Five Muslims who were detained after praying at an American football game want to turn the incident into a tool to teach Americans about Islam.
The incident occurred when the men attended a New York Giants home game against the New Orleans Saints on September 19. The New Jersey residents were removed from their seats and questioned by FBI agents after other fans saw them bow to the ground as part of the five-daily Muslim prayers.
“As Muslims, we just have to pray when it’s time to pray,” Sami Shaban said during a Wednesday news conference in New York. “We thought nothing of it. I pray in malls. I pray everywhere.”
The 27-year-old law school student said he and his friends were questioned for about 25 minutes and missed part of the second half of the game. After they were released, an FBI agent told Shaban they had been unwitting victims of racial profiling, he said.
The FBI said the men were questioned because they congregated near an air duct at the stadium, not because they were praying. The Muslim men dismissed that explanation.
“Let’s be real here. If anybody with my description even scratches their ear, people get nervous,” said Mostafa Khalifa, 27, who, like Shaban, wears a long beard and was among those detained. “I did nothing wrong. I should not change.”
Shaban said his life purpose now is to ensure Muslims have a good name in the United States.
“I’ve been a Giants fan since I was like six years old,” he said. “I don’t want it to be that any time a Muslim goes to a Giants game they can’t enjoy the game… because of the length of our beard or the way that we are.”
Anyone who’s been a Giants fan for 21 years deserves compassion.
21 years? And this is his first game? And he lives in NJ?
yeah……sure. He’s not trying to drum up some business for the ACLU.
Uh, Bob. Where does it say this was the 1st time they went to a Giants’ game?
Muslims around the world, including those in the US should do more to convince the world that they are not a threat to anyone.
The majority of Muslims must distance themselves from terrorists which misused Islam in their struggle.
The Muslims world should be the one to take active role in solving terrorism rather then non-muslims countries like US.
Inaction from Muslim countries may lead to serious misunderstanding and negative perception against Arabs and Muslims around the world. This may lead to discriminating cases such as those mentioned.
See the PROBLEM was…they weren’t praying for a touchdown.
The first crusade was in 1095. Muslim/Christian relations has been soured since then. Lets face it, for the most part they are both very intolerant of other faiths, but that is the nature of most religions.
Oh yeah, no one in Texas ever prays during a football game!
““Racial profiling”? I didn’t realize Islam was now a race.
Chris
Comment by Christopher Meisenzahl ”
No, its not a race, there are no races… There js only one type of human beings, we are only different by ethnicity.
I think that they did put some sort of hallucinogenic into the air duct. Giant fans are beginning to believe that they can go to the Superbowl.
>> The FBI said the men were questioned because they congregated near an air duct at the stadium, not because they were praying.
I don’t believe this for a minute. If five cute white women were congregating near an air duct, do you think they would have been detained and questioned? No way.
>> Muslims around the world, including those in the US should do more to convince the world that they are not a threat to anyone.
And Muslims around the world think we average American citizens must do more to publicly denounce the hegemonic neo-cons! Our silence, they say, implicates us.
But that’s an unrealistic expectation, too. If an average Muslim had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with 911, then why should they publicly denounce or apologize? I don’t remember any conservatives publicly apologizing when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murah Federal Building.
SEE! This is why I do not like religions. What exactly is the point?
Frankly, I’m sick of this nonsense. The Muslim and Christian religion have the same roots. They are based on the same notions. They sprang from the same region of the world, same needs. Its like Pepsi and Coke in eternal battle.
If everyone were moderates in religion, there wouldn’t BE an issue.
I dislike Muslim AND Christian fundi’s… to me they are both suffering from the same “condition”. I believe it’s called “ME FIRST AND ONLY THINK WHAT I THINK-ITTIS”. None of their religious mucky-mucks have any clearer a connection to god than you-or-I, or any of us. They just claim to. Leaders who lie….are the root of all evil.
Let’s make a deal: You believe what YOU want to believe, and I’ll believe what I want to believe, and we keep it to ourselves. No one is better, no one is worse. We’re all equals. People are people, right?
And why is it that we don’t have Buddhists trying to rule the world, Pinky? Or, why aren’t Hindu’s getting into the fray? What about those who have Native American beliefs? Because THEIR religions do not have a culture of destoying other cultures (well, with the exception of a few of the minor Native Americans.)
