Think Again readers are familiar with recent Islam-related events in our fair state. On Saturday, I had a piece in the Wall Street Journal that recounted the story to a national audience. Folks out there are interested — the piece was the No. 1-emailed article of the day from the WSJ. I reproduce it below.

The land of 10,000 lakes and that welcoming attitude we call “Minnesota Nice” — is becoming a window on America’s potential future. Here in Minneapolis, one of the nation’s most livable cities, hard-line Muslim activists are injecting an element that is anything but nice.

Troubling incidents began several years ago, when taxi drivers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport — about three-quarters of whom are Muslim — started refusing to transport passengers carrying alcohol. One woman, returning from France with wine, was turned away by five cabs in succession. Refusals of service now number about 100 a month, and heated altercations have erupted.

In September 2006, the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) proposed a two color top-light pilot project to indicate which drivers would accept passengers with alcohol. The proposal, later dropped, would apparently have marked the first time that a government agency in the U.S. officially recognized Shariah law, and distinguished individuals who follow it from those who don’t.

In November 2006, the six “flying imams” bumped the taxi drivers from the headlines. In Minneapolis for a conference, the imams were detained after engaging in what an airport police report called “suspicious” activity. Some prayed loudly in the gate area, spoke angrily about the U.S. and Saddam, switched seats and unnecessarily requested seat belt extenders with heavy buckles that could be used as weapons, according to witnesses. They were questioned and released later that day. The imams denounced the incident as racial and religious profiling. “If up to now, [Americans] don’t know about prayers, this is a real problem,” said Omar Shahin, one of the detained men and head of the North American Imams Federation. Twin Cities imams demanded a separate Muslim prayer room at the airport.

Last week, the six imams filed suit in U.S. district court in Minneapolis against US Airways and the Metropolitan Airports Commission, claiming discrimination and defamation. Now some Muslim cashiers at Twin Cities Target stores have begun refusing to scan pork products, like bacon and pepperoni pizza, and insisting that other cashiers or the customers themselves do it.

What’s going on? It appears that both local circumstances and activists with a big-picture agenda play a role. Take the taxi drivers. Minnesota is home to tens of thousands of Somalis, most recent immigrants. Behind the scenes, moderate local Somali leaders are engaged in a power struggle with national Muslim organizations that seek to exploit this vulnerable population. Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol but not its transportation, say Somalis who reject the taxi drivers’ stance. Yet in June 2006, the Muslim American Society’s (MAS) Minnesota chapter issued a “fatwa” forbidding drivers here from carrying alcohol to avoid “cooperating in sin.”

Hassan Mohamud, one of the fatwa signers, praised the two top-light proposal as a national model for accommodating Islam in areas ranging from housing to the workplace. But according to Omar Jamal of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, MAS is “trying to hijack and radicalize the Somali community for their Middle East agenda.”

Ahmed Samatar, a recognized expert on Somali society at Macalester College in St. Paul notes that “There is a general Islamic prohibition against drinking, but carrying alcohol for people in commercial enterprise has never been forbidden.” Similarly, Islam prohibits consuming pork, but not touching or scanning it, according to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the American Society for Muslim Advancement in New York. It is, or should be, “a nonissue.”

In Washington, the Democratic leadership is likely to seek passage of the End Racial Profiling Act, of which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called herself, in 2004, a “proud” cosponsor. Both MAS and CAIR are stumping for the bill, which would bar airport security personnel from disproportionately questioning Muslims or people of Middle Eastern descent. Minnesota’s Keith Ellison, the nation’s first Muslim Congressman, told me that the imams’ situation reflects a misunderstanding of Muslim prayer and will be sorted out in court, while the other matters stem from the normal process of immigrant adjustment.

