After the second HLF trial, all five men were remanded to Seagoville Penitentiary. After serving nearly two years of their sentence, Shukri, Ghassan, Mufid, and Mohammad were transferred out of Texas and into special prisons in Terre Haute, Indiana, and Marion, Illinois. These facilities have earned the nickname “Guantanamo North.” Abdulrahman was sent to Victorville, California, and later to Beaumont-Port Arthur. The reason for the transfer was never articulated. In a detailed account that Mufid wrote and sent me, he described the painful indignities of the transfer and opened my eyes to the enormity of the prisoner transport industry. What I am about to relay next is largely from Mufid’s meticulous account.
It began like this: the government filed a motion to move the HLF-5 from Seagoville, Texas, where they were incarcerated to special prison units located in Marion, Illinois, and Terre Haute, Indiana. Then, Mufid recalls, “On Wednesday, March 31, I was called by a prison guard and told that I should go to see the counselor.” Mufid was informed that the prison had “received orders to handcuff and move me to the Special Management Unit (SMU) at Seagoville.” Mufid was told that this order came all the way “from the top,” which in the prison means the warden. When Mufid asked why he was being moved, he was told that the prison was “just following orders.”
“So,” Mufid continues, “one by one, Elmezain, Shukri, Ghassan, and I were taken and placed in the SMU.” The Special Management Unit is merely another name for solitary confinement. Its purpose is to punish violent inmates and to hold inmates who break the rules and cannot otherwise be controlled. Inmates are held for twenty-three hours in solitary confinement in a small cell and are allowed only one hour for “recreation” outside the cell. During recreation, inmates are taken in handcuffs to an individual outdoor cage, which is closed on all sides including the top. Once they are placed in the cage, the handcuffs are removed and the prisoner is permitted to “run, jump, or just sit down in the cage, just simply enjoy the sunshine.” The recreation hour takes place five days a week, Monday through Friday, if prisoners are lucky. On weekends the prisoners are kept in their cells for twenty-four hours a day.
Getting in and out of the Special Management Unit is a serious undertaking. First the prisoner has to be handcuffed. This is done with the prisoner sliding his hands through the “bean hole” in the cell’s door. As Mufid describes it, this is the process they must go through “whether to go for the one-hour recreation, to see a doctor (very rare), receive a family visit, or get a haircut.” In all but the family visit the prisoner must remain handcuffed. “Getting a haircut with handcuffs on is extremely painful.”
Family visits are a different story, too, once the prisoner is in the SMU. The prisoner is placed in a four-by-five room equipped with thick glass and a phone. After leaving the prisoner in the room, the guards open a hole in the door for him to extend his handcuffed hands. Mufid describes the process of removing the cuffs as “extremely painful.”
During the visit, no touching, hugging, or any kind of physical contact is permitted. All communication is done through a telephone as the prisoner’s visitors sit across a thick Plexiglas wall. Family members need to take turns speaking through the receiver. When the visit is over, the guards once again open the hole; the prisoner extends his hands to be cuffed before the guards open the door to take him back to his cell.
Food is served to the prisoners in the cell and it too is placed in through the bean hole—hence the nickname. Once the prisoner is done eating the food tray is picked up via the same hole.
While in the SMU, prisoners are moved to a new cell every twenty-one days. The handcuffed prisoner must carry all of his belongings as the guards escort him to his new cell.
During this entire ordeal, the five inmates had no idea why they were placed in the SMU. Unlike the SHU, the SMU is a solitary confinement used only for inmates who are dangerous, fight, cause trouble, or misbehave while in the general population. However, for over sixteen months while the five were among the general population they all had a clean record without a single violation.
Because they were confined in isolation for twenty-four hours, they had no access to prison officials or staff, so all they could do was sit in their cells and wait for information. “When we heard the sound of the electrical door to the corridor of the SMU open (it makes very loud sound), we would rush to the door and look thru the glass panel at the cell’s door to see who was coming.”
