into buildings killing thousands. All people saw were muslims acting erratically on a plane. Who can blame them for being upset?

So they are either deliberate disrupters or just thoughtless buffoons.

My friends, which are moslems, usually do their prayer while sitting during a journey. The purification ritual is done by wiping their hands and face, kinda symbolic purification without using water.

I have flown on planes many times with Greek Orthodox priests, bishops, and even archbishops. I always hope that they are praying as fervently as I am during take off and landing, but I have never seen them initiate an Orthodox prayer ritual or chant!!!

Alice

Not even during the Great Fast??? I've seen films of Muslims flying to the Hajj. Never saw any jumping into the aisle to pray, but noticed all of them praying while seated. Watch out for CAIR. Can you say Salafi? How about Wahhabi?

CDL

I guess it is very easy to see into another's soul??

NOPE!

But now, I bet we see a bunch of these incidents. They have found this one might work, so it is a way of using our own system of governance against us. And, I'm pretty sure they think it will go in their favor or they wouldn't be wasting their time and energy on it.

Common sence would say after 9/11 you don't do that!

I have no idea to whom this is directed. I can't see into another soul but I can read. Stephen Schwartz, "The Two Faces of Islam".

CDL

I think Brian's comments were directed at me.

NO it is not easy to see into another's soul. I've been working very hard on the technique, but get it right only 50% of the time.

Did you hear that our little muslim imam buddies after performing their very public ritual divided up two by two and went into seats that were NOT assigned to them?

Even without my fully functioning Harry Potter powers I can smell publicity stunt when I hear about it.

Snakes on a plane indeed.

"Reached by cell phone just after his release, [Imam] Shahin said..."

How did the media already know about this before they were even released?

If I went through and substituted Catholic in that article, I would be outraged. If 6 of our bishops were traveling and were pulled off a flight because they were seated next to a child, I'd be fuming. However, if I were part of a group of male Muslim leaders traveling by plane together in this climate, I would probably be cooperative and informative with the airlines, communicating with them before and during about our presence. I wouldn't be happy that I needed to, but I would know that it was the current reality and would do it anyway. It seems that they were asked to clarify their intentions and they refused. That wasn't wise. I just can't get over the "Reached by cell phone just after his release" line.

CAIR is a radical front group for the Wahhabists of Saudi Arabia. The Imams did not need to go into the aisle when they should have been seated and pray at precisely that moment. Despite the insistance of some Muslims the saying is not "When in Rome do like the Meccans do." But they wish that to be so.

Until the Ummah can figure out a way to stand up against these radicals they will always be suspect in the eyes of every civilized person.

CDL

On the one hand one can understand a bit that if one is living a life of witness for ones faith one will wish to pray and preferrably in public. In Christianity there are parameters to such public prayer as Jesus outlined in his famous parable contrasting the prayers of the Pharisees with the sinner's prayer. But since that is not the way of Islam, that prayers in public are to be valued, then one can see that when such witness is limited by anyone the prayer may be frustrated.

On the other hand, imagine that you and/or your fellow religionists have made it clear that you consider America to be the enemy of the human race. That you and your fellows have called "America the great Satan". Imagine that you or your fellow religionists have carried out acts of murder and mass assasinations over the entire history of your religion. Imagine that the terrorism has increased against those not of your religion over the last few years. Imagine that you have lived in America for enough years so that you know that security measures have increased over that same period in an effort to preserve lives. Imagine that those measures include insistence that when you enter a plane that you sit down and buckle up when the pilot and his crew tell you to and only get up to go to the bathroom. Imagine that in many cases of terrorism done by your co-religionists on airplanes have been done by people who have no baggage to check and that they only purchased one way tickets. Imagine that you have entered the plane with a group of friends and many in your party have no checked baggage and only one way tickets. Imagine that you and many of your friends decide to speak in hateful terms about America and then begin to speak loudly in a language that few understand but recognize as language used by people who have a long history of assasintions. Also, imagine that you and your co-religionists have, for the most part not only not spoken out against the murders committed by your co-religionist but have in fact insighted much of the violence.

Can you imagine given all of that the surprise you might have when people take your actions and words very seriously and request that you be escorted off of the plane?

This was what we used to call "street theatre". True it was done on a plane and not on the street but thankfully, we think, it was either only a dry run or done for shock value. I say, thankfully, because either they were caught before they could do anything or they did not intend to kill anyone...this time.

Now imagine that for decades the American educational system has been dominated by Academics not only in colleges but in elementary and secondary schools who are Marxists and have taught the fully vacuous theories of "social justice". We have allowed this poison to be fed to our children. We ourselves have drunk deeply from its wells. We have done so for so long that we hate and distrust not only most things one might identify as American, are afraid to stand up against the real evils of Western Society, and actually defend those who are determined to kill us.

CDL

The majority of Islamic scholar have stated that the Qur'an allows for combining of prayers, shortening of prayers, or even limited gestures of prayer during travel and/or danger. The Ramadan fast can even be abrogated for travelers. This whole this is a sham to bring attention to themselves. Ironically, the Imams are RIGHT about one thing - if Americans did know about Islam as they should, we would realize this whole suit is BOGUS and call them on it!

the Muslim clergy were imams, which if I am not mistaken are Shiite, and not Wahabbi/Sunni.Shia Muslims were not part of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, while the Wahabbis were. if I remember correctly, a couple of years ago a couple of Orthodox Jews were observed doing their prayers while they were passengers aboard an airliner, and the same thing happened to them that happened to the imams. I guess this is to be expected in "fly over America", where ignorance of anyone different from the usual WASP norm rules. I can just picture a hypothetical scenario: a couple of EC or Orthodox priests and/or monks board a plane. some inbred (I ain't got no tayf)who is one generation removed from a trailor park (to use Hannibal Lector's phrase) races hysterically to an airline official and let him/her know that some bearded men dressed like "Ayrabs" wearing pincushions or lampshades on their heads look like some of them thar hijackies and must be stopped.
I am no friend of Isalm, it is like all non Christian expressions of religious belief, false, and their adherents must embrace Christ for salvation, but I also think common sense and sensitivity must be exercised. I also agree with an above poster who said pretty much that it would have been more prudent of the imams to not be so conspicous in their prayers, ulike some of the more fanatical types in our own religious faith who conveniently forget what jesus said about ostentatious displays of religiosity in public.
Much Love,
Jonn

So they were "imams" They were not wearing any clerical garb or anything that would indicate they were clerics and looked like a bunch of "working guys"