BLACK AMERICA, PRISONS AND RADICAL ISLAM

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BLACK AMERICA, PRISONS
AND RADICAL ISLAM
A REPORT
September 2008
Center for Islamic Pluralism
Washington, DC
London
www.islamicpluralism.org
www.islamicpluralism.eu
Published by
CENTER FOR ISLAMIC PLURALISM (CIP)
1718 M Street NW #260
Washington, DC 20036 USA
BM 2394, London, WC1N 3XX
www.islamicpluralism.org

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Black America, Prisons and Radical Islam
Published in the United States in 2008
by the Center for Islamic Pluralism
1718 M Street NW #260
Washington, DC 20036 USA
www.islamicpluralism.org
www.islamicpluralism.eu
First edition: September 2008
Design: Asim Mesihi
ISBN 978-0-9558779-1-9
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is pending with the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Copyright © Center for Islamic Pluralism
All rights reserved
The authors’ rights have been asserted
This document may be reproduced and reposted by any user
with acknowledgement of authorship and original publication
Printed copies are available for free, by postal delivery, to
individuals incarcerated in the federal, state, municipal, and local
correctional systems in the U.S.

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CONTENTS
Prefatory Notes
Page i
Endorsement by Shaykh Kadhim Mohamad
Page iii
1. Introduction
Page 1
2. Black Separatism, Pseudo-Islam and Islam, and
African Americans in Prison
Page 6
3. U.S. Justice Department Federal Bureau of Prisons Inspector General’s
2004 Review on Training of Muslim Prison Chaplains
Page 16
4. U.S. Justice Department Bureau of Prisons Inventory of Prison Chapel
Holdings in Islamic Religious Literature
Page 29
5. Appendix: British Prisons and Radical Islam
Page 31
6. Center for Islamic Pluralism
Conclusion and Recommendations
Page 32
7. Notes
Page 32
8. Index
Page 34

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PREFATORY NOTES
Black America, Prisons and Radical Islam is a scholarly work of great merit by the Center
for Islamic Pluralism (CIP), highlighting a national security need which deserves urgent
attention.
The disproportional number of African American young, discontented, and often
repeated offenders in the U.S. correctional system provides a captive audience for the
Wahhabi ideology of radical Islam, with its alleged universal appeal and sense of
brotherhood. While this problem may be recognized by the concerned authorities, finding
a solution in a bureaucratic and increasingly politically-correct environment, with
commitment of limited government resources, may appear daunting.
The problem of Islam in prisons requires a complex and honest discussion of the
subject. It is bound to be controversial because of the real and perceived social inequities
and injustices experienced by the large African American population subjected to slavery
in the U.S. However, as highlighted in this CIP report, it is imperative for the federal and
other correctional authorities to be fully educated about this critical issue.
The report makes several valid points in identifying the challenges of radical Islam
in prisons.
First is the need for understanding Islamic concepts and terminology. Second
and more important is a more thorough screening during recruitment of religious service
providers for Muslim inmates, to prevent prisoners falling prey to radical Islamic
indoctrination. Because of the complexity of the issue, coupled with the scant resources
within the correctional system, it is only prudent that this process should engage the
expertise of individual Muslims and organizations with a record of denouncing radical
Islamist teachings and analyzing sentiments of social disaffection.
The suggestion to scrutinize the foreign funding and travel of potential volunteers
as religious service providers also has merit but would invariably require assistance from
Muslim personnel with expertise overseas, who can recognize the geographical centers of
radicalism. Many places offering jihadist teachings (medresas) are located in countries
allegedly friendly to the U.S., such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
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While the role of the Joint Intelligence Coordinating Council ( JICC) has been
correctly highlighted for implementation of official recommendations, it would be
preferable, if found to be constitutionally permissible, for the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security to monitor for substantial periods applicants for Muslim chaplaincies
and other Muslim religious service providers as part of their initial screening.
Jalal Zuberi, MD
Southeast U.S. Director, Center for Islamic Pluralism
Morehouse School of Medicine
Atlanta, Georgia
This Report was prepared by Center for Islamic Pluralism Fellow Imaad Malik in cooperation
with CIP staff. Brother Malik was born in 1965 in Michigan and resided in Canada from
1982 to 1998. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Social Science from the University of
Western Ontario in 1998. He then returned to the U.S. where he now lives.
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ENDORSEMENT
Brooklyn, New York
September 11, 2008
11 Ramadan 1429
BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF ISLAM:
THE AHLUL BAYT MOSQUE, INC., (formerly the “Brooklyn Mosque”), an American Muslim
Community of all nationalities comprised mostly of African-American, West Indian and
Hispanic American believers (located in downtown Brooklyn), has long supported —and been
supported by — the Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) in its struggle against the monopoly
over prison Islamic chaplaincies held by the Wahhabi movement in the U.S.
We fully endorse the documentation and analysis included in the new CIP report, Black
America, Prisons, and Radical Islam, as reflecting the unfortunate reality faced by incarcerated
Muslims in confronting the Wahhabi domination over Islamic religious life behind bars in the
U.S.
Shia inmates continue suffering undue harassment in their struggle to practice Islam
according to the teachings of the Ahlul Bayt. Prison chapel libraries include few works of Shia
devotion or theology.
Your distribution of and support for the present report will greatly facilitate the struggle
to secure the religious rights of all Muslims in U.S. correctional institutions.
Thank you very much for your support and may Allah (SWT) reward you for your
efforts.
Shaykh Kadhim Mohamad
Islamic Scholar and Imam of the Ahlul Bayt Mosque, Inc.
543 Atlantic Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11217, USA
Office: (718) 852-1390
Email: ahlulbaytmosque@aol.com
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A Garveyite family, Harlem, 1920s

