Muslim woman cites gym after interrupted prayer
Dearborn resident says her complaint to Fitness USA manager about patron went unheeded.
Gregg Krupa /
The Detroit News
DEARBORN — Fitness USA, a gym chain, is investigating an alleged civil rights violation involving a local Muslim woman who says her afternoon prayer was interrupted by a fellow patron, and that her complaint to management about the situation was rejected.
“The manager told me, ‘You have to respect her (the patron), but she does not have to respect your God,'” said Wardeh Sultan of Dearborn. “I’ve had my membership for seven or eight years, and I’ve never had a problem with praying there.
“I told that manager, ‘I can’t believe you said that’ ” Sultan said. “Honestly, I feel humiliated and I feel ashamed, right now, to go back to Fitness USA.”
Local representatives of Fitness USA, which operates branches throughout Metro Detroit and in two other states, referred all inquiries regarding the matter to their corporate offices.
“We will, as we will with any complaint involving our staff and a member, be doing a full and thorough investigation of the matter and take any appropriate action we need to take,” said Jodi Berry, executive director of Fitness USA. “We want every member to get a good exercise experience every time they come to the club.”
Berry said she learned of the complaint on Monday.
The allegations are among a series of recent complaints by Muslims who say they are free to practice their religion in the United States, until someone tells them they cannot. Recently, the same Fitness USA facility enacted a new dress code to allow Muslim women to wear more modest clothing, in compliance with some Islamic practices.
Two weeks ago, six Muslim clerics were removed from a U.S. Airways flight after three of them said their evening prayers in the St. Paul-Minneapolis International Airport.
Passengers and employees of the airline said later that their suspicions were aroused when the men were overheard making comments critical of the United States, and because the men had one-way tickets and no baggage.
The airline and the civil rights office of U.S. Department of Homeland Security are investigating that incident.
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which lodged a formal complaint with Fitness USA on behalf of Sultan, said the recent spate of conflicts results from a growing intolerance of Islam and a growing restiveness among Muslims that their rights to speak freely and worship are increasingly at risk.
“They (Muslims) are resenting that they are to be suppressed from expressing themselves freely, like others,” Hamad said.
“It’s OK for a Christian fellow or a Jewish fellow to pray, and it would be regarded highly and respected. When it comes to a person of Muslim faith, especially if a woman is wearing the head cover or a man with a typical clergy outfit, yeah, it is becoming like something that is offensive to people and making them nervous.”
Sultan said that, like all pious Muslims, she prays five times daily. She also wears a veil and a long dress, in observance of her faith.
Born in Jordan, of Palestinian descent, Sultan arrived in Detroit 17 years ago, before moving to Dearborn. She is an American citizen.
Sultan said she came to the United States to secure her freedom and to avoid intolerance.
“We’re here in the great United States and for this happening, it truly breaks my heart,” she said. “You know, things are starting to change backwards, instead of frontward. We need to keep this United States, our country, up on our shoulders. We don’t want it to go down.”
UPDATE since the story was written above:
Wardeh Sultan, the Palestinian Muslim chick, got in the way in the women’s locker room and picked a fight with the women trying to get around her.
It appears that Sultan objected to other gym members’ exercise of free speech. It also appears that the whiny Muslim chick refused to identify herself to gym management and was being so disruptive, she was asked to leave and the police were called. The police arrived and questioned Sultan, and she was forced to leave.
And it looks like from the language used (“claimant”) that lawyers are already involved and a lawsuit is already being prepared:
ADC Michigan Concerned with Allegations Against Fitness USA
ADC Michigan is seriously concerned with a number of complaints that have been filed at its office, against Dearborn Fitness USA. Most recently, two female Muslim members were harassed by patrons and Fitness staff as they attempted to pray in the locker room. According to the information that ADC has received from the claimants and witnesses, the women were praying near the lockers when another patron began to make remarks and proceeded to push them. One of the claimants reported the incident. However, according to the claimant, the desk manager, rather than address the matter professionally, told the claimant that “she does NOT HAVE to respect your God, but you HAVE to respect her.” She then proceeded to ask the claimant for her card.
The claimant told the manager that she has done nothing wrong and refused to give her the card in fear of what she may do with it. The manager subsequently called the police and stated the claimant was “creating a disturbance and was asked to leave.” The claimant explained that she had not yelled, threatened, touched, or caused a disturbance, but rather brought the matter to the attention of the manager to explain what had happened to her. After being questioned by the police, the claimant left feeling fearful, humiliated and discriminated against. ADC Michigan is concerned with the inappropriate and unprofessional manner that this matter was handled and has requested that this matter is immediately addressed.
Wild Thing’s comment……..
Back in April I posted this ……..200 Burka Babes Take On Fitness Gym….. The women, Arrwa Mogalli and Ammerah Saidi, got their wish from doing their whine to the media and Islamic “civil rights” groups.
Well the Burka babes are at it again with this woman and her whine about her prayer being interrupted at a gym no less. And also please not how the writer of this article has his own slant on his pro Islam point of view.
