 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. As-salamu alaykum my dear brothers and sisters. Thank you for joining us today and we have a very fascinating talk to talk about today. We're going to be understanding why one in 10 of every American prisoners are becoming Muslim. Mashallah it's an amazing phenomenon. Alhamdulillah. So we're going to be learning today about why there's this mass conversion to Islam happening in U.S. prisons and what it's like to be a Muslim behind bars. And when our incarcerated brothers and sisters are released what happens when a Muslim who's never seen the inside of a masjid finally rejoins society and our Muslim communities. And to help us understand this we have one of our many amazing American Muslims who was in prison and I'm going to ask him in a couple minutes to share his story. But before I do introduce our guests let me just say this virtual chat is one sponsored by MCC and the Theba Foundation. Now this is interesting the Theba Foundation is one of the few Muslim organizations in the U.S. serving incarcerated Muslims and they provide Muslim inmates male and female much needed Islamic education along with essential life skills training and assistance when they re-enter society. Sheikh Rami who many of you are familiar with he's a co-founder and he's also served as our youth director at MCC. But and like a lot of amazing non-profits they were sort of incubated informally by what is now Zaituna College notably for folks in the Bay Area in Chicago the Dalif Collective was also incubated under the Zaituna Institute now Zaituna College. But Theba Foundation began with Sheikh Rami he was teaching prisoners via collect calls to prison not a cheap way to talk to somebody and he would guide new Muslims and inmates on the phone and answer questions about their faith and from these collect phone calls he saw this gulf of understanding and need that was there for our Muslim brothers and sisters that are locked up and he attempted to bridge that gap through distance learning and providing quality Islamic education for Tadabia which is the refinement of our thinking and behavior. So Theba is certainly to be commended for their work and their efforts and deserving of our support so with that let me introduce you to our guests. So Imam al-Hazali said everyone needs one sole purifying transformative Toba repentance once in their his or her life and Ustad Tawdi of the Zahir he's with us today he was locked up for nine years in federal prison he actually was Muslim before he went in and during that prison stretch he spent his time learning and then teaching akida, fiqh, deskia and arabic and then when he was released five years ago he received his degrees in behavior sciences and arabic and he's been working now on his masters in social work his thesis is on recidivism mental health and substance abuse which is a lot to unpack for a thesis in addition to all that see the Tawdi is an author having wrote an introductory book specifically for newly converted inmates and this was about a year after his release that he wrote this book and he currently serves as re-entry department manager for David foundation so with that Ustad Tawdi welcome. Assalamu alaikum, thank you for having me. And then when he was released five years ago. Definitely an honor. Mashallah. So there's much to unpack here but let's start off by getting to know you Ustad. So tell us about your personal story where you were born, where you were raised and why does through your journey to finding Islam and then becoming incarcerated. Right. Okay so alhamdulillah I was actually you know both of my parents became Muslim in in the you know in the early 70s I think maybe my father in the late 60s you know but you know at that time you know there was no you know Islam was not developed you know the Islamic institutions were not developed as they are now. So I was born in Columbus Ohio and then so I you know I lived there a few years in my youth and then we moved to Los Angeles where my father was originally from and and you know stayed there for some time but I can say like one of the defining moments in my life was you know my father was murdered when I was about I was about eight years old and even though my mother remarried you know the relationship between me and my stepfather was you know it's tenuous it wasn't it wasn't like the relationship that I had with my father. And so you know I think that's like probably some that's something that's setting the stage for what's coming in the future. I had a Muslim identity I knew that I was Muslim I mean I remember memorizing Ayat al-Kursi by the time I was 10 years old and I learned how to read Arabic at a very basic level when I was about 12 you know I understood you know the oneness of Allah you know the nabua of Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the day of judgment you know I understood the basics of Islam and then we moved again to Colorado and when we moved to Colorado my you know my mother and my stepfather they put me into public school. Alhamdulillah today you have you know a lot of organizations that can kind of counteract the effects of public school no doubt I'm sure parents have their problems but you know public school was like introducing me to you know I had no idea what the non-Muslim world was really like until I went to public school that's really where I got introduced to music brand names video games the relationships between the males and the females the negative aspects of those relationships like gross selfishness like I didn't really know that until I entered into public school so and this was at the fifth grade so from from the time I was born up until the fifth grade I either went to like small private Muslim schools or I was home school fifth grade I entered into a brand new world and then these different seeds of you know the different seeds of fitna are being planted in my heart by the time I was in ninth grade you know my Muslim identity was slipping you know I mean I can honestly say that I knew I was a Muslim but you know it was it was it was not that important to me at the time so in ninth grade I don't have any Muslims to identify with I don't have any mentors I there's no youth groups in Colorado at that time I think maybe some of the larger more developed Islamic communities on the east coast maybe on the west coast they had those things but in Colorado there was nothing like that and so I remember maybe having one Muslim friend all the way through from from ninth grade to maybe eleventh grade one Muslim friend and then he moved away and then all of my friends were non-Muslims and everything that they were into the drinking the drugs the you know selling drugs to make money the partying you know everything that goes with that lifestyle and I just I