NFL flap highlights America's favorite game: Insulting Islam

I don't usually watch football, let alone Monday Night Football. It involves too much hype and too much violence. It's too patriotic, too black and white, too territorial — too American.

But like millions around the world, I heard the news about the Muslim player who got penalized for praying on the field. And I heard lots of discussion and debate about the motives and the double standard and the National Football League's Islamophobic culture.

The Washington Post opened its story with a headline that is not so strange for Muslims nowadays: "NFL penalizes Muslim player for praying." Then it reported: "When Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah intercepted a Tom Brady pass and returned it for a touchdown Monday night, he did what so many other NFL players do to celebrate a big play: He paused to make a religious gesture of thanks." The report went on: "But Abdullah, a devout Muslim [by the way, I have no idea what that means], found that his religious display was met with less latitude than, say, Tim Tebow when he brought Tebowing into the NFL." According to the Post, "Abdullah was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct because he slid to the ground, then knelt in the end zone."

Tebowing is another religious kneeling celebration that involved the ground. Apparently, celebrating by dumping a tank of Gatorade on a coach is also OK.

I don't think this is about religion. It is about NFL control. It is about keeping the biggest American sport — American. No Muslim praying monkey business.

I have no trouble understanding this double standard. The NFL is in the business of promoting major sponsors' products, not God.

It's a sport where violence is permitted and celebrated, constantly cheered on by half-naked young women on the sidelines.

Muslim prayer as a post-score celebration has been common in the world of "football" (soccer) for years. That sport features players from all over the world, and each celebrates in his own ways and culture — including Muslim players who score goals. But in our post-ISIL beheading era, we here in America live in a very different world, where people on the street, politicians and the media (led by Fox News) call for the beheading of Islam.

Of course, the NFL has clarified the kneeling ruling, saying "Abdullah should not have been penalized." Michael Signora, the league's vice president of football communications, said in a tweet: "Officiating mechanic is not to flag player who goes to ground for religious reasons."

As Winston Churchill once said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing — after they've tried everything else." The NFL's penalizing a Muslim for praying was a mistake, but not as big a mistake as our drones make every day in Afghanistan and Iraq, Yemen and Syria.

Abdullah tried to see the positive side of all this. He said he spoke with Chiefs coach Andy Reid, who explained that the flag likely came for the slide, not the prayer after the "pick six."

"Stop before you drop," Abdullah said.

Given that the Chiefs smashed the Patriots, 41-14, sportswriter Larry Brown wrote on his website that "maybe the referees thought Abdullah was rubbing it in and didn't realize his gesture was a simple prayer."

ReallyRick put it more bluntly with a tweet: "You can rape, murder, beat, fight, etc but dont even THINK about praying!"

The difference between raising your hands to the sky or kneeling to the ground could be, for the NFL, just 15 yards. But culturally, it is a much wider distance.

Coach Reid rained on this end-zone prayer debacle with a very interesting analogy. Reid didn't agree with the penalty, but he also didn't make much of the controversy. News reports quote him going on to say: "When you go to Mecca" [for him, the end zone], "you should have the privilege to slide anywhere you want to slide. We have two priests in here. I think they will vouch for me."

Good timing, coach, especially just as millions of Muslim pilgrims are reaching Mecca right now in the time of hajj. I can't help thinking of some hard-core football fans sliding around the sanctuary house in celebration.