Finally, after three days, the counselor, and later on the lieutenant, came. When asked, “all they would tell us is they do not know why we are in SMU.” At one point the prison administrator showed up. He said that they could write him and that he would explain in writing why they were sent to isolation. Eventually, the warden showed up on a routine walk through the facility. “We asked the same question: why are we here?” The warden’s answer was that it is a “security issue.”
The prisoners tried to press her further about what the issue might be, because they could not think of anything. It was clear that she had no response, and finally she simply walked away from the door without responding. “And there is nothing you could do about it except scream and yell and get frustrated. Even the guards were surprised to see us in the SMU.”
All five wrote to the jail administrator, who responded by repeating what the warden had said, that this was a national security issue. The following week the jail administrator came by with the warden and again the five tried to push for answers. But once again, they just walked away from the door. It developed into a pattern: every time one of the five saw an official walking by, they would cry out for answers. Days turned into weeks, and they got no response. They decided to resort to the “official grievance process” that is available to inmates.
It took a week before they were provided with the proper forms, then another week before someone would pick up the forms from them. Two days later a response came: “national security!” They were given forms to appeal the decision, completed them meticulously, and waited. This time no one came to pick up the forms. Twenty-one days went by, and the five were moved again from one cell to another.
“One morning around 10:00 a.m., three guards came by and asked us if we want to go outside for recreation, and we said yes.” They went through the process, thinking they were going to the outdoor recreation cages but instead found themselves at the “Receive and Discharge,” or R&D department, where inmates are received and shipped out. That’s when they realized they were being shipped out of Seagoville for good.
Thinking they were just going out to the cage for recreation for an hour, Ghassan and Shukri had left their prescription eyeglasses in their cells and Mohammad left his medication. When they asked the guards to retrieve them, they were told to stay put and shut up. “Other inmates were there as well waiting to be taken to a bus that was already waiting outside.”
Ghassan, Shukri, Mufid, and Muhammad were stripped, searched, and subjected to a cavity inspection, where every orifice in one’s body is inspected for contraband. They were then given new prison clothes, handcuffed, and shackled. Then the handcuffs and shackles were chained to each other with a heavy chain that ran down the front of their bodies. All inmates were cuffed and shackled in this way, but for the four men there was a surprise in store: their handcuffs were covered by the “black box” and snugged tight against their bodies with a waist chain.
Once the inmates were chained, they were escorted to the bus. “We walked very slowly. Elmezain was barely able to walk because the guards did not allow him to take his cane. He almost fell several times. It took almost ten minutes to walk the twenty feet to the bus.”
Before they were allowed onto the bus, the inmates’ identities were confirmed, their files were checked, and each inmate was given a lunch bag with a sandwich, water, and crackers. Once all the inmates were accounted for and seated, the trip began. But a trip to where?
Driving down the highway, the inmates were able to see the outside world for the first time after years behind walls and razor wire. “Seeing the billboards and the green grass and people driving going about their business just like we used to do.” At one point the bus stopped for a lunch break. “We were somewhere in Texas. The bus driver and guards got off the bus to eat lunch and we remained on the bus with our lunch bags.” They attempted to eat their lunch, but with the limitations imposed by the black box and waist chain it was impossible to bring the food to their mouths. But hardship sometimes brings out the best in people. “Shukri and I were sitting next to each other and we were helping each other eat our food and drink water.”
Another problem was, “if you happen to need to use the bathroom, then you go to the back of the bus to relieve yourself while still in chains.” I will leave it to your imagination how this was managed with the black box.
After four hours they finally reached a prison in Texarkana, Texas, where they spent the night. The prisoners were all taken inside the prison, their chains and handcuffs were removed, and they were given dinner. The four were immediately sent to the Special Housing Unit, which Mufid describes as “much worse than the Seagoville SMU.” The cells were tiny, with three beds on top of each other eighteen inches apart. “There was no room to move around. Ghassan and I could not even stand next to each other to pray.” Exhausted, they finally fell asleep.
Driving to the federal prison compplex in Beuamont, Texas
“Around 3:00 a.m. they woke us up.” The prisoners were handcuffed, and once again, only the five had the black box and chains in addition to their cuffs and shackles.