jumped in I jumped in um you know with both feet you know I didn't touch the water I didn't tap the water I jumped all the way in and then I started learning these habits you know I started you know having other habits um and you know but it you know I made you know for two years I was in the dunya really really hard I was in a dunya really really hard selling drugs um girlfriends the clubs you know everything that goes with that and the analogy that I like to give is like you know when you plug in the iron right and the iron gets hot just because you pull the plug out of the wall the iron is still hot and it takes time for it to cool down and that's what it's like like when a person makes tauba okay when a person makes tauba they realize they made some mistakes they pull the they pull the plug out of the wall but the iron's still hot all right there's still fire damage there there's still damage now you have to purify I didn't know anything about purifying the soul I didn't know that that was necessary didn't know how to do it where to begin so those seeds that were planted were still there okay so you know they're not necessarily getting all the water that they need to be full blown sands but the plant is very much there it's very much alive or you can say the iron is still hot okay um so I got married when I was young I was about 20 years old um I got married um I had my my my son was born I was about 21 and then I kind of realized you know I need to um I need to you know I don't want my children to go through what I went through so I I moved to California um you know and uh you know got involved in different ways and this is right around the time when I moved Zaytuna Institute was just opening I think was like 97 1997 they were just getting going and um you know to make a long story short I ran into some opportunities to make some fast money with Muslims and ended up you know you know ended up being you know selling drugs um you know and I ended up catching a federal case federal drug charge for and I ended up serving 11 years for that charge um and and so sometimes people ask me well you know like how did that happen how were you like in the Islamic environment and you know you started to study and you wanted to change your life and be a better Muslim for your children and the only way that I can explain it is that the fire was still hot right like I had not began to remove you know those vices that I learned from fifth grade up until my early 20s I didn't know how to uproot that and so it was still there um even though I began to try to change so really in uh you know in prison um you know that's really really when I knew like you know this is not a game and you don't graduate in the the the college of life you don't move from one level to another level you know with intestine trial except by sincere tauba sincere turning to Allah and change um and so that's basically how I got to prison you know the how the the the the vices were planted um you know and even though you know I made a sort of tauba it wasn't complete and it wasn't um you know it wasn't accompanied by purification of the heart which which which I I agree 100% wholeheartedly you know Imam Ghazali Rahimullah he calls it wajib like it's it's it's it's a it's mandatory that every Muslim must learn enough about it so that they can purify and um so you know I can that's like the background that's what's leading to prison subhanallah subhanallah quite the story uh it reminds me a lot of uh Malcolm X's story of going in you know you we all have these jahia days and it takes us a turning point in our life to to turn that so um let's talk a little about taiba foundation of course taiba foundation did you learn about them and what resources did you find when you went into prison this is an excellent question um you know the the truth of the matter is um you know when I when I went into prison um you know I I I went to trial so you know from the time you get arrested to time you go to trial sometimes you know takes years sometimes and in my case it took 16 months um so I went to trial um and that 16 months that I was incarcerated I was incarcerated in Philadelphia there there's a huge Muslim population in Philadelphia and that's also reflected in the criminal justice system so I was on a unit there's 120 people on a on a any given unit the unit that I was on I would say probably 60 or 70 of them in there they're muslim they're muslim you know you're talking about half of the pod being muslim the adhan is called five times a day out loud you know there's uh you know all these muslim women in hijabs and niqab coming up to the visitation room you know some of the nurses are muslim some of the guards are muslim you know so you know that was that was an experience but the truth of the matter munir is that what I found in the first week I was there the vast majority of muslims they did not know their dean they were muslim in name only and alhamdulillah I had already been blessed to kind of get an introduction to the zaituna institute syllabus um you know what the teachers were you know she comes to usuf imam zaid you know um uh sheikh salik like what they were placing their emphasis on and so when I was looking at the situation in the prison I realized that you know we we have to focus on purification of the heart we have to do everything we have to learn fiqh we have to learn you know our theology correctly akita correctly we have to learn these things but I realized that what was mostly lacking what most people didn't know anything about was how to remove those vices how do you remove those dirt stains from the heart that comes from doing things year after year after year how do you how do you remove that um and so immediately that's what I started working on and like within the first two weeks you know a lot of the brothers kind of understood you know what we should probably make him the imam so that's what they did they made me the imam so now I'm automatically in search mode where are the materials where are the materials we need a syllabus we need some way of systemizing the delivery of Islam to this population there's no there was no syllabus we had books we had catalogs in there um you know without getting into a lot of the polemics you know um you know there's there was a lot of extremists you know thought in there too you know um and it's not their fault that's what's being sold in the bookstores you know and you know the they look beautiful the covers are very beautiful and it says that this is the authentic tradition and really it's not really that's that's the outlier right and so you know I wanted to tell brothers you no no no don't don't read this read this don't read don't don't study that study this but there was nothing that was systemized there was no syllabus there