The events here suggest a larger strategy: By piggy-backing on our civil rights laws, Islamist activists aim to equate airport security with racial bigotry and to move slowly toward a two-tier legal system. Intimidation is a crucial tool. The “flying imams” lawsuit ups the ante by indicating that passengers who alerted airport authorities will be included as defendants. Activists are also perfecting their skills at manipulating the media. After a “pray-in” at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., one credulous MSNBC anchor likened the flying imams to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

The comparison is misplaced: Omar Shahin, leader of the detained imams, has helped raise money for at least two charities later shut down for supporting terrorism. From 2000 to 2003, he headed the Islamic Center of Tucson, which terrorism expert Rita Katz described in the Washington Post as holding “basically the first cell of al Qaeda in the United States.” CAIR has long been controversial for alleged terrorist ties, while the Chicago Tribune has described MAS as the American arm of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, which “preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic.”

So far, Minnesotans have said a resolute “no” to Muslim activists’ agenda; in an informal Star Tribune poll, 92% of respondents blamed the imams’ own behavior for their airport detention. And Target — after unsuccessful attempts to accommodate Muslim cashiers — is reassigning them to other jobs. Still, there is a sense that we’ve seen just the opening skirmishes. As MAC spokesman Patrick Hogan put it, “I think people are afraid there will be a chapter two.”

Many Muslims in this nation are living and loving the American dream. Still, large-scale Muslim immigration may present a unique problem. European countries with significant Muslim populations are now facing a seemingly unbridgeable clash of cultures.

Will America do better than Europe at assimilating Muslims? The jury is still out. But recent local events — Somali taxi-drivers refusing to carry passengers with alcohol, Target cashiers refusing to handle pork, the flying imams incident — signal that difficulties lie ahead.

Some folks, however, are more sanguine about the prospects for assimilation. Here, for example, is the last paragraph of yesterday’s Star Tribune editorial about the imams’ lawsuit:

The last time immigration surged — about a century ago — the nation went through much the same anguish. Catholic immigrants were pressured to convert to Protestantism. German immigrants were suspected of spying. Chinese and Italians were accused of spreading disease and suspect cuisine. Americans have learned a great deal since then about assimilation and tolerance, but some lessons have to be learned over and over, even if the classroom turns out to be a courtroom.

What say you, readers? Will Muslim immigration create challenges unlike those experienced earlier in American history? Or is there a risk that Islam — or certain interpretations of it — will precipitate a fundamental clash with Western democracy?

The taxi controversy at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport has caught the nation’s attention. But the dispute may go deeper than the quandary over whether to accommodate Somali Muslim cabdrivers who refuse to carry passengers carrying alcohol. Behind the scenes, a struggle for power and religious authority is apparently playing out.At the Starbucks coffee shop in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, a favorite Somali gathering spot, holidaymakers celebrating Eid, the end of Ramadan, filled the tables on Monday. Several taxis were parked outside.

An animated circle of Somalis gathered when the question of the airport controversy was raised.

“I was surprised and shocked when I heard it was an issue at the airport,” said Faysal Omar. “Back in Somalia, there was never any problem with taking alcohol in a taxi.”

Jama Dirie said, “If a driver doesn’t pick up everyone, he should get his license canceled and get kicked out of the airport.”

Two of the Somalis present defended the idea that Islam prohibits cabdrivers from transporting passengers with alcohol. An argument erupted. The consensus seemed to be that only a small number of Somalis object to transporting alcohol. It’s a matter of personal opinion, not Islamic law, several men said.

Ahmed Samatar, a nationally recognized expert on Somali society at Macalester College, confirmed that view. “There is a general Islamic prohibition against drinking,” he said, “but carrying alcohol for people in commercial enterprise has never been forbidden. There is no basis in Somali cultural practice or legal tradition for that.

“This is one of those new concoctions.”It is being foisted on the Somali community by an inside or outside group,” he added. “I do not know who.”