Mohammad Elmezain requires regular daily medication. At one point he asked one of the guards where he might be able to receive the medication. “The guard just went off screaming at him.” Then they were back on the bus for another long and painful journey.
It was Friday, April 25, 2010. “We were in Texarkana Prison preparing to head toward Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.”
Sitting in a grey and white BOP (Bureau of Prisons) bus from Seagoville, Texas, to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City, metal bars across the windows, shackled and handcuffed for hours upon hours, Shukri, Ghassan, Mufid, and Abu-Ibrahim Elmezain faced many challenges.
Surprisingly, the one challenge that caused them the most concern was not physical. It wasn’t the pain and discomfort that the shackles caused, nor the chaffing of the ankles or the inability to eat and drink caused by the black box over their handcuffs. (In order to eat, they had to feed one another because their hands were chained to their waist and they couldn’t bring the food to their mouths.) It wasn’t even the inability to scratch if bothered by an itch.
“I forced myself to stay awake so I would not void my wudu,” Mufid wrote in an email describing this journey. Wudu is the mandatory ablution, or washing, that is required of Muslims prior to prayer; it includes thoroughly washing the hands, face, arms, and legs. When one sleeps it voids the ablution and one needs to perform it again upon waking up. “I made wudu before we left the SHU in Texarkana and I was worried that if I dozed off I would end up voiding my wudu and there was no way to wash on the bus.”
The only water that was available was a jug with drinking water and plastic cups. And besides, with their hands tightly cuffed and secured to their waist by the black box and their legs shackled they were completely immobile. They considered tayamom, a dry ablution, which is an alternate option for ablution when water is not available.
Anyone who has ever tried to sleep during a long bus ride or even on a plane can relate to the special challenge of trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. But most of us have never had to make ourselves comfortable on that long bus ride while being chained, handcuffed, shackled, and having a black box that constricts our movement.
“[N]o matter which position I attempted, was impossible because the black box was so restricting,” Mufid explained. They could not move their legs either because the shackles were so tight that they scraped the bone above the ankle. But fatigue takes its toll eventually, and all four eventually slumped somehow in their seats and fell asleep as well.
Mufid writes, “These are times when I knew Allah gives us permission to make exceptions. Eventually, we ended up resorting to tayamom and we were ready for Fajr prayer, the early dawn prayer.” But they had no way of telling what time it was, and in what time zone they were traveling.
“We knew that the Fajr Athaan, or Fajr call to prayer, was at 5:45 a.m. in Seagoville, Texas. Even though we were no longer in Texas, I figured we were close enough and could go by Texas time.” But the question remained, what time was it? No one had a watch.
They looked out the window and could tell that it was too dark for dawn prayer. As the Bureau of Prisons bus full of sleeping inmates drove through mostly empty streets, crossing cities, towns, and interstate highways, the four Muslims were looking out the window in search of a clock that would let them know when it was time to pray. “I finally noticed one from a distance,” Mufid recalled, “It was a big electronic panel that swivels but by the time the bus came near enough to see the time, the panel was facing the other way. I figured I have to try again, so I kept watching for another clock and I kept my eyes fixed on any panel with lights.” Finally, there was another one and it showed the time: 5:30 a.m., fifteen minutes ahead of prayer time.
When they estimated that fifteen minutes had passed, Mufid began the call to prayer, the Fajr Athaan. The call to prayer is like a chant, and Mufid has a wonderful, deep voice for it:
Allahu Akbar,
Allahu Akbar.