was no curriculum so I just had to go through the catalog book by book buy this book don't buy this book buy this book buy this book and then you have to you have to explain it why why you have to buy this book why why not buy that book um you know so alhamdulillah that that time that I was there you know we gave a lot of shahadas I can remember just off the top of my head I can remember five names and I can there was probably double that though you know just people they're just watching you know they're watching and that's the thing about prison you're in a isolate you're isolated you're you're you're in an environment you're like in a pressure cooker you see the same people every day and they're watching you and you're watching them and when they realize that you have something to share they're going to come to you eventually there was a Puerto Rican I'm sorry Dominican that was in my cell he just watched me make wudu he just he watched me make wudu and and he took a shahada based on that because he said that his grandmother who knew something about the black arts which you know that's very famous down in South America you know that that's what she used to do she used to rub her face with water and rub her arms with water when she feared with witchcraft right so this is probably in her background there's some Islam so when he saw me doing that he was like I want to know what you know I want to be what you are that's how he accepted Islam um there was another brother he was Cuban um you know he was having some uh some situations with his with his uh with his soon to be wife but he was looking at some serious time just I just gave him some advice one day we were in the cell he just started crying and he said I need you to teach me about God I know I want I need to know I need to understand like explain everything to me so I just started explaining to him and finally he just one time we were on a transit bus and the guard was asking everybody what their religion was because they have to make sure that everybody gets their religious services and whatnot so they get to us and he asked me I told him I was a Muslim the guy next to me says I'm what he is I'm what he is and that's how he took a shahada so I took him through the process um so that was that's what happened for the first 16 months when I got to the actual prison that I was going to this was maybe around 2006 the end of 2006 or the early 2007 I was talking to my brother-in-law who was living in the Bay Area at the time and he started he asked me he said you remember you remember Rami Rami was he was going over the seas and he was you know he used to come back to say to him he used to teach sometimes you know I vaguely remembered you know this tall guy you know coming back from Mauritania you know I vaguely I said yeah I think I think so he said yeah he's starting a program where he's going to be teaching Muslims who are incarcerated I was like really but to be honest with you I didn't get out I didn't get with him right away because I was ashamed of my situation I was ashamed so I didn't reach out because I knew a lot of the brothers at Zaituna I knew a lot of the teachers you know and I you know I just was totally ashamed of my situation which I should have been but finally finally I think maybe the middle of 2007 I reached out and Sheikh Rami MashaAllah he was so gracious he took my phone call we talked about some some issues and then he started sending me material and this stuff was you know it was nothing it was no book form it was just it was just you know copied papers half Arabic half English with some notes written on it and he sent it to me in the mill but to us who were in prison and now I'm I'm part of a bigger community there's there's maybe 150 brothers at the prison receiving that was like receiving light when you're in a cave that's the only way I can explain it to you know that someone on the outside cares enough to you know go over fine details of some issue on the phone they'll accept your collect call and then when you ask them they take time to explain it to you and then they say I'm going to send you some material give me your address and then you actually get the material this is very rare in prison this is very rare we live by the mail that we live by the phone and by the mail and the phone calls are only 15 minutes you only get so many minutes to call out so when you can call out if you might get 300 minutes a month okay 300 minutes a month and you know and and the mail that's that's how you keep your sanity so when you have a Muslim who cares enough about you to send you books to send you literature to take your phone calls it means everything to somebody who was incarcerated and that was how I was introduced to the table foundation um and we just started studying and then you know every now and then I would get surprise books in the mail I would get surprise letters in the mail I would get you know like a newsletter or a calendar or a book and you literally just you fall in love with the sand of the person who's doing this for you um you know because really truly you don't know who your friends really are and how your family is going to stand by you until you are in prison then you're gonna know you're gonna find out and you know I can't there are thousands of brothers and sisters in all 50 states that love shakrami they make dua for for the table foundation for the people who are helping in the table foundation because of what I just my my experience you can multiply that times hundreds of thousands of Muslims that are in the prison system and you know anybody who reaches out to them you know um you know it's it's the difference between you know a hard year or an easy year uh you know a good day or a bad day you know I mean it's it's it's pretty much everything so that's you know in a long winded way of telling you you know that was my introduction to the table foundation and um so okay so I'll go on just a few more minutes um eventually the books that started coming were much more polished so by the by like 2009 2010 we were getting the whole text half Arabic half English and and I'm spreading the word you know there are there are brothers who were in you know prison I'm telling them sign up with the table foundation time you're gonna get these books you know this is this is this is this and then we started a study circle and you know pretty much everywhere where I went I was either the Imam or I was the assistant Imam but my thing in prison was about education with particular emphasis on purification of the self and you know you're just introducing to brother you have to introduce to brothers because you have these brothers and sisters they love Allah they love the messenger of Allah Salaam but you know they grew up in broken homes or they grew up in the