The Case of the Flying Imams: CAIR's Campaign to Criminalize Scrutiny of Muslims in Airports

In November 2006, six Muslim clerics were returning from a Minneapolis meeting of the North America Imams Federation when they suffered racial profiling. They said their normal evening prayers; suspicious passengers called more suspicious airport police; the imams were taken off the plane in handcuffs, interrogated, and denied boarding for additional flight. This is the narrative, according to the imams themselves, and according to representatives of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "As Americans, we deserve security based on intelligence and evidence - not paranoia, false reporting, bigotry and witch hunts at 32,000 feet," wrote CAIR's national legal director. The SF Chronicle and other defenders of human liberty jumped on the CAIR bandwagon. The imams first called for a boycott of US Airways and then, in partnership with CAIR, lauched a lawsuit against US Airways as well as the "John Doe" passengers who complained of "suspicious behavior." CAIR called for "Congressional hearings on religious profiling." The imams' spokesman, Omar Shahin, declared: "We did nothing."

But US Airways, the Minneapolis airport authorities, and the passengers on the plane tell a different story. It seems that the imams angrily cursed the US at the gate before boarding. They then engaged in their evening prayers and at high volume.

This sort of ostentatious behavior, incidentally, I have never seen at any prayer time in any airport in any Muslim country. (When traveling, Muslims may "make up" missed prayers at the beginning or end of the day; most do so, or else pray discreetly in their seats.) Once on the plane, the imams did not go to their assigned seats. Instead, they fanned out in pairs to the front, middle, and rear of the plane, exactly as the 9/11 hijackers had done. Next, the imams began to walk back and forth, speaking in Arabic. They asked for seat belt extensions, which were provided, though none of them needed them or used them. At this point, passengers quite rightly became suspicious.

Flight attendants asked the imams to return to their assigned seats and return their seatbelt extensions. They refused. The flight attendants then asked the imams to leave the plane. Still they refused. Then airport police boarded, and the imams walked off the plane with them, chanting "Allah" loudly as they did. (Later, the imams were to claim they were handcuffed and attacked by dogs; the police report says otherwise.)

The evidence is highly disturbing. It is worth emphasizing that CAIR's lawsuit is not only against US Airways but also the individual passengers who alerted flight attendants to the imams' suspicious behavior. Should the lawsuit succeed, it would have a chilling effect on the ability of average citizens and law enforcement officials to report or react to suspicious behavior. One could not dream up a better scheme to coerce airports into looking the other way when suspicious behavior takes place. One could not dream up a better way to prepare the ground for the next 9/11.

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has condemned CAIR's lawsuit:

"In its 12 year history the Becket Fund has represented clients from Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and other traditions. This is, however, the first time they’ve ever opposed someone’s claim of religious discrimination. The Becket Fund will also promptly seek leave to file a brief in the case urging the trial court to keep secret the identity of the John Does. Hasson said they were driven to such action by the outrageousness of the Flying Imams’ tactics. 'We know religious liberty. Religious liberty is a client of ours,' Hasson says in the letter. 'And this claim is not about religious liberty.'"

Meanwhile, in a reassuring reminder that not all US Muslims support CAIR's terrorism-enabling actions, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, led by Zuhdi Jasser, has volunteered to raise money for the defense of US Airways and the John Does. The House of Representatives voted to protect the John Does in a largely symbolic gesture. But Democratic politicians protested that to oppose the imams would "encourage racial profiling." To which I reply: How exactly is Islam a race? And why should people be discouraged from awareness of suspicious behavior?

CAIR, of course, has a checkered history. It has been involved with many terrorist organizations over the years, such as Kind Hearts, a "charity" that funneled money to Hamas bombmakers. It has defended people like Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Al Qaeda operative and orchestrator of the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. It is generously funded by the the same Saudi government that brought us the Pakistani indoctrination schools. It has, quite rightly, been called "the PR machine of militant Islam."

What is disturbing is that CAIR has managed to pass itself off as a civil rights organization, even as it seeks to undermine US security by criminalizing any scrutiny of Muslims in airports.

As Emilio Mola of the pro-Franco Spanish Nationalists once said, "I have four columns with me, and a fifth column [of sympathizers] inside Madrid." Bin Laden might well say the same about CAIR and its flying imams.