Frankly, I’m sick of this nonsense. The Muslim and Christian religion have the same roots. They are based on the same notions. Its like Pepsi and Coke in eternal battle. I dislike Muslim AND Christian fundi’s… to me they are both suffering from the same “condition”. I believe it’s called “ME FIRSTAND ONLY THINK WHAT I THINK-ITTIS”. It’s weak minded people looking to find easy answers, because its easier than thinking for themselves. I’m ashamed of us.
Actually there is conflict in India and Pakistan surrounding Hindis, Muslims and Sikhs. As usual the broohaha is based on ignorance and greed for power rather than any real religious conflict.
By the way:
MY PRETEND FRIEND IS BETTER THAN YOUR PRETEND FRIEND
If the men had been terrorists and had done something to the air supply and it was later learned that the authorities had not acted in fear of racial profiling, the masses would be calling for someone’s head on a platter. In a perfect world its easy to say we should all be blind to race, sex, or ethnic background, but we do not and we have to act. Its not always right, but it is necessarry.
gq — you allow me to use one of my favorite quotes from Ruud Gullit when being harassed by irrelevant hypothetical questions: “If, if, if, if? If my auntie had a dick she’d be my uncle!”
I’m just saying…
if wishes were horses beggars would ride,
if turnips were watches I’d wear one by my side.
Seems to me…that we can’t act on IF’s but on actions. “What if” is a poor excuse for stupidity.
Fundamentalists of all kinds are dangerous.
Reason is not part of their biological makeup.
See Muslim terrorists, the Bush nutcases (Iraqis would call them terrorists as these nuts are the “supposed” Christian version of the same fanaticism but in reality fascists – along with all their stupid supporters who’ve been neo-conned), the Taliban, Stalin (communist version), Lenin, Mussollini, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler (the most insane), etc….All these dictators have no respect for the liberty of those not of their cliques & definitely for the sovereignty of other countries.
The only fundamentalist to be is a fundamentalist anti-fundamentalist.
Notice how all these “leaders” had Karma come back to bite them on the ass. Problem is, regular Joes wanting to just be @ peace, just working the daily grind, have to get caught in the crossfire of them all.
The Crusades have not gone away, they just have high tech toys now.
Meetsy, Its easy to say that when YOU don’t have to make those decisions. Those of us in law enforcement have to make these choices all the time, all the while having to worry about people like YOU monday morning quarterbacking. If they had been terrorists YOU would probably be one of the first ones calling for my head. Trying sticking to what YOU know best, whatever that may be.
Damn, why ARE we so down on Muslims?
Just because Muslims held our embassy personnel hostage for a year, murdered 200 peacekeeping troops in Lebanon, murdered a wheel-chair bound, 69-year old when they hijacked the Achille Lauro, bombed the World Trade Center, downed an airliner killing all aboard, killed 17 sailors when they attacked the USS Cole, killed hundreds when they bombed our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, murdered 3,000 of our citizens in New York and Washington and then danced in celebration — certainly these are not sufficient reasons to be suspicious of a group of Muslims acting odd at a football game.
Wake up! When the Ayatollahs and Mullahs are unified in their condemnation of terrorists — instead of encouraging suicide bombers with promises of 70 virgins in the afterlife — then, and only then, should Muslims be excluded from “profiling” by law enforcement.
IF’s my ass.
Meetsy, what a delightful tale of reality in Iran. My favorite relative on my wife’s side of the family tells similar stories about the time he spent in Iran. He was there before the royalty were kicked out for the 2nd time. He actually oversaw the laying of all the underground telephone cable for the city of Tehran.
A lifelong Republican — until the stupidity and arrogance of George W. prompted him to leave after 50 years — he has the world of respect and friendship for the Iranian people. He’d be the first to tell you, as well, that Uncle Sugar ain’t seen nothin’ if we’re stupid enough to invade Iran. It will make Iraq look like a tea party. Don’t forget, Hussein tried to defeat the Iranians for years — with the help of Rumsfeld, et al., and failed utterly.
The Iranians will never forget that it was the United States CIA and local gangsters who overthrew their 1st democratically-elected government — to reinstate the bloody Shah. It was my 1st experience with US imperial arrogance. As a young dude in night school, I walked into my first course in organic chemistry — to meet a wonderful professor, Hassan Zandy. Mr. Zandy was a member of that government and had just barely escaped with his life and returned to the US. Since he was a US citizen, the idiots in Washington couldn’t keep him from returning to teaching here. He delivered an impassioned and tearful speech that 1st night — trying to charge us to live up to our Constitution and traditions, reminding us of our responsibility to keep our elected government from acting like Nazis — or the Brits and the French — in the colonial world.