foster system their parents were drug addicts their their parents were you know pimps and prostitutes and they didn't have a chance to learn adab they didn't have a chance the first time they see discipline is in prison you know in prison if you're not disciplined you have the threat of violence you bump into somebody and you don't say excuse me you could lose your life so your your your circumstances force you to be disciplined but then the influence of Islam in prison is greater than its numbers it's greater than its numbers you only have maybe 10 of the population that's muslim but the but the influence of Islam in prison is much greater than that I mean you just imagine you know you you know munir when you when you walk into a parking lot just say you're just driving you go into sams club you walk into the parking lot and you see three brothers over in the corner and they're praying under a tree you know the effect that that has on you like oh wow mashallah now just imagine somebody who knows nothing about Islam he walks onto the prison yard some people are out there lifting weight some people are running around the track getting their exercise some people doing push-ups some people are playing basketball but over there in the corner every couple of hours there's 25 brothers lined up and you see them all in unison moving together allah akbar semi allah al-hamida and these are some of the these these their reputations like these are some of the hardest dudes on the yard and they became muslim and now they have this discipline they fast during the month of Ramadan they prayed five times a day they began to get rid of cursing in their language you always see them with a book in their hand they're studying a whole brand new language the Arabic language and the people what people that come they see that and are like what's that I want that and this is this this is how Islam spreads very very quickly very very quickly I've heard this over and over and over again by people that took shahada while I was in prison they might have seen the prayer they've seen the discipline they come maybe their home boy got locked up a few years before them and when they come their home boy is muslim and they're like this guy is totally different he's talking about God and you know he doesn't curse anymore and he reads now and you know I don't you know okay I'm signed me up like you know that's kind of kind of how it goes so yeah thank you so much for sharing that it's not very beautiful and you know when I read this statistic of one in ten of every american prisoners becoming muslim it's just an amazing phenomena it sounds like it's happening despite the efforts of the larger muslim community and and the muslim communities we're moving from this ad hoc services to a little more structure I'm wondering for me what's the next iteration as we we have now mail service and phone calls to support our muslim incarcerated and we have a little more polished distance learning what's the next evolution to support our incarcerated brothers and sisters inside inside I would two things come to mind the first thing is that we need many many more volunteers to go in and just be you know a support for muslims who are incarcerated muslims who are incarcerated I did 11 years in prison and I only saw three volunteers that were muslim to come into the system I only saw three in 11 years and but I saw you know every every group the smallest group in prison is the jewish group but they get visitors every week and they're the smallest group the largest group are the protestant christians and then after that it's the muslims and then after that is the catholics then after that is the jews the muslims we don't get any love from from from the greater larger muslim community and I personally personally wrote letters to you know to the muslim community because I did my time in jessip georgia I wrote to the imams in savannah I wrote to the imams in Jacksonville florida I wrote to the imams in atlanta and out of probably 20 different places that I wrote to only one responded and they just sent us some they sent us some crimes and they sent them some literature and things like that alhamdulillah but it was it's it was nowhere near what we actually need the morale of the muslims when they when they call you when they they tell all muslims you know report to the chapel you know that you know that you have a visitor your your morale it just it takes off it it goes into outer space because you just want to ask them how are you guys dealing with such and so how does a muslim go about getting married in your community how you know if i get released how where can i go buy a kufi from where can i get a test b right like these are simple questions to me and you right because we know islam be out out here but to someone who became muslim in prison they don't know what that's like can you bring us some mswack right can what about prayer rugs i remember one brother he promised to send some prayer rugs and they never came that was heartbreaking for the whole population it was heartbreaking and the chaplain told him if you send the rugs i'll accept them the rugs never came you know it was a heart it was heartbreaking um and um so that's the first thing there we need more muslims to volunteer we're talking maybe two hours three hours a week it's nothing you know it's it's nothing you might have to pay for the gas up there you know the gas back and you know you spend an hour maybe two hours you know just talking to the brothers and sisters that's it that's the first thing the second thing is this monir 95 percent of the incarcerated population is returning back to society 95 percent i guarantee you every masjid every masjid in america is going to have brothers and sisters who were formerly incarcerated i guarantee it whether you know it or not they will be there the question is how do we plug them into the greater community just i'll just give an example um there was there was a sister that just wrote us a letter she was in san diego and she um she became muslim in prison she was at the halfway house she wanted something so simple i just want to buy a hijab that's it but because she's not connected there's no way there's nowhere for me to say okay go here talk to this brother this community talk to this sister and this community you know this brother is doing reentry work the sisters are doing reentry work you know if there's no structure where can i tell her to go buy a hijab from oh she wants is a hijab she never bought a hijab on the street she just wants to go to a store and buy a hijab there's no one to guide her there's no one to help her this is something very simple what about complex matters get a job housing references for a job or to enter into college how about that though that's more complex