Ash’hadu an la illaha illa Allah, Ash’hadu an la illaha illa Allah
Ash’hadu anna Muhammad rasul Allah, Ash’hadu anna Muhammad rasul Allah
Hai ala elsala, Hai ala elsala
Hai ala elfalakh, Hai ala elfalakh
Elsalatu kheiru min elnaum, Elsalatu kheiru min elnaum
Allahu Akbar
la illaha illa Allah33
“It was a Friday,” Mufid wrote, the Muslim equivalent of the Sabbath, “so as I usually do on Fridays I recited Surat Al-kahf.34 Elhamdu lillah alathi anzala ala abdihi elkitaba …”
Mufid went on to recite the sura from memory and to praise the Prophet Mohammad. “We prayed the two rakka, then we recited the sunna, which is the verbally transmitted record of the teachings, deeds, and sayings of the prophet Mohammad.”35 Then Mufid called the iqama, the second call to prayer, which is shorter and is meant to give those who have a hard time getting up a second chance.
“Elsalatu kheiru min elnaum,” he called. Prayer is better than sleep.
“Then, brother Elmezain, lead us in the prayer.”
The restrictions on their movement caused by the handcuffs, shackles, and chains with which they were tied prevented them from performing the bowing and prostration that is required during the Muslim prayer. So instead of bowing they bent toward the seat, as far as the chains would allow. The sujood, or prostration, is a position that involves kneeling down and then bowing so that the forehead, nose, both hands, knees, and all toes touch the ground at the same time. Again, they resorted to bending over until their foreheads touched the seat in front of them.
“It was the most heartfelt and tearful prayer of my entire life,” Mufid confessed. “Considering myself a political prisoner praying under these conditions, I truly felt a connection with Allah. It was an overwhelming feeling and it transported me into a different world.”
A world where people are free, kind, and greet each other with an open heart.
Oklahoma City is the location of the Federal Transfer Center, or FTC, which is a transfer and holding center for inmates from around the United States. It holds about 1,500 inmates, and it serves as a hub from which inmates are flown or bused in and out to be transferred to the various prisons in which they are assigned to serve their sentences.
The bus came to a stop at the Oklahoma Federal Transfer Center, and one of the guards pointed his finger at the four: “You, you, you, and you, get up.”
They were the first ones to be taken off the bus. They were led to a small room, about fifteen by fifteen feet. The room had big windows with bars so they were able to see what was going on around them: inmates being taken to other rooms, some placed in individual cages “just like monkeys.”
They waited three hours before someone came for them, so in the meantime they sat and talked, prayed, and at one point they even started to sing and dance the traditional Palestinian Debka, a sort of combination circle and line dance.
The room had benches all around it, a toilet, and a sink that is attached to it. The walls were covered with aluminum panels, presumably so inmates would not be able to write on them. After a while Ghassan, who is an avid yoga practitioner, started doing his yoga routine while Shukri and Elmezain sat talking. From time to time they would look outside to see if anyone was coming to get them, but they only saw streams of new inmates being admitted escorted by FBI agents, sheriffs’ deputies, and police officers. From time to time someone would see them through the window and call, “Asalaamu Alaikum,” upon recognizing them as fellow Muslims.
After three hours the Receive and Discharge area was empty, and the guards turned their attention to the four. They completed paperwork, had their photos taken and identification cards made, and that was when they were finally told where they were heading: the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois. After that they were taken to a holding room where they were handcuffed, and eight guards escorted them to the Special Housing Unit on the seventh floor.
They placed Mufid and Ghassan in one cell and Elmezain and Shukri in another, so they were not too far from each other. “These SHU cells were fairly new, each with a toilet, sink, and shower,” Mufid recalled. The cells had two bunk beds on top of each other. On each bed they found a blanket, a pillow, and a few toiletry items like toothpaste, shaving cream, a one-inch long toothbrush, shampoo, and a towel. They needed fresh clothes but had to exchange the ones they had on before they could be given clean ones. Inmates are not allowed to keep an extra change of clothes with them. So all four wrapped themselves with bed sheets, took off their clothes, and handed them to the guards before being given a clean prison uniform.
It was ironic that of all days, they had arrived in Oklahoma City on April 23, 2010. Exactly fifteen years earlier, on April 23, 1995, The Holy Land Foundation flew in fifty volunteers from the Muslim community in Dallas to help with the relief effort after the Oklahoma City bombing. Mufid was there, having volunteered to wait at the airport to receive the volunteers along with all the relief supplies they brought with them. The mayor of Oklahoma City, Ron Norick, sent a letter thanking the HLF volunteers for their exceptional effort. It was the HLF that had organized a blood drive in Dallas for the benefit of Oklahoma City bombing victims.
