Tackling the Taboo Against Incarcerated Muslims

All prisoners must develop a tough exterior to survive in a harsh environment that contains no exits

BY RASHEED RABBI

It was the last Friday of Ramadan

2019, and Interstate I-495 South was backed up. The scorching sun had barely moved from its zenith, and its fiery heat waves were palpable inside my air-conditioned car. However, more than the heat or the resulting fatigue, I was fraught with worry about missing today’s 90 minutes slot, allocated to me about three months ago, to lead the Jumma prayer with male inmates at the Alexandria Trousdale Detention Center, Va. Being stuck in traffic soon gave rise to cynicism and frustration. Many intrusive thoughts questioned head-on my endeavor’s utility: Is 90 minutes worthwhile for these inmates? Around 20 to 25 minutes is allocated to the security protocol of escorting inmates to the prayer area, leaving barely an hour for the service. And even that one hour occasionally needs to be split in two because maximum-security and lowest-security inmates aren’t allowed to mix.

For typical U.S. mosques with an array of daily and weekly spiritual programs, an hour is more than enough. However, in prison there are rarely any programs for Muslims, mostly new converts and Muslims long detached from Islam. They have so radically diverse spiritual needs that it’s often hard to decide where to start any spiritual discussion. More difficult is to notice the lack of any apparent outward change in these intimidating-looking captives, covered in tough tattoos, having short cropped hair and mean expressions. Most of them cast a cold stare, manifesting an utterly ambivalent face, as if they could really care less or are too carefree.

Anxiously waiting in traffic made me question the utility of my time. Was it wise to opt out of leading Jumma service for local mosques and commit to doing so in a prison? Any neighborhood mosque would contain at least 250-300 adherents with outwardly visible signs of spirituality. In contrast, in the detention center I had at most 25-30 inmates, reserved and “emotionally numb.” In my other service location, the Loudoun Adult Detention Center, most often fewer than a dozen individuals attend. Moreover, all prison programs and services are subject to abrupt cancellation, as inmates can be locked down for unforeseen daily predicaments.

By the time I reached the center, I was debating whether to continue or quit this position. Putting those inner debates off momentarily, I rushed in. Luckily, the prayer service hadn’t been canceled and I had around 40 minutes left. Slowly, the inmates from different designated areas started arriving.

As I was getting ready, an inmate whispered that his friend wanted to take shahada This was completely unexpected, and my very first such encounter. I was speechless! In Islam, conversion means born anew. Abu Hurayra narrated a hadith that states: “If a servant accepts Islam and completes his Islam, God will record for him every good deed that he performed before and erase for him every evil deed that he did before. Then everything after that will be according to a retribution. For every good deed, he will be recorded ten-fold up to 700-fold. And for every evil deed he will be recorded similarly [one] for it, unless God overlooks that for him” (Tirmidhi and others).

Feeling humble, I recalled “And who is better in speech than one who invites to God and does righteousness and says, ‘Indeed, I am of the Muslims’ (41:33) and considered myself among the chosen. But inwardly, I was battling with cynicism. So, I sought to determine his original motive. Was it simply to receive special treatment during Ramadan, which isn’t unusual in correctional facilities, or a purely religious and spiritual urge?

He replied that he’d started to find answers for some of his inner questions. I made sure that it wasn’t something instantaneous. We talked for a while, and he explained that he had observed his cellmate for a couple of months and continued his exploration since then. Satisfied that he was sincere, I had him go through the ceremony associated with uttering the shahada in front of several witnesses As I was uttering those most familiar words, they suddenly appeared anew to me. I also felt a reorientation toward the religion I’ve been practicing my whole life. become hypervigilant and ever-alert. They adopt a tough veneer to keep others at a distance. Researchers have shown that prisons are full of men who espouse toughness and aggression and where those who don’t conform to these ideals are punished and forced to renegotiate their understanding of what being a “real man” means in this particular environment.

