There is a general Islamic prohibition against drinking, but carrying alcohol for people in commerci

In an article today, lion king on broadway tickets " Don't Bring That Booze into My Taxi ," I take up the issue of hacks at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) and their unwillingness to transport passengers who visibly carry alcohol. Here are some additional lion king on broadway tickets points of interest that could not fit the column.
According to one commentator on my website, Wiley Freeman , the two-light solution is already dead, due to taxi industry disapproval. He writes: "It appears the taxi companies feared that taxi customers would boycott the Muslim taxis, identifiable by their lights. They also feared that customers would use other means of transportation."
Neither I nor anyone lion king on broadway tickets I queried has ever heard of cabbies lion king on broadway tickets in a Muslim-majority city raising an objection to carrying a passenger with liquor. Even Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American Islamic Relations acknowledged that the cab drivers at Minneapolis-St. Paul International are the first he's heard objecting to carrying alcohol.
There are reasons to doubt that the drivers' understanding of the Koranic prohibition on alcohol makes sense. The ban on alcohol concerns its consumption, lion king on broadway tickets not its transportation. Mohammad Al-Hanooti, a specialist on Islamic law, states that "some Islamic scholars disagree altogether with the Minneapolis Muslim cabbies' interpretation of Islamic law." Al-Hanooti himself explicitly finds that "it is lawful for a Muslim driver to carry a passenger who has alcohol." He dismissed the cabbies' concerns: "They think it is unlawful because they carry this feeling from home, because they come from Muslim lion king on broadway tickets countries."
I raised the prospect of Muslim drivers objecting to – and refusing to transport "women with exposed arms or hair, homosexuals, and unmarried couples." I could have mentioned transgendered individuals, but did not. Today, I learn that this issue has already arisen, not at MSP but in the city of Minneapolis, according to a news report from the local Fox affiliate. (For the article, click here ; for the video, here .)
In her bright pink hat, Paula Hare has found herself waiting on her stoop a lot lately, for taxi cabs that never come. Not to avoid confusion, Paula even tells the taxi dispatcher she's transgendered. But on three occasions when the taxi actually showed up, she says Muslim drivers have refused to give her a lift. "This is more than just religion, it's flat out discrimination," Hare said. "And we've got laws against that in this state." The city of Minneapolis lion king on broadway tickets says she's right. Of the nearly 2,000 taxis in the Twin Cities metro, estimates are as many as half the drivers lion king on broadway tickets are recent immigrants – many Muslim.
The same item reports from MSP: "When FOX 9 stopped by the airport lion king on broadway tickets taxi lot to talk about the controversy, we got a near riot. No one said they would give us a ride with a bottle of wine, and they told us to go somewhere else."
Also, in a December 2005 incident, three homosexual men say that a Blue & White taxi driver threw them out of his car when returning from a bar in downtown Minneapolis. They exchanged a kiss in the cab – "It wasn't anything very intimate, just a peck on the cheek," at which point the driver started yelling and "making statements like he can't be surrounded by people like us—it was against his religion." He ranted at them, "Burn in hell," lion king on broadway tickets and "Go to hell," then ordered the passengers out. The identity and religion of the driver are not known; but everyone involved is assuming him to be a Muslim.
Back in 2000, the Council on American-Islamic Relations jumped in to the fray with its usual helpfulness. "There is a large group of Muslims out here," remarked Damon Drake, CAIR's local outreach director. "Now that the Muslims are here, they need to be accommodated." Building on this aggressive attitude, Drake suggested that passengers lion king on broadway tickets with alcohol be segregated from everyone else and be handled by "special call" drivers willing to transport alcohol who could jump the line to take them. In proposing this, CAIR not only sought state endorsement for the Muslim prohibition on alcohol but tried to shift the burden of being anomalous and exceptional – not the Muslim driver shunning liquor but the alcohol-consuming passenger.
Passengers reacted with displeasure to the Muslim aggressiveness: "They're really kind of imparting their religious lion king on broadway tickets views on the public," said Katie Patterson of McKinley, Texas, who suggested that the cabbies should perhaps "look for other work."
