All I Need to Know, I Learned from a Brutha in tha Pen

What will convey unto thee what the Ascent is!
(It is) to free a slave...
--Qur'an 90: 12-13

At the age of 14, I began writing to (primarily Muslim) inmates in federal penitentiaries. The correspondence brought me to the realization that imprisonment is one of the worst forms of man's inhumanity to man. My view is that imprisonment raises grave ethical concerns. One who imprisons another human being controls when or if that human eats, drinks, bathes, procreates, or gets vital medical treatment, in effect, "playing God." The extreme example of "playing God" is, off course, capital punishment, where the State's irreversible act places it in the role of the Creator (nauzo-billah)--potentially taking the life of an innocent person lacking adequate counsel. Alternatives to imprisonment were practiced by indigenous societies through the ages. Considering the dismal failure of the U.S. prison system today, these examples merit rigorous study for potential adaptation to modern times.

Since the U.S. in-Justice system is unlikely to willingly capitulate to those whom it oppresses, an inquiry under the U.N. or other international fora on black males in the U.S. prison system is required. The question must be asked: Are black men inherently more criminal than all other segments of the population? If not, why do they constitute the preponderance of the prison population? Is the current prison system a continuation of the system of slavery and genocide of black people? If so, what remedy can be enacted by the international community--international sanctions, U.N. inspections of U.S. prison facilities, or peacekeepers to prevent U.S. mistreatment of its black population?

A few years after my first exchanges with Muslim inmates, I expropriated a copy of the Gulag Archipelago from my father's library. The work left an indelible impression. Imprisonment--dehumanizing by nature--is exacerbated when it is enacted as punishment for unpopular words, thought, and speech. Today, tens of thousands of primarily Muslim innocents suffer in the U.S. Gulag, spanning from Guantanamo to Afghanistan and beyond. And political imprisonment is the sword of Damocles which threatens any Muslim leader who advocates or exercises the internationally recognized (Geneva Convention affirmed) right of his people to self-defense against Zionist or imperialist aggression.

To me, the existence of such a Gulag--and the threat that any independent-minded Muslim is a candidate for it--is a major crisis, warranting the focus of Muslims and humanitarians alike. I believe the time for Picnics has passed, and Muslim leaders who insist on Picnicking--well, perhaps their leadership ought to be questioned according to the Islamic tradition of accountability of Muslim leaders to their constituents. Recall the famed example of Hazrat Umar's (RA) roughing up and questioning by a Bedouin, on the simple matter of the former's possession of a shawl. When will we finally seize our leaders by the shawl, and ask them why they silently allow the innocent Muslim imams, hafiz-e-Quran, Muslim fathers, husbands, and brothers to languish in U.S./U.S.-administered prisons, often under medieval conditions?

Clearly, a truly Islamic leadership must prioritize: 1) effective, legal organizing for the rights of the political prisoners; 2) a massive public awareness campaign, aimed at lifting the curtain of fear from the Muslim community, while also countering corporate media propaganda with objective information on political cases; and 3) providing necessary assistance to the families of political prisoners.