In other words, such behaviors as receiving support or demonstrating spirituality in

Muslims are engaging in interfaith discussions, and ready to take on the burden of learning and discussing intricate theological subjects. While interfaith engagements are unavoidable in America, prisons are more fertile fields for Islam’s faster and easier expansion. Prison chaplains/volunteers are primarily seeking recognition of basic dietary requirements and fighting for the prisoners’ rights to meet with representatives of their faith, receive religious literature and gather regularly for prayer and Jumma. All these efforts are increasing prison officials’ awareness of their Muslim inmates and the latter’s growing visibility.

Whether they are new converts or born Muslims, most of the inmates’ religious knowledge is very limited. They struggle to learn how to perform ablution, pray five times every day, fast and give charity. Therefore, any practicing Muslim with only a minimal amount of training can serve this largely abandoned population, earn endless reward and make a visible impact on inmates and the wider society. In fact, volunteering in prisons will privilege lay Muslims to give da‘wah and increase their own knowledge and confidence to practice Islam unapologetically in the West.

Such an event is very common in prison settings. Chaplain Hasan Saha, serving at Maryland’s Hartford Detention Center since 2015, confirmed this. Sharing his experience, he said that every Friday when adhan is called, he would invite inmates to pray the sunna prayer. He would then open a trust space and dialogue with the non-Muslim inmates present if any of them were ready to convert.

Other Muslim chaplains substantiate the claim of regular conversion in prisons. This explains why Muslims make up about 9% of state prisoners, despite making up only about 1% of this country’s population. This relatively high number of Muslim inmates is due to the fact that non-Muslim inmates easily find guidance and a strong sense of justice in Islam while serving time in correctional facilities, where justice seems to be more elusive and ambivalent. The normativity that Islam’s lifestyle restrictions bring to their lives encourages them to adhere to it firmly.

I soon discovered that their outward expression of aggression is very decisive and, in fact, needed to survive. Without any exit or escape, prisons are dangerous places where the weak are taken advantage of and the careless or inattentive are exploited. So, prisoners smell distrust and suspicion, and the form of correctional programming aren’t considered overtly masculine. A “real man” doesn’t show any weakness by acknowledging such needs. That’s why inmates hide their hunger for guidance. Being bereft of many choices, they are more sincere than many of those who appear at the mosque only to attend Jumma, the two Eid prayers or an occasional religious gathering. Inmates conceal their desperation for a disciplined life in the light of Islam and are more committed to applying day-to-day Islamic lessons literally.

Instead of judging them superficially, it’s time to overcome our community’s taboos around prisons, which remain a frightening or an out-of-reach realm to many religious individuals — even professionals. However, correctional facilities are run by our tax money, and it’s our responsibility to learn if due probation and rehabilitation services are offered to our fellow Muslims. The number of Muslim inmates stood at 11,073 in the U.S. Federal Prisons in 2020; however, according to https://www.fd.org (July 15, 2021), there are only 13 chaplains to minister to them. This staggering ratio is far more dramatic in the local detention centers, which depend solely on volunteers.

Interestingly, a growing number of

Finally, nothing could be sadder if American prisons, where opportunities of da‘wah are so rife, still remain a taboo in our community. We shouldn’t let any pandemic or preconditioned statistics downplay the urgency of serving our incarcerated fellow Muslims. It’s true that by the summer of 2020, a 15% decrease had been noted in the prison population, and a 25% decrease in the U.S. inmates (https://www.prisonpolicy.org/ reports/pie2023.html). However, those dramatic population drops were the immediate result of pandemic-related slowdowns in the criminal legal system, as opposed to any permanent policy changes. As the criminal legal system has returned to business as usual, prison and jail populations have started to rebound to their pre-pandemic levels. Given this reality, it’s imperative to make Muslim services in prison increasingly available to prevent us from becoming a prisoner of inner conscience as a Muslim. ih