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Six Muslim Imams were escorted off of a US Airways flight at the Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport yesterday evening when three of the men caused a disturbance on the plane.

The plane, Flight 300, was headed for Phoenix, Arizona.

Associated Press reports that a passenger alerted the crew about the Muslims by passing a note to a flight attendant. Andrea Rader, spokeswoman for US Airways, said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and the men refused.

The Muslims were apparently returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, five of the six are from the Phoenix-Tempe area; one is from Bakersfield, California. The president of the federation, Omar Shahin, is one of the Muslims involved.

The disturbance began when three of the Muslims stood up on the plane and started to pray. Omar Shahin said he attributed concern expressed by passengers and the crew to ignorance of Islam.

Ignorance of Islam? No Omar, I don’t think its ignorance.

Those passengers and crew apparently realized that in too many instances when a group of Muslim men simultaneously start a public display of prayer, bad things often follow. Bad things like Muslim men hijacking airliners and then flying them into buildings. If my memory serves me correctly, this type of thing happened on the morning of September 11, 2001.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is going to file a complaint with “relevant authorities” over the incident according to Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR. Hooper went on to say; “Because, unfortunately, this is a growing problem of singling out Muslims or people perceived to be Muslims at airports, and it's one that we've been addressing for some time.”

Umm, no, sorry Ibrahim, but many Americans think there isn’t nearly enough attention paid to Muslims or “people perceived to be Muslims” at airports. I think we’ve all heard anecdotal evidence about 80 year old grandmothers who are given a groping in security lines at airports while Muslim and/or middle-eastern men are not inconvenienced in any way.

Once again, if my memory serves me correctly, the nineteen hijacking murderers of September 11, 2001 were middle-eastern Muslim men.