Imams on a Plane: NY Times' Neil MacFarquhar's Grossly Misleading Review

Pro-Muslim New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar covers the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's attempt at a Muslim sitcom, "Little Mosque on the Prairie," and manages to get what he considers a sad example of life imitating art almost totally wrong.

"The handsome, clean-cut young man of evidently Pakistani or Indian origin is standing in an airport line, gesticulating emphatically as he says into his cellphone, 'If Dad thinks that’s suicide, so be it,' adding after a pause, 'This is Allah’s plan for me.'

"As might be expected, a cop materializes almost instantly and drags the man off, telling him that his appointment in paradise will have to wait, even though the suicide he is referring to is of the career kind; he’s giving up the law to pursue a more spiritual occupation.

"The scene unrolls early in the pilot of a new Canadian comedy series called 'Little Mosque on the Prairie.'

"Yet that fictional moment is an all-too-possible occurrence, as witnessed when six imams were hauled off a US Airways plane in Minnesota in November after apparently spooking at least one fellow passenger by murmuring prayers that included the word Allah."

Wrong. Reporter MacFarquhar apparently couldn't be bothered to learn the basic facts of the imam case (admittedly those facts are thin on the ground in the mainstream media). It's bad enough that the story was ignored by the press -- but for MacFarquhar to omit all the pertinent details for the sake of pro-Muslim spin compounds the error.

The Washington Times had the details MacFarquhar and the rest of the press ignored.

"Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials.

"Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted 'Allah' when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix.

"'I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud,' the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department.

"Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated with the September 11 terrorist attacks and also found in probes of U.S. security since the attacks -- two in the front row first-class, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisle and two in the rear of the cabin.

"'That would alarm me,' said a federal air marshal who asked to remain anonymous. 'They now control all of the entry and exit routes to the plane.'"

For more New York Times bias, visit TimesWatch.