The Grand Jihad - How Islam and the Left sabotage America by Andrew McCarthy ..... Part 3

Additional passages from the chapter: The Enclave of Minnesota

...At the Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport -the same place where the Flying Imams decided it was opportune to play out their hijinks - Somali taxi drivers, who make up three-quarters of the busy terminal's 900 cabbies, began refusing service to passengers who were carrying alcohol (shopping bags from the duty free shop are a tell-tale sign). The ball, it turned out, got rolling in 2006 when the local chapter of the Muslim American Society issued a fatwa admonishing Muslim taxi drivers that transporting passengers with alcohol in their baggage was a violation of sharia.

As one learns to expect, the resistance soon expanded to other sharia culprits: passengers accompanied by dogs , and even some who appeared overtly homosexual. The reluctance to ferry dogs - which are often needed by passengers with disabilities - was predictable. In 1997, Daniel Pipes has reported, a New Orleans taxi driver, Mahmoud Awad, was so incensed when a passenger tried to bring a dog into his cab that he yanked her out of the vehicle by her broken arm screaming, "No dog, no dog, out out, get out!" CAIR rushed to his defense, helpfully pointing out that "the saliva of dogs invalidates the ritual purity needed for prayer." Good to know that.



The transportation authorities, who would not for a moment countenance a driver's refusal to serve Muslim passengers, reacted to this affront by ....... consulting the MAS. With their sensitivity thus enriched, the authorities opted to respond not by withdrawing licenses but by engaging the cabbies on the finer points of sharia. To wit Muslim law, they counseled, proscribed the consumption of alcohol, not its trasportation. .......

Sharia, the Muslim aversion to canines, and the traditional Islamist focus on dominating the education system proved to be too toxic a brew for Tyler Hurd. Because the twenty-three-year-old St.Cloud State University student was prone to seizures, he attended school in the company of his service dog. The black lab, called "Emmitt," was specially trained to protect Hurd, toting a pouch that contained items that would help passersby aid him in the event of an episode. Hurd was enrolled in a teacher-training program that required field work at local high school. At Techical High, this brought Hurd into communion with scores of Somali students. Their Muslim faith, the St.Cloud Times deferentially reported, "forbids the touching of dogs." As a result, there was much taunting and, finally, threats to kill the canine.




Fearing for himself and his animal, Hurd complained to officials at his college. St.Cloud State bravely resolved .... to waive Hurd's remaining raining hours: giving him credit for completing the course without doing the required work in order to avoid a confrontation with menancing Muslims. A university official, the paper recounts, opined that it was "important to respect different cultures and the rights of disabled students." He added, "I think this is part of the growth process when we become more diverse."

The growth process also includes suspending students out of fear for their safety. That's what happened to an Owatonna High School senior who, in an assignment to write a class paper, chose the topic "Somalian Privileges," complaining thtthe Muslim students were not required to adhere to various school rules. He and his mother were promptly summoned to the school and advised that he would be suspended, officially for "language and inappropriate comments," but unofficcially because school officials feared he would be attacked. After a few days that officials hoped would be a "colling off period," the boy returned to school.... and was mauled by a gang that grew to somewhere between twenty and forty Somali students. He had to be hospitalized for head injuries.



As combustible as the clash of cultures is,it may be the least of the education problem. There is also the elevation and subsidization of the single Muslim culture. To accommodate Muslims, the state of Minnesota is using its charter school law to operate an Islamic public school, a benefit accorded no other religious group. Taxpayers foot the bill for the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy in suburban St.Paul, to the tune of nearly $4 million per annum. That is the allegation of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota, which has filed a suit, claiming a breach of the First Amendment's proscription against establishing a state religion.....