if we can't help them to get a hijab or to get a kulfi we we we have to step up our game there are hundreds of thousands of muslims in prison hundreds of thousands that's like a whole city of people you don't see but they're muslim and they're gonna come out they're gonna come out so we have to the second thing i would say is we have to we have to structure how we plug them into the community and how we deliver services to them because what you'll find like what we have here in southern california and it's all we're all table students we're all table students i can i can tell you there's four brothers in southern california right now that's that is giving more to the community than they are asking from the community okay so for example myself i teach in a couple of islamic communities and they asked me to because they realized that you know i have a i have a connection to what is being packaged and given to them so in other words they're listening to music you know they're they're watching these programs on television dunya is being packaged in very beautifully and served to them via social media via the movies via the music and the imam doesn't can't always relate so what if you bring somebody in who can relate now you're a resource and you can talk to the children at the level that they are and believe me the kids are being exposed to everything they're being exposed to everything so someone who knows that and i know it not because it says so in the Quran i know it because i lived it i experienced it and i'm telling you brother i'm telling you sister that you don't want to go down that route okay um we have another brother he's the operations manager as one of the largest mosques most wealthy mosques here in southern california operations manager after 22 years in prison we have another brother who you know he he just got a almost a million dollar contract with the the city of los angeles or the county of los angeles to provide reentry services you know to people who are entering into southern california he's muslim he's providing these services and he's able to hire other muslims because he has this huge contract right and each one of us received just a little support from the muslim community via teba but now look at the payback look at the payback just a little investment look at the payback that's what we have to do as a community that's what we have to do the responsibility is on all of our shoulders and you know we so often we hear from our incarcerated brothers and sisters uh we sometimes they call themselves the forgotten umma and for the viewer watching right now and he or she is listening to you and says oh i don't want to i don't want to be responsible i don't want i want to do something about this but i don't know how do i reach out to teba do i call my local jail of prison do i what do i do do i call the mosque and how do i how do i help my incarcerated brothers and sisters yeah that's a very very good question and the answer is going to be different in every location um because there are different levels of services that are needed you have some services that are needed at the jail level just people who are they're under the threat of being incarcerated or they're being held on some charge and they just need someone to come in this is local this is local work you don't have to drive far just to drive downtown to your city and and ask you know the representatives or you know ask the administration how can we um you know just you know provide chaplain services to the muslim population how can we do that and they may say oh we just they need Quran's you know they need um you know something for Ramadan services for Ramadan that's at the jail level then you have the prison level um you know in alhamdulillah in california it's it's it's more developed than in most other states where we have like chaplains that go into the prisons um you know and you know are able to teach organizations like taba um you know to provide you know long-distance learning very very you know highly developed courses um you know for muslims who are incarcerated then you have the reentry services so it really depends on where you are and what's happening for your particular community i would say um support the table foundation it's right there right there union city right in the bay area you know it's a staple in the bay area and but the reach is much further i mean we have students in 48 states male and female at the jail state prison and federal prison level so any support that you give it's going far and wide um we just started another program inshallah i'll be done with my masters uh next month inshallah i submit my thesis next month um and um i'll be able to provide mental health and substance abuse services you know not just to those who are re-entering society but muslims in general too muslims in general sometimes the imam calls me he says listen this student over here you know had a mental break and having problems with their parent come and talk to them um um you know you know but up there in the bay area i'm sure you still need somebody to go to the local jails it might be the san francisco county jail it might be the san matel county jail the alameda county jail that's always needed that's always needed they just and and you don't need to know a lot you just have to have empathy that's it you don't have to know a lot of dean you don't have to you just have to have empathy sometimes people just need someone to talk to somebody to say we didn't forget about you so that's what i would say like kind of get in where you feel that you fit in you know um you if you have a good listening ear maybe the county jails is your thing you know um if you you know have some you know counseling you know psychological skills something like that maybe the prisons might be you know going to the prisons um you know that they're a little bit further outside of the city's a little bit more effort um but if you don't want to do that support the table foundation because we're starting all of these projects where we have the project fatima where we just hired a life coach all women's life coach to deal with women and their issues in prison and when they get released because they have a totally different uh jihad when they come when they come out of out of prison they have their struggle is different it's actually harder everything i'm talking about when you deal with the women it's even harder and they need specialized care specialized care so that's that's just a few suggestions i know we're running out of time and you spoke a little about the the onus on the masjids and so i think that's two part one is to support the incarcerated brothers and sisters other is when they are released making sure that they feel welcome and supported them outside so with i'll just speak