“We were really tired.”
That is how Mufid describes his arrival in Oklahoma City. Ghassan and Mufid shared one cell, and Shukri and Elmezain shared another. They tried to relax and then fell asleep. When they woke up they once again could not tell what time it was and if it was time for prayer. Maghreb, or evening prayer, is done upon sunset, but no one had a watch and their cells had only a small window, about five inches wide and made of thick glass so it was impossible to see outside. They sat in their cells, getting up every few minutes to look through the dense glass. At last, when it looked like it was dark outside they began to pray.
“We prayed Maghreb & Isha combined and went to sleep,” Mufid wrote.
They woke early to pray before breakfast. “We started reviewing what we had memorized from the Quran and planned to continue the memorization of Surat Al Isra,36 which we started together in Seagoville.” But there was no Quran available, and Mufid and Ghassan needed someone to read the rest of the Sura for them. Elmezain had memorized the entire Quran as a young boy, and he could recall any part of the Quran from memory. But he was in another cell.
“Abu Ibrahim!”
They tried to call him through the air vent, but there was a lot of noise and an echo that made it hard to hear.
“Abu Ibrahim!”
Finally, Abu Ibrahim called back that yes, he could hear them, and they begged him to recite Surat Al Isra.
“What? What Sura?”
They had to repeat their request several times before he could understand their request.
“Al Isra?”
“Yes, yes, Surat El Isra, Surat El Isra.”37
“Subhana alathi isra’a ba’abdihi lailatan mina elmasjadi elharami / ila elmasjadi elaqsa …”
But the noise and the echoes from the vent got in the way again. It took several tries before he could hear them say, “OK, OK, thank you, we got it.”
“Alathi Birakna hawlahu linuriyahu min aitina / innahu huwa elsami’u elbasiru.”
He had to repeat each verse several times before they were able to write down what he recited. An hour later they had the first five pages.
“By Sunday we had memorized two pages. By Monday we had memorized one more page. Quran was the only thing on our minds. This was an amazing experience where we were constantly helping each other.” Mufid stopped for a moment to think. When he is thinking hard on a problem, he turns his head, looks up slightly, and smiles. “I had to wonder, you know, why it is that when I was free and had a beautiful Quran in my hand, I never took advantage of it. Then it dawned on me. Being in the SHU is not punishment. It is a great blessing from Allah to facilitate my memorization of three pages of Surat Al Isra.”
In Oklahoma City, they were served three meals a day, but the portions were small and they were not allowed to keep extra food in the cell, so, Mufid said, the men “ate everything they gave us because we were still hungry.”
Mufid and Ghassan were able to talk to Shukri and Elmezain through the air vent, which was eight feet above the cell floor. They spent their time talking, they sang Palestinian songs, and they prayed and recited the Quran. There was no clock, and they could not tell when it was prayer time, so Mufid kept looking out the reinforced glass window until it seemed to him that it was dark outside. They prayed and went to sleep.
The next day was Saturday and they woke up early to pray. They spent the morning reviewing what they had memorized of Quran. When they were stuck they asked Elmezain for help, to recite for them from memory. Elmezain would do so through the vent from the other room.
They maintained their religious rituals strictly and lovingly, and that, as well as constant recitation and memorization of the Quran, gave them, and continues to give them, comfort as they frequently are at the mercy of guards with racist, anti-Muslim attitudes. From time to time they would meet another Muslim inmate, and the first thing that would come out of his mouth would be the universal Islamic greeting, “Asalaamu Aleikum,” a sign that here is another brother.
Four days after they arrived in Oklahoma City, two guards came to rouse them from their cells around 4:00 a.m. Mufid and Ghassan prepared their few belongings and around 5:30 a.m., the guards returned, this time to take them away. They shouted salaam greetings to Elmezain and Shukri, who for the time being remained behind, reminding them to remain steadfast. Elmezain and Shukri shouted back with the same.