But many Somali drivers at the airport are refusing to carry passengers with alcohol. When I asked Patrick Hogan, Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman, for his explanation, he forwarded a fatwa, or religious edict, that the MAC had received. The fatwa proclaims that “Islamic jurisprudence” prohibits taxi drivers from carrying passengers with alcohol, “because it involves cooperating in sin according to the Islam.”

The fatwa, dated June 6, 2006, was issued by the “fatwa department” of the Muslim American Society, Minnesota chapter, and signed by society officials.

The society is mediating the conflict between the cab drivers and the MAC. That seems odd, since the society itself clearly has a stake in the controversy’s outcome.

How did the MAC connect with the society? “The Minnesota Department of Human Rights recommended them to us to help us figure out how to handle this problem,” Hogan said.

Omar Jamal, director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, thinks he knows why the society is promoting a “no-alcohol-carry” agenda with no basis in Somali culture. “MAS is an Arab group; we Somalis are African, not Arabs,” he said. “MAS wants to polarize the world, create two camps. I think they are trying to hijack the Somali community for their Middle East agenda. They look for issues they can capitalize on, like religion, to rally the community around. The majority of Somalis oppose this, but they are vulnerable because of their social and economic situation.”

The society

What is the Muslim American Society? In September 2004 the Chicago Tribune published an investigative article. The society was incorporated in 1993, the paper reported, and is the name under which the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood operates.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna. The Tribune described the Brotherhood as “the world’s most influential Islamic fundamentalist group.”Because of its hard-line beliefs, the U.S. Brotherhood has been an increasingly divisive force within Islam in America, fueling the often bitter struggle between moderate and conservative Muslims,” the paper reported.

The international Muslim Brotherhood “preaches that religion and politics cannot be separated and that governments eventually should be Islamic,” according to the Tribune. U.S. members emphasize that they follow American laws, but want people here to convert to Islam so that one day a majority will support a society governed by Islamic law.

How are society members to respond when questioned about a Muslim Brotherhood connection? The Tribune cites an undated internal memo: “If asked, ‘Are you the Muslim Brothers?’ leaders should respond that they are an independent group called the Muslim American Society.”

The April 2001 issue of the society’s magazine, the American Muslim, lists “essential books” for understanding Islam. They include works by Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood’s founder, and Sayyid Qutb, one of its most violent theoreticians.

Here’s the flavor of these authors’ writings:

“Always cherish the intention of jihad and the desire for martyrdom in the Way of Allah, and actually prepare yourself for that,” wrote Al-Banna.

Osama bin Laden relied heavily on Qutb in formulating his world view, according to the 9/11 Commission. Qutb had “an enormous loathing of Western society and history,” states the commission’s report. He taught that “no middle ground exists” in the “struggle between God and Satan.” All Muslims must therefore take up arms in this fight, he said.

Hassan Mohamud is vice president of the society’s Minnesota chapter. The society is independent and has no connection with the Muslim Brotherhood, he said.

The Minnesota chapter’s website, however, states that the organization’s roots lie in the Islamic revival movement that “brought the call of Islam to Muslim masses … to reestablish Islam as a total way of life.”

Mohamud says the society has three goals: to present the “real image” of Islam in American society, to preserve the identity of Muslims here and to “make that identity fit without having clashes between cultures and laws.”

He emphasizes, however, that Muslims must follow shari’a, or Islamic law, in every aspect of their lives. “There are two conflicting systems here — two ways of life — that want to live in the same place and respect each other,” he says. The society aims to facilitate conciliation between the two.

Mohamud adds that Americans need to learn about Islamic law because the Muslim population here is growing. That’s why the proposed two-tier system for airport cabdrivers is important, he says. It could become a national model for accommodating Islam in areas ranging from housing to contractual arrangements to the workplace.

MAC officials will hold another meeting today about the airport controversy, and Mohamud says he will try to revive the two-tiered pilot project for taxis. Whatever the meeting’s outcome, we now have reason to believe that the issue is only a prologue to a larger drama playing out in Minnesota and the United States.