personally about mcc what we've been doing is you know sponsoring dates either we have a banquet at some of the prisons pilot and base state prisons that chaplains reach out to us we do drives so we collect items from our congregation bhs tapes cassettes quran's books that they're not reading anymore that are in the house and we reach out to the prisons and ask them where what they need and then we just send it to them that's what we've been doing so those are some maybe some thoughts from other budgets that might be listening i think um how do we then make them feel welcome when they come to our masjid because when we're talking about supporting our incarcerated brother and sisters we're waiting for them to reach out to us and ask for as i got asked for helping them reach out you know find an apartment but beyond that we're not really we're really passive we're waiting for them to come to us how can we be more proactive right yeah this is a big one uh because monir the um you know there are i i just give you an example um i just i just you know a brother just came home from prison he was in florida but he was a table student he came back to southern california and you know we always you know we have a we have reentry services so i told him i'm gonna meet you here at this time um i went there um there were some muslims there and um you know he had some tattoos on his neck and on his hand and things like that you know and um but you know he was a table student a serious table student you know you know and studied the dean um for the short amount of time that he's muslim i was very very impressed at his level of knowledge i really was the brother you know i kind of know him a little bit so he was more warm with me so i'm on a come how you doing and everything and shake my hand when it when he came time to shake the other brother's hand and he was white he was very standoffish right and when he shook his hand it was almost like he really didn't want to shake his hand and it hurt me to watch it it hurt me to watch it and the reason why is because number i knew that the brother was hurt by it this he he has just come home after being in prison for six years this is his maybe second or third interaction with the muslim since he's been home because he took he he took shahad in prison and there was no warmth in that interaction there was no warmth and that's the first thing i would say just be warm just be warm this is from the sunnah of the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and some of his companions before they became muslim committed more heinous crimes than some of these brothers and sisters right they're they they have most of most of the drug crimes most of the brothers and sisters you're going to find is drug related because it's connected to poverty right it's connected to poverty so they sell drugs to try to make money and the black and brown communities are heavily policed they're overcharged over sentenced and so then they go away for a decade a half a decade two decades they become muslim they've made their taoba but that spirit of taoba is not running through our communities we're not looking at them as they made taoba as if islam is not transformative right like there's no you know like we've all there there are some muslims who are doing things it might not be illegal but it's still a sin it's still haram and then maybe and even in a muslim country it may get you a jail sentence but just because you're in america you didn't get a jail sentence but because he did something i got him a jail sentence he's untouchable she's untouchable that's a bad representation on islam when all of everything that they've been studying is that islam is all about forgiveness but it's not reflected in the community this just happened this happened this this scenario i just told you about just happened maybe five weeks ago just maybe five weeks ago so it's fresh in my memory and that has been the story many many brothers and sisters they have that story i just i wasn't welcome i didn't feel welcome so even before the resources even before the resources just let them know that they are human being that they are accepted into the community what can i do for you what what do you need now every community might not have the resources to you know hire someone or appoint someone to just deal with brothers and sisters that come to the masjid or you know they might be converts somebody converted and they need it they need help somebody came home from prison and they need help but every community should have someone that they can call to say hey this brother just showed up here today and or this sister just showed up here today just got out of prison or just took their shahada and they need to know how to plug in they need to know where to get these different resources from i think that's the least that every single community can do find someone who does this work and have his number on speed dial have her number on speed dial somebody shows up at the masjid somebody shows up at taalif somebody shows up you know somewhere oh i yeah i got this number i got no somebody we can help you i think that's the least and the other things that you're talking about that's very advanced very very few communities have that like you said um you know the food drive you know the the book drive and the videotape drive and things like that to me that's very very advanced mashallah may Allah SWT bless you all i just hope that that's accompanied by the understanding the empathy that's needed when people come home because that's that's needed it's it's needed you know it's needed they already felt they already feel like look i did my time i'm yeah i did what i did but i did my time and and and only that but i became muslim but i'm being treated like an outcast you're right i can get more love in the neighborhood i can go through the neighborhood i'm og now i did 10 years in prison i can go in the neighborhood and everybody's gonna say oh he's og now he's uh he's an original gangster now he comes to the masjid he gets no love that's bad that's very bad we're running out of time we'll start uh we have some questions from our live viewers but before i get to that um i just really wanted to ask you you know covid has affected so much of our daily life um you know masjid's just living in the community there's so much loneliness and i think there's a parallel there for the loneliness that our brothers and sisters have in prison uh we've kind of become isolated in our own houses and we have this greater empathy hopefully for that but i really wanted to ask i uh what's how's covid affecting our incarcerated brothers and sisters are they able to congregate are they able to meet each other in community covid was devastating for the muslim community the incarcerated muslim