Ghassan and Mufid were placed in a room where they sat and waited for the next three hours. They were given some food in a bag but preferred not to eat. Knowing that they had a long trip ahead, they wanted to avoid the need to use the restroom during transport.
The Oklahoma Federal Transfer Center is connected to a special high-security airport from which inmates are transported to destinations across the country. About twenty guards stand on each side of a wooden stage that is placed in the middle of the hall. Mufid and Ghassan were told to step onto the stage as two guards handcuffed them, shackled their legs, and then placed and tightened the black box on their wrists. Other inmates were there too, being handcuffed and shackled in preparation for the flight, much like an assembly line of handcuffing and chaining. Very few of them wore the black box.
Once the hall was filled with inmates, all handcuffed and chained, they were ready to board the plane.
“Fuck you, motherfucker!”
A black inmate waiting near the head of the line unleashed a flurry of insults at the air marshal in charge of loading the prisoners.
“Who you think you are? Motherfucker—I fuck you up. Let’s see you take off that badge and gun, I fuck you up. Motherfucker—why you mind my business—who you think you are disrespectin’ me?”
The air marshal kept calm and in a quiet voice said, “I will deal with you inside.”
“I don’t give a damn about that or about you. I fear no one but Allah and only Allah. I won’t let no creature on earth to disrespect me. Go on, lessee you take these damn handcuffs and chains off and fight like a man, you motherfucker—piece of shit! I ain’t fear no one but Allah!”
I have done my best to recount this exchange as it was told to me. There is a great deal to bear in prison, and it would be asking too much to expect it to be borne meekly. Some of the men know no other law but what they have found between those walls.
On the plane, each row was six seats across, three on each side of the aisle.
“Where are we going?” Mufid asked one of the guards, but he received no reply.
“Sitting cramped in between two people, we were unable to move our hands. Even to scratch your head was impossible. Our wrists were in excruciating pain.”
The Muslim inmate who had cussed at the air marshal was seated behind Mufid. He told Mufid that he was forty-five years old and he had been in jail since he was seventeen. He did not know any life outside of prison.
A bagged lunch was given to the inmates on the plane, and Ghassan and Mufid had to help each other eat their lunch and drink their water.
Then, after three hours the plane landed on an isolated runway in Philadelphia. FBI, the local sheriff, and police officers were on the ground as inmates were led on and off the plane in the freezing cold.
So far, it had been over six hours of non-stop travel with handcuffs, shackles, and the black box. Mufid described them as
six hours of […] unbearable discomfort. No matter how much I tried to move my hands to get comfortable, I found no comfort, only pain. I kept on making duaa for this journey to end soon, trying in vain to occupy my mind by reminding myself that no matter how long this will last, it will end at one point.
The plane landed again in Ohio, and other prisoners were exchanged. Finally, in St. Louis, it was Mufid and Ghassan’s turn.
We again saw several buses, vans, and cars drive toward the plane and pretty soon the plane was surrounded by officers with machine guns. The names Elashi and Abdulqader were called, and we were directed to leave the plane.
Two air marshals standing at the front of the plane checked their identities, and at last they were on the ground.
The ride to Illinois took about three hours. As is often the case, the prison is located in farm country, with nothing but fields all around. A narrow winding road leads from the city of Marion to the prison gates. Mufid remembers watching out the bus window as they traveled. “People were going about their business while we were driven to another prison.”
Once they arrived, their identities were checked again, and the prisoners were taken inside to the Receive and Discharge Department. It was only then, after twelve agonizing long hours that the chains, handcuffs, and black box were removed. What followed was routine: a strip search, new set of prison clothes, then standing in line for new identification cards, and then at last dinner.
“We knew by then that we were designated to the CMU.” The CMU, or Communication Management Unit, is often referred to as the “Control Muslim Unit” or “Guantanamo North” because the majority of the inmates in the CMU are Muslims.
