Christians Under Attack

CBN News recently traveled to Minneapolis, where demands by some Muslim immigrants are causing a backlash.

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has traditionally been known as a busy Midwestern hub -- not a cultural battleground.

That changed last November, when six Muslim imams were kicked off a U.S. Airways flight there. Passengers complained the imams were praying loudly and moving about the plane speaking Arabic.

The incident sparked a media firestorm and many local Muslims blamed the airport, not the imams. It also highlighted a cultural divide in the twin cities.

Much of the debate surrounding Muslims in Minneapolis centers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. Not only did the infamous "Flying Imams" incident take place here; there's also been an ongoing controversy surrounding Somali Muslim cabbies refusing to carry passengers who have alcohol in their possession.

Katherine Kersten, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, said, "The Muslim American Society - Minnesota chapter issued a fatwa regarding the transportation of alcohol by cabbies at the airport - telling them that essentially they would burn in hell, that they would be cooperating in sin, that they would be forbidden to do this."

The Chicago Tribune has described the Muslim American Society, or MAS, as the American arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide Islamist movement.

Somali activist Omar Jamal says that groups like this have attempted to radicalize the city's growing Somali Muslim population.

"The majority of Somali people really thought that the idea was crazy -- to refuse service to a passenger carrying alcohol," Jamal explained. "And this was only cooked up by a very small group -- and other organizations like MAS and CAIR."

The airport has threatened to suspend any cabbies who turn down passengers for religious reasons. But that hasn't stopped the radical movement from expanding its influence.

The Minneapolis Community and Technical College recently installed ritual foot washing basins in its bathrooms. Muslim students will be able to wash their feet before they pray.

Kersten says the school hasn't always been so eager to accommodate students' religious beliefs.

"There is a very strong disfavor on the part of the administration when it comes to Christianity," she said. "You know, Christmas decorations, any music that has even a remote connection to Christmas during the Christmas holiday season. Whereas the administration there seems to be bending over backwards to provide welcome and accommodation to Muslim students."

School officials declined CBN News' request for an interview. The school has been consulting with the Muslim Students Association's accommodations task force on how to better serve its Muslim students. The MSA. was founded by the Saudi government.

Kersten says the group wants more than just foot baths.

"They want to see separate housing for Muslim students on campus," she said. "They want to see separate food, or halal -- ritually pure food. They want separate hours for Muslim women in gyms and swimming pools. They want imams and religious counselors paid with public funds. And they want religious and holiday observances of Eid -- the end of Ramadan and other Muslim holidays on public school campuses here."

Some local Muslims feel they have been victims of discrimination and that the accommodation is overdue.

Ahmed Tharwat hosts "Belahdan," a cable program in the twin cities focusing on Arab-American issues.

"We used to think, like, racism and immigrants' issues are blacks' or Latinos' issues," he said. "And now we find out that we are the new blacks in this country now."

"We are a country of customer service," he said. "We accommodate the big, the divorced, the gay, the tall, the overweight. We accommodate a lot of people, including Muslim cashiers at a Minneapolis Target store who refused to check pork products. Pigs are considered unclean in Islam. So the cashiers were reassigned to another department."

Likewise, 70 Somali Muslims recently walked off their jobs at an Omaha meat packing plant because they weren't given enough time to pray. They were allowed to return to work.

Tharwat says these are labor-management issues that should be resolved by the companies.

But Kersten fears that America could be heading down the same path as Europe and Canada, where a growing number of Muslims are demanding to govern themselves by Islamic Sharia law.

She says an official from the Muslim American Society told her the following:

"All you Americans should be learning Islamic law, because it's going to be important. There are two systems here that conflict, and they'll have to live in harmony."

Tharwat says that the choice is simple.

"We have eight million Muslims," he said. "What do you want to do with them? Do you want to alienate them the way we did to blacks and other minorities? Or do we want to accommodate them and not fall in the problem the Europeans did?"

Muslim leaders here say that Minneapolis should serve as a model for other U.S. cities in its willingness to accommodate its Muslim minority.

But critics say there's a fine line between accommodation and subjugation. It's an issue that other U.S. cities may soon have to deal with, as their Muslim communities continue to grow in numbers and influence