And ever notice that their “offense” can be mollified by cold hard cash????
It is by design. They are testing, pushing. Look at how they have nearly consumed Europe. Look at Britain having areas controlled by Sharia law.
They are using our freedoms against us, to the point where religion will be THE dividing factor in this country- not race. Their goal is to abolish the Constitution. Period. And their so-called religion is not even a religion but a death cult so vile, horrible and destructive. It is not only a religion to the followers but the law they live under as well. Our laws are secondary if that to what they live by.
They are probing and pushing to see how far they can go before we snap. So far they have been incredibly successful in getting their way. They are learning that Americans are jellyfish without any will of their own. And we laugh at Europe? Our demise is right around the corner and we can’t even get our citizens to elect people who will fight rather than appease the enemy. We’re toast.
What about our rights?
They frequently forget we have rights, too.
Our fathers made the laws that govern free speech and they’re trying to take it away. They came here because they didn’t like the ways over there and now they want to bring those ways here? Excuse me, but I just don’t understand that philosophy. Maybe
I’m just one of those Americans who actually cares what happens to my country. Yeesh.
When a Christian or Jew prays, they usually just bow their head and bother no one and are in nobodies way. When a Muslim prays they have to sprawl out on the floor.
BTW, hasn’t this woman heard of Separation of Church and Fitness Center? Why, it’s in the Constitution right next to Separation of Church and State.
I also want to whine. I want to whine again about the piss poor leadership in America that is letting these muslims continue to come into our country. The muslims dispise us, they want to destroy our culture and take America as theirs. Our cowardly leadership cannot throw political correctness in the dumpster and call a turd a turd.
As Wild Thing says, these sorry ass prayer rug humpers will use our own freedoms against us. There are already so many of them in America we cannot count them(but we can shoot the bastards if it comes to that).
“Hey President Bush, Get your head out of your goofy ass and look around. You have F—ed Up badly. Now you are a lame duck. Use that. You don’t have to worry any more about what anyone thinks. No one likes you anyway. Screw the Liberals these last 2 years. You have already royally screwed us Conservatives!”
I think his presidential library should be in either Mexico City or Riyadh.
There, I whined and did not even need a law firm to back me up!
I have had it up to my a$$ with whining a-rabs.
If this country pi$$s them off so bad why in
hell don’t they pack their shit and get the
F**k out and go home…By the way don’t let
the door hit you in the A$$ on the way out…
There’s a word for this, lots of them, in fact, but to keep it clean, the word is “infantilization”. I wonder if Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and any of the dialects of the Muslim world can express this concept. Another is “entitlement”, another is “tolerance”, too many to mention.
If these people ever win, in the real sense, within a generation we’ll have regressed to the level of cannibals. Nothing in the modern world that wasn’t placed in their laps by geography or Western enterprise is their own creation.
Lynn, I agree with you!!! And I really believe there are people that don’t care, that don’t give a hoot what happens to America. They only care if they have too much traffic on the way to work etc. that kind of thing.
Bob……….”Separation of Church and Fitness Center?”………Hahahahahaa
Good one!
Tom now that was an excellent whine. Yep!
Tincan Sailor I agree, they sure have an agenda and they are doing it no matter what, because of all the PC BS it is a success. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Rhod, exactly!!! I think oyur right too about if it happens it will show up within one generation. Very concerning to say the least.
Checkout Powerline John Hindraker archives
12/02/06,December 02, 2006
Mark Steyn on America, Europe and Islam its
worth the efffort, my feelings to a T…
I prefer to call them Moslems, it offends the bastards. Pronounced “mawzlem” which sounds somewhat similar to an Arabic word for “oppressed”. They are oppressed by their cult of death which is why they need the religious police to terrorize their sorry hides, I hope they stay forever in the 7th century.
There are a large number of people in this
country that don’t give a rats a$$ what goes
on as long as the get theirs,well there is an
even larger number that do give a damn and we
are the folks with the “GUNS”…The rags had
best be careful what they wish for as it will
come at them in spades…
Easy solution. Offer no apology and no money. Period. Make that clear up front. Then inform the stoopid chick that she can pray all she wants, just like she was doing when the incident occured.
But… inform her that the other patrons who pay to use the gym, also have the right to step all over and on her while she is praying in front of the lockers, or wherever she sets up, sorry, throws down her rug.
After a few Nikes to the head, or some sweaty girl garb dropped on her and her rug, she’ll get the hint to take that part of the routine elsewhere. If not, gym members get a free kick bag and a rug to clean their shoes on.
They act like 2 year olds not getting their way and too many in this country act like those parents you hate to visit because they never say no to their bratty behaving kids; the kind that after their kid throws a whopper of a temper tantrum, they give them candy to shut them up.
Drives me batty!
They want to pray? Fine – go home and pray. Are they incapable of adjusting their schedules? I know, I know – that isn’t the point. When are we going to frickin’ wake up and smell the mecca?