community was devastating no visits very few phone calls because you're locked down 22 23 hours a day um because you know they're trying to stop the spread of covid we've had a couple of table students that were very very sick we had a table student who passed away it was devastating it was devastating so what we tried to do is you know just reach out to the brothers and sisters that were contacting us either through mail or through email or some of them actually call us on the phone and we just try to give them moral support um but yes it was it was devastating it was devastating it was worse and in there than out here because you have to be locked down in a cell when you're used to going out the cell you can go outside you can go to the yard and work out or whatever you take shower whenever you want to take a shower things like that go to commissary get the food that you want um but after you know covid hit you're locked down 22 23 hours a day you can't use the phone because you're locked down um you know you can't order what you want from commissary you you're not getting any visits you're um you know it's hard it was it was it was devastating i can go on and on and on but it was devastating it was devastating for the muslim community there which is another reason why they need moral support i'm not bringing these but i was going to ask you a last question we're less than a month away from Ramadan Ramadan's coming up tell us about what Ramadan is like in prison tell us about the struggles and i imagine there's some opportunities because you're able to gather in community when at least before covid um so tell us about what it's like to be muslim during Ramadan in prison so like i mentioned earlier you know you know islam has a greater influence in prison than the numbers reflect and Ramadan is one of those times um now what i'm going to say can can differ depending on the prison but i was in the federal system and that's one thing that i can say about the federal system is that they are sticklers for rules and regulations um if you have a gripe you have a religious especially a religious gripe um they take it very very seriously and you can get recourse in the federal system in the federal you know before federal judge if you know you can prove that your rights have been violated so you know the chaplain is the one who has to arrange everything with the security so the chaplain will make sure that you wake up for sahur that you get the bags that you're supposed to get um um you know that you can that you can go to the kitchen in the morning for for for for sahur that you that you get a hot meal for iftar in the federal system it was fairly easy we had a few run-ins i remember one time to try to service pork that is always a challenge at the state level it's a little bit harder okay um you know you they want to give you um you know like a cold dinner you know you've been fasting all day and they just want to give you a sack lunch because they don't want you to have access to the kitchen that's always a hard time for ramadan for muslims nationwide um and then many times that because the chaplain doesn't know islam and he doesn't have anybody from the outside who is helping him to know islam um he doesn't know to go and tell prison staff on days that pork is served you don't serve the muslims pork or you don't serve them something else that may be forbidden and so it happens it happens you know when the guards come and they bring you you know your this sack lunch it's a ham sandwich what are you supposed to do with that you've been fasting all day many of the inmates are indigent they've got 56 on their account they can't go and buy tuna from commissary you know macro or anything like that they cherish what comes in those paper bags and some days it's peanut butter and jelly some days it's it's you know um you know uh cheese and mayonnaise or you know something like that um it can be very very difficult for muslims uh during ramadan um which you know drives home the point that we just need more support because if you had someone to be able to call the chaplain's office and say ramadan is coming here's a guide for for ramadan in prison or here is um you know if you have any questions call us at this number you know the chaplain used to come to me the chaplain because we had the second largest community in prison the chaplain wanted to do his job but he could not find muslims in either savannah or jacksonville that were willing to come and provide services and each one of these communities was only one hour away from the prison one hour away and there was nothing i could tell him what could i what do i tell him right because he has to corroborate everything that i'm telling him with somebody on the outside he has to corroborate it and and but you know we couldn't get any support we couldn't get any support and that that shows up in ramadan and it hits it has a double effect it has a double effect so it can be it can be very very difficult it can be it can be i love bringing you i certainly understand what you're saying uh in my home state of missouri uh the message that we would get calls in desperation from the local chaplain who's just trying to do his job uh and support the new muslims uh there and then here in california i see the same exasperated emails and messages coming from the local chaplains and we do need to do better we do need to do better because they're they're the chaplains are generally trying to serve their muslim inmates but they just cannot find the support from the large community so thank you for all that let's get to some questions that we're getting from um the our live viewers so we have one um that has come in this is from lukeman he took a shahada two weeks ago um and he says uh osla can i get any tips on myself i just converted islam i have two good friends which are who are muslim but they still go out and party and drink alcohol and go out with girls it's really difficult for me to change they are good friends of mine but it makes it hard for me can you help me out can you please uh help me out with my situation it's not necessarily they're specific to prisons but it certainly is to the fact that um you know all of us face right you know like this is um you know i mean it's going to be specifically hard right now because of covid um but i you know if if it was you know any other time i would tell him to up there if he's up there in the bay area i would tell him to get in contact with an organization called the talif initiative um that's one of the things that they specialize in you know just making a space for new muslims um that have you know a variety of backgrounds and just taking them step by step that's what i would tell him um you know um but as far as there is uh there is a test i don't want to make it like