Saying the word Allah on an airplane can get passengers handcuffed and interrogated.

Evidence

On Monday, November 20, 2006, six imams were removed from a U.S. Airways flight as they tried to head back home to Phoenix from the North American Imams Federation conference in Minneapolis. The New York Times reported that a fellow passenger passed a note to a crewmember claiming there were six suspicious Arabs on the plane who had said the word Allah several times and cursed the United States’ “involvement with Saddam Hussein” (Sander 2006). In the note, the passenger also provided the seat numbers for the imams. As a result of this note, the imams were handcuffed, removed from the plane, and then interrogated for several hours by the FBI. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 205

Categorization

• SEED: The six imams incident is a concrete case for an essay on how religious speech acts get translated into security threats.
• XREF: connects to: He then quotes a Palestinian fighter in Afghanistan to show his definition of jihad: holy war against the West and violence against ‘Jews and infidels.’ Such a simplistic and superficial definition of jihad causes him to blame all Muslims for the consequences of militant Islam. His book leaves readers with the idea that all Muslim immigrants are potential terrorists simply because they are Muslim. He completely ignores the identity of the American Muslim population, painting Islam as a ‘foreign’ and ‘terrorist’ ideology that has penetrated American society. In short, his book depicts any identification with Islam as a threat everyone, non-Muslims and Muslims alike because it cannot coexist with other religions due to its inherent nature of allowing Muslims to impose their faith on others. Furthermore, Emerson deliberately leaves the word ‘Allah’ untranslated in his book in order to give off the idea that the Muslims’ concept of God is different from the Judeo-Christian concept of God. He also uses terminology such as ‘holy jihad’ and ‘militant jihad’ in order to instill fear in his readers.; Saying the word Allah on a plane triggered detention of six imams; Airports function as a panopticon where Muslims must prove loyalty to avoid discipline. — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 323 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Saying the word Allah on a plane triggered detention of six imams #exemplifies (0.90)
• Airports function as a panopticon where Muslims must prove loyalty to avoid discipline. #expands (0.55) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 323
• Airports function as panopticons where Muslim Americans self-police ordinary behaviors. #expands (0.55) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 323
• Airport surveillance publicly signals to the population that Muslims are potential terrorists #expands (0.50) — , Selod, Saher - Forever Suspect_…, 338