So much of the fundamentalist hatred we now have to deal with results from decades of arrogant, greedy policies throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The chickens truly are coming home to roost.
Meetsy, I am moved not at all. I can only conclude that you approve of terrorists. You must believe they are justified in killing, not just our citizens, but their own women and children. Oh, wait a minute, the suicide bombers are only killing women and children belonging to a DIFFERENT religious sect! Of course that’s ok.
Re-read my post. The only damn condition I set was for their religious leaders to condemn terrrorism. You know, the sort of thing that all CHRISTIAN leaders have done. What the hell is your problem with that? Give me a glimmer of hope that there is actually a brain behind your posts.
Smith
Show me examples of where OUR so-called home-grown religious leaders have condemmed terrorism — against anyone who’s for abortion, anyone who’s gay…. and look who’s promoting terrorism. Look who’s seeking to make the Christian v. Muslim a world war.
Let’s think about this.
What’s the number one item on the agenda of the Christian Right?
Last fall, supporters of the Christian Coalition gathered on the Mall in Washington to express their faith and to lobby the administration. The rally was organized by the Christian Coalition, which wants to make sure that the Bush Administration sees the struggle in the Middle East between Jews and Muslims their way – the Christian way.
Read the article: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/03/60minutes/main524268.shtml
“Falwell believes most Muslims want to live in peace but, he says, the lines have been drawn. Christians and Jews are on one side, Muslims on the other and, he says, those lines were drawn more than a thousand years ago. ” Falwall has since said that he doubts Jews will rise to the occasion, and they must take a side (the intent was to either convert or die).
Pat Robertson, CBN Anchor and host of the wildly popular and factually inaccurate 700 Club, called for the assassination (i.e. MURDER) of the president of Venezuela.
What about this peace loving quote: “I really believe that the Pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians, … the ACLU, People For the American Way – all of them who have tried to secularize America – I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this [terrorist attack] happen.” Jerry Falwell, 700 Club, 2001-SEP-13.
This may be too heady for you, but it’s a good article on what is at work here, with fundamentalists…
http://psychematters.com/papers/young2.htm
“”Thinking about the dynamics of this way of thinking intrapsychically, why do people become fundamentalists? People or peoples or groups somehow come to feel deeply threatened. Poor people, disenfranchised people, displaced people, embattled people, refugees. In a reduced state people cannot bear uncertainty. What people do when they feel under threat is to simplify. To simplify in psychoanalytic terms is to regress, to eliminate the middle ground, to split, dividing the world into safe and threat, good and evil, life and death.””
Smith, I don’t know what has happened in your life, but you are trying to make the world black or white. It’s not, it’s lots of shades of gray. Get a grip man!
Oh, and yes, there IS a brain here. Probably hard for you to recognize it, though, you see, I use mine.
The gathering at a sensitive area of the men with islamic beards, who are a law student and a fellow who previously has posted on pro-islamic spreading sites things such as ” Our brothers and sisters, our young and old, our sick and our weak in Palestine, Kashmir, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, the Philippines, Sudan Gujarat, Guantanamo Bay, Europe, North and South America – – they are all suffering because we have let them suffer, by not fulfilling our duties to Allah and to each other, thinking only of ourselves. … ”
The people who were detained and investigated have PURPOSEFULLY set out to create an issue so that they could get on their SOAPBOX and try to cow Americans into NOT REPORTING SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES.
These people are the Fifth Column within America, make no mistake. If we take the idiotic bait and “feel sorry for them” then we will facilitate their takeover of our country with this most recent expansionism and imperialism of islam.
It’s sad that everyone judges Islam by it’s people, but not by it’s teachings. I am myself am a American Born Muslim. And a proud Muslim at that. My faith in God has brought nothing but happiness and content in my life. Without Islam I know I would be lost. I recognize that there are a few crazy, so called “Muslims” who do things that is actually AGAINST Islam. Anyone who has studied the religion knows that Islam condems any terrorist acts.
Islam the truth:
http://www.beconvinced.com/en/main.php
And Seminars on Islam:
http://www.almaghrib.org