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1. INTRODUCTION
CIP
Black America, Prisons and Radical Islam
1. INTRODUCTION
similar to how the NOI promoted a
This report presents a commentary and
permanent split between blacks and whites,
contextual framework for understanding a
and for that reason if no other, the transition
major challenge to the security of the U.S.
of many blacks, including those in prisons,
and other Western societies in the aftermath
from the NOI to Wahhabi Islam, has been
of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001:
easy.
But for correctional inmates, the
the disclosure that Muslim chaplaincies in
reinforcement of alienation between blacks
U.S. prisons function under monopoly
and whites, as well as between Muslims of
control by representatives of Wahhabism.
differing religious views, represents a serious
The Wahhabi interpretation of Islam is the
danger to the security of correctional
official religion in the Kingdom of Saudi
institutions, as well as for society as a whole.
Arabia, which has used its considerable oil
Prisoners indoctrinated in Wahhabism may
revenues to diffuse Wahhabi attitudes,
be encouraged to resume criminal activity
justifying violence, separatism, and hostility
after leaving custody, and, worse, will be
to Western society, throughout the worldwide
obvious targets for terrorist recruitment.
Muslim community. Along with radical Shia
Because of the functional relations
Islamist ideology emanating from Iran,
between prison life, separatist beliefs, and
Wahhabism is a major inspiration for global
Wahhabism among blacks, our report begins,
terrorist activity.
in this Introduction, with a discussion of the
The achievement of Wahhabi control
present situation of cultural and social
over
American
prison
chaplaincies
is
dislocation in American black society. The
inseparable in history from the rise and fall
moral
crisis
facing
black
Americans
of the so-called “Nation of Islam” (NOI) or
contributes directly to the high rate of
“Black
Muslims,”
a
black
separatist
incarceration of young blacks.
movement, and similar developments that
The report then proceeds, in section
preceded and followed NOI. Agitation for
2, to a survey of separatist ideology in black
black separation from the majority of
American history, beginning with the most
American society became transmuted by a
notable early example — the Marcus Garvey
sense that Islam, as a religion foreign to
movement —and proceeding to discussion of
America and powerful in Africa, would
“Islamized” forms of separatism, including
provide
cultural, spiritual, and
world-
the so-called Moorish Science Temple and
spanning legitimacy for a concept that was
NOI, as well as gang-style phenomena such
previously shocking to enlightened black
as the “Five Percenters” and “Prison Islam.”
and white America alike: the maintenance of
The same section also takes up the influence
segregation
between
the
two
leading
of dissident and normative forms of Islam
American racial communities.
including the Ahmadi and Wahhabi sects.
Wahhabism preaches division between
Section 2 identifies and analyzes the activities
Muslims and non-Muslims in a manner
of leading radical Islamist personalities in
CENTER FOR ISLAMIC PLURALISM (CIP)
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CIP
BLACK AMERICA, PRISONS AND RADICAL ISLAM 2008
black American life today, including Warith
1.1 The Ravages of Moral Decay and
Deen Umar, former chief Muslim chaplain in
Endemic Pathologies in African American
the New York Department of Correctional