If anything, airline personnel seem to be even less pleased: lion king on broadway tickets Eva Buzek , a flight attendant, returned to Minneapolis from a trip to France and encountered five straight taxi drivers who refused to take her home because she was had two bottles of wine in her suitcase. Buzek, lion king on broadway tickets an immigrant from Poland, considered this un-American. "I came to this country and I didn't expect anybody to adjust to my needs. I don't want to impose my beliefs on anyone else. That's why I'm in this country, because of the freedom. What's going to be next? ... Do I have to cover my head?"
Non-Muslim taxi drivers at MSP would seem to dislike this situation the most. "To work out here is the choice of the driver," lion king on broadway tickets says one of them, Tim Swiler. "We're talking about the choice to run a business. If you choose not to transport alcohol, that's your choice. It's the same choice if you decide not to take someone with a cane or a limp, a toupee or a bad hat. Go to the back of the line."
Comment : The Minnesota taxi drivers remind me of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf in 1996, when this professional basketball player refused to stand for the American national anthem before the start of games. As a Muslim, he said, he could not honor the American flag, which he described as a "symbol of oppression, of tyranny." Not surprisingly, the whole Islamist establishment opposed him, as his stance lion king on broadway tickets threatened to undermine their carefully constructed mock patriotism. In a similar way, the cabbies took a step whose implications smarter Muslims reject. (October 10, 2006)
The two-light solution has been abandoned. We are still looking for a solution that will protect the needs of the traveling public while at the same time attempting to be as sensitive as we can to the Muslim community. Service is and should be the paramount concern.
I am grateful to the many of you who answered lion king on broadway tickets my request (at " Don't Bring That Booze into My Taxi ") to send e-mails with your views about the two-colored taxi lights planned for the Minneapolis airport. As I noted yesterday (at " No Islamic Law in Minnesota, for Now "), your responses were key in the proposal being scrapped.
lion king on broadway tickets This unprecedented effort caught the attention of the publishers of the New Pamphleteer , a publishing company lion king on broadway tickets just launched with a series on the Hezbollah War . Adam Bellow, president and editorial director at the New Pamphleteer, believes that this successful letter campaign has enduring political and historic importance, so he has asked me to publish a selection of the e-mails. The pamphlets, which are 4" x 6" and average 60-80 pages, are published in association with Pajamas Media.
I will edit and introduce the pamphlet – but first, I need the text of letters sent to the Metropolitan Airports Commission. lion king on broadway tickets Could those of you who wrote in and who wish to be included in this compilation, please send two items to me (by hitting "reply" on this e-mail) and also to Adam Bellow, at publishme@pamphletguys.com :
By affixing my digital signature below (i.e., by typing in my full name) I attest that I am the author of the email submission attached to this letter. I hereby also grant rights to The New Pamphleteer to reprint the submission in print and electronic forms.
The taxi driver took me to a liquor store (1 of 3 that existed). When I came back [carrying a six-pack of Heinecken] he told me: "I cannot take alcohol in my taxi." "I don't drink it!" I said. It did not help. I had to walk back to town center. lion king on broadway tickets Two hours walk at night. That was in Bahrain and I was the foreigner, so I adapted. For this to happen in the U.S is unacceptable.
Oct. 26, 2006 update : Katherine Kersten, a columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune , digs deeper today in " Airport taxi flap about alcohol has deeper significance " to find where the taxi flap originated. She starts by hanging out with the Somali taxi drivers at a Starbucks, where they make clear the ban on alcohol-totting passengers was not their own idea.
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. lion king on broadway tickets 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.
There is a general Islamic prohibition against drinking, but carrying alcohol for people in commercial enterprise has never been forbidden. There is no basis in Somali lion king on broadway tickets 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. I do not know who.
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 lion king on broadway tickets 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, lion king on broadway tickets Minnesota chapter, and signed by society officials.
(It bears noting, however, that the taxi and alcohol issue predated this MAS involvement