Traveling While Muslim: Six Muslim Business Travelers Detained for Praying

Six Muslim clerics on their way back from a Minneapolis conference were detained on Monday after a startled passenger heard the men reciting their traditional daily prayer toward Mecca and alerted the flight attendant that he thought the men were suspicious.

US Airways has not made accommodations for the Imams, nor has it arranged for them to travel back to their hometowns of Phoenix, AZ and Bakersfield, CA.

Research has shown that racial bias and stereotyping are–to some degree–a part of human nature. After 9/11, it’s to be expected that some people would be wary of folks who bear any kind of physical, linguistic or customary resemblance to Islamist terrorists they’ve seen on the news. But if we continue to eject people from airplanes for simply praying in a foreign tongue, or for bearing a physical resemblance to Mohammed Atta, then the terrorists have won.

A free society is a society based on trust. When we get on an airplane for a business trip, we’re trusting that our fellow passengers will not try to kill us or use our airplane as a battering ram against a building. As travelers, we must continue to err on the side of that trust unless we see some tangible evidence that indicates the likelihood of an attack. Flight attendants should also have the good sense to distinguish between standard prayer rituals like the one these men were practicing, and terrorist behavior. Finally, airlines should have the common decency to admit when they’ve made a terrible mistake, and make arrangements for unjustly detained passengers to at least get home safe and sound.

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