Society
Services (NYDOCS), Imam Siraj Wahhaj,
The African American community presently
Mahdi Bray, and Imam Jamil Al-Amin. The
suffers the ravages of moral and social decay.
report recounts the emergence of protest
Many of the maladies devastating the black
against the role of the Wahhabi chaplains,
community can be attributed to the collapse
originating among Shia Muslims, and the
of the nuclear family and its substitution by
recent status of a legal case against the
dependence on government programs.
Wahhabi prison clerics. In this controversy,
Driven
by
the
disintegration
of
Warith Deen Umar played a prominent role,
families, pathologies eroding life in the black
and the report further examines the activities
community include a steep adolescent birth
of W. D. Umar and others he recruited to
rate, high infant mortality, gang violence,
work in prisons, as extremist figures.
black-on-black crime, and the degeneration
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)
of educational values.
has carried out a limited series of actions
A vacuum appeared during the last half
regarding the problem of Wahhabism in
of the 20th century, quickly filled by moral
prisons, including a general study of
relativism, hedonism and materialism. This
religious conversions behind bars.
A
crisis has left black America in a malaise of
summary of that paper concludes section 2.
despair, anxiety, frustration, envy and, above
DOJ’s most significant response to the
all, increasing poverty.
problem of radical Islam in prisons came in
The productive life-style necessary for
2004 when the department’s Office of the
the success of the black community has been
Inspector General (OIGDOJ)
released A
definitively
eroded.
Pathologies
are
Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’
becoming established as mores. Government
Selection of Muslim Religious Services
entitlements and subsidy programs have
Providers, including a series of ameliorative
created new forms of poverty.
recommendations. In section 3, the report
The African American community,
analyzes the Review and responses to it by
during most of the 20th century, has been
the DOJ Bureau of Prisons (DOJ-BOP), along
victimized by social engineering; government
with reply comments by the OIGDOJ. We
assistance is a new form of slavery.
consider the OIGDOJ Review the sole
By all economic, social, and cultural
meaningful action by the U.S. government in
measurements, as urban crime increases, the
this area, and it is therefore the central focus
African American community is in serious
of our report.
trouble.
Chicago,
Detroit,
Baltimore,
In 2008, the only publicly-disclosed
Washington, DC, and other metropolitan areas
fulfillment
of
the
OIGDOJ
Review’s
with large black American communities have
recommendations came about when the
become enclaves of extreme violence. For
DOJ-BOP released an inventory of prison
some thirty years, Detroit and Washington
chapel
holdings
in
Islamic
religious
competed for the ignoble title of “homicide
literature. Section 4 of our report embodies
capital” of the United States. More recently,
our preliminary analysis of the inventory.
Baltimore has claimed this “honor.”
Section 5 introduces recent observations
The erosion of marriage, the family,
about radical Islam in British prisons.
CIP
and the support networks associated with
offers its conclusion and recommendations in
them has fatally undermined black American
section 6.
society.
CENTER FOR ISLAMIC PLURALISM (CIP)
www.islamicpluralism.org
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