At last, around 9:00 p.m., Ghassan and Mufid were taken to their unit. The entire hallway of the prison had to be cleared because CMU inmates may not be seen, spoken to, and may not interact in any way with any other inmates in the prison.
The first person they saw was a Muslim who greeted them: Assalamu Aleikum. This was the beginning of life in the CMU Unit “I” at USP Marion.
The limitations that the prosecution and imprisonment of the HLF-5 have placed on these men’s ability to practice their religion, and the determination and the un-enslaveable spirit and creativity they display in overcoming these limitations, are a recurring theme in this story. From the very early stages of this story, the religious rights of the HLF-5 have been trampled on, and from the very beginning they adjusted accordingly and held on to their faith. I have been honored by their willingness to share their stories and experiences with me and through me with the rest of the world. Some stories were shared face to face while I visited them in prison, some by email, and yet others through lengthy hand-written letters sent to me by regular mail.
“The prison system is a very wild jungle,” Mufid said to me as we sat in the prison visitation room in Terre Haute, Indiana. “Which is why each and every inmate must belong to some group or a gang.” Prison authorities fall short when it comes to protecting inmates, and so each group bands together to protect its members and to keep the peace with the other groups.
“A fellow Muslim is always a brother,” Mufid told me repeatedly. That in and of itself gives one a sense of support, which is particularly important in the cold and belligerent reality of prison life. “Muslims are recognized and respected within the prison walls”; they are one group united together.
“In prison you have to belong to a group,” Shukri also told me. “They protect you and take care of you. You are identified as part of this group in every aspect of your daily life.” I learned that in Shukri’s case this was particularly true when I received a message from his daughter Zaira telling me that she was worried about his safety. “Something is wrong but Baba is not talking,” she wrote to me. It just so happened that I was on my way to visit Shukri in prison in Beaumont, Texas, when I got the message. When we met I told him that Zaira was concerned and asked him if anything was wrong.
There was. Disrespect is one thing that cannot be tolerated in prison. If there is any sign of disrespect, especially when you are not a criminal and not used to violence, this can be a matter of life or death. So when Shukri was subjected to disrespect from another inmate he had to take serious precautions. In such a case, having a group that will protect you is crucial.
He couldn’t write or talk about this because all of his communication with the outside world is monitored by the prison authorities and by Homeland Security. But his daughter could still sense something was wrong. Shukri was in fact worried for his life. He stayed awake for nights fearing the worst until his Muslim brothers in prison took things into their own hands. First they alerted the prison authorities and made it clear that there was a serious problem and that something had to be done—either by the prison authorities or, if need be, by the brothers themselves. Fortunately, the prison authorities acted, and the inmate that threatened Shukri’s safety was removed from the scene.
“No one messes with or harasses the Muslims,” Mufid said with a smile as we tried to make ourselves comfortable on white plastic chairs, eating all sorts of junk food from the vending machines. “In prison Islam becomes a symbol, an identity. An inmate can proudly say, ‘I am a Muslim,’ and that is an important source of pride.” Islam is something that is greater than the prison and extends far beyond the prison walls. Islam unites Muslim inmates with millions and millions of their brothers and sisters who exist beyond those bars.
According to most estimates, within the prisons in America about 9.4 percent of the inmates are Muslim, the majority having converted while in prison. Mufid told me that in US prisons he has met Muslims from a variety of countries, cultures, and ethnicities: Arabs, Africans, Pakistanis, Indians, Tajiks, Turks, Europeans, and African Americans. “Muslims are well respected by the authorities and by the inmates. It is well known that Muslim inmates are clean, don’t do drugs, don’t gamble, that they are honorable and take care of their brothers.” Mufid said, and he continued, dead serious, “If a Muslim inmate is out of line, his Muslim brothers will set him straight and he will listen.” This is because Muslims hold themselves to a very high standard, particularly when it comes to moral values. Muslim inmates are rarely involved in producing alcohol or selling and consuming drugs, both of which are big businesses inside the prison and are often the cause of fighting, stabbings, and killings.
“Asalaamu Alaikum! I have heard this beautiful Islamic salutation in prison more times than I have heard it in my entire lifetime,” Mufid told me. “Every time you see a brother, either you say it or he says it to you.” It is a message of peace and of extending good wishes: “Asalaamu Alaikum.” The brothers in the prison make a point of saying it over and over because it gives them a sense of pride—it is an expression of their identity as Muslims. “Even though on the outside some Muslims feel somewhat embarrassed to say ‘Assalamu Alaikum’ at work or anywhere when non-Muslims are present, this is not the case in prison. In prison, wearing the kofi is quite normal. One will see Muslims wearing it all the time. No one comes to Friday prayer without his kofi. On the outside Muslims put it on only after they enter the Masjid, and they quickly take it off when they leave.”
This system of brotherhood runs both ways: While at Terre Haute, Mufid met Muse (pronounced “Musa”), a young Somali who was sentenced to thirty years in prison for piracy. Muse’s most famous exploit is the subject of the movie Captain Phillips (Sony Pictures, 2013), and he was played by Barkhad Abdi. Muse was the so-called captain of the pirate ship.
He was arrested when he was sixteen, and by the time he reached the CMU in Terre Haute, he was close to nineteen.
“He was wild,” Mufid recalls. “Watching TV all day, getting into fights and arguments, depressed all the time. But what do you expect?”
Muse had grown up on the streets, and by the time he was seven he was already a boy-soldier carrying an AK-47 and working for a local warlord. “From the prison he had no family he could talk to. When he tried to call his mother in Somalia from the prison phone he could never get through. He was so wild that the prison doctor began to sedate him with medication.” That’s when Mufid decided to step in. He took Muse aside one day and offered to teach him English so that he could take the ESL, or English as a Second Language, test.
“Look, no one cares about you here. You are a Somali terrorist to them, and if you die they don’t give a shit.” Muse was reluctant; he had never been to school and could barely read or write.
Mufid prepared a goal-setting sheet for him, set up a program that included working out, prayer, and study. At last Muse took the ESL test and passed.
“Now we go for your GED, general education certificate.”
“No!” Muse insisted, “I can’t do math.”
But Mufid wouldn’t take no for an answer. He created a new program and goal-setting sheets and pasted them on the walls of Muse’s cell, even on the ceiling, so that as he lay in his bed he would see them.
“Was he smart?” I asked Mufid.
“Smart?” Mufid looked at me sideways over his immense beard with his large piercing eyes.
“This kid, at sixteen and without a day of school in his life, figured out how to use a GPS to locate large tankers in the ocean. He would then command a small group of kids like him with AK-47s and sail on small, rickety boat toward these tankers. He would stop the tankers, throw a rope ladder, and take over the tankers, driving them to shore where he would wait to receive the ransom money. What are you taking about, smart?”
Mufid and I were sitting shoulder to shoulder on the plastic chairs. On a small plastic table between us I placed the food had I bought from the vending machines: turkey sandwiches, potato chips, soft drinks, and all kinds of candy bars.
“Now listen to this,” Mufid said, pouring the potato chip crumbs into his hand and throwing them back into his mouth, then wiping his hands with a paper towel.
“Two weeks ago my wife Diane gets a letter from Terre Haute, and it’s from Muse. ‘Who’s Muse?’ She asked me.”
The envelope contained a copy of a certificate and a letter from Muse. He had completed his GED and was writing to thank Mufid and to show him the certificate. Now, he is attempting continue his education further.
33 “God is great, witness that there is no god but God, witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God, come to pray, come to succeed, prayer is better than sleep, God is great, there is no god but God.”
34 The Cave Sura, the 18th chapter of the Quran.
35 Each rakka is one unit of Islamic prayer. According to Muslim belief, Mohammad was the best exemplar for Muslims, and his practices are to be adhered to in fulfilling the divine injunctions, carrying out religious rites, and molding life in accord with the will of God. Instituting these practices was, as the Quran states, a part of Muhammad’s responsibility as a messenger of God.
36 The 17th chapter of the Quran.
37 “Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from the sacred mosque to the distant mosque.” http://quran.com/17