all the problems can be solved simply because you go and you find a different community there's going to be a test with changing you know your life becoming muslim and trying to do better you're going to be tested and it's going to make you a stronger muslim it's going to make you you know um you may find you know that you are even stronger than many muslims that you run into and then you know and be gracious be grateful to Allah swt for that favor because you may find that you're the one who has to help 10 others later on down the line that are just like you that's what that's that's in a nutshell that's what i would say about that you know try to find out you know what the brothers are doing a ta'leef initiative if he's in the bay area um and also have the understanding you know mean that we're all going to be tested we're all going to be tested it just so happens that your test is with other muslims who are not setting a good example don't condemn them you know don't think you know don't have the attitude of holier than thou you know you know perhaps perhaps they'll see you and change upon the law uh invisible asks us assalamu alaykum brother i have a whole bunch of stuff to offer but with my limited uh resources i would just like to send some hijabs and miswalks some Quran some desbez to the prison how can i help please so this goes back to our earlier question there's well-meaning people out there they just don't know how to how to do this i mean you can we just send the stuff to the prison and just get the address off google and just send it there well no no no it doesn't work like that um you have to um you know there is an organization down here in southern california that's doing something like that is called link outside and what that's one of the things that they do they send um Quran's into the prisons you know they they they have you know a brother that's going into the prisons that takes like vicar beads and things like that um and he visits different prisons around you know um around southern california he would be the one that i would say get in contact with him um the or name of the organization is link outside and they you know they that's something that they do and we in table we actually work with them um you know to provide different services and things like that um so that's what i would say this is somebody who's in california i would tell them contact link outside the brother's name is amin ashakir and um he's he's kind of doing that work so those are the questions from our live viewers uh we could just have a few minutes before we'll be closing inshallah but i do want to just really quickly start i don't want to close out without asking this because when they've approached mcc about this they they give us the title the sahaba behind bars and for those of us we don't have experience with the penal system and at the titles it's just interesting when you think of the sahaba where these are tried true uh companions of our dear prophets have some who struggled and suffered how does that become for the for the brothers and sisters in prison explain that title to us the sahaba behind bars right so alhamdulillah um you know alhamdulillah you know shekrami you know he he kind of coined this term uh based on the similarities between the test and trials of the companions of the messenger of allah and the test and trials of muslims who are incarcerated what are those parallels what are those what are those similitudes um number one based upon everything that i just told you there's really not that much of an incentive for people who are incarcerated to become muslim not materially okay it's the same exact situation that the companions of the messenger of allah that they had they believed in allah they believed in the messenger of allah they believed in the day of judgment but to accept islam was sometimes to accept a death sentence it's like that it's like that when somebody becomes muslim in prison their parents sometimes shun them their wives husbands divorce them they get cut off from their money sources um you know they are they're isolated from their children i can tell you story after story after story that this has happened they're doing it because they actually believe in allah they believe in the messenger of allah they wanted and they find that islam is transformative but materially there's nothing in it for them just like there was nothing in it for the companions at the meccan stage there was nothing in it for them right they would lose their wealth they would lose their lives some of them they were chased out of mecca you know and they had to seek refuge in east africa and abyssinia and these are some of the same experiences that that the muslims have when they become muslim um and they're incarcerated like i said their families are not muslim they're even if the families want to support them they don't know how to support them there's no resources you're joining a muslim community in prison is you're you're going to be cut off from the world pretty much your religious community you when you watch the news your it's your community that's being castigated for a long time alhamdulillah it's changed because of you know everything that's happening now with white nationalism and stuff like that but for a long time every night on the news we had to bear that in prison this is what islam is this is what muslims do and we had to bear that and not you know and you know there was nothing materially in it for us and then you've got to go you accept islam you got to go tell your parents right who or your family members your wife whoever we are muslim now and they're watching the same stuff that you're watching there's nothing in it so there's these there's these connections there's these um you know there's these parallels that you can strike between what the sahabah experience in the meccan phase becoming muslim and what muslims who are incarcerated what they have to deal with what they you know what their trials and tribulations are you can strike a lot of similitudes a lot of similitudes you know there's there's there's and i can go on and on and on but i know we're running out of time um you know but that is that's that's where that idea came from so true so true i remember what chef hanza yusuf said about how there were no hypocrites in medina the the hypocrites were in mecca because there was no there was no incentive to become muslim there and so they were tried and tested um and you know in prison what are the incentives becoming muslim you can just go along and just do what you need to so i certainly i i love that title i really love it we'll start that's all the time we have thank you for the insights thank you for the spiritual insights may allow make us more in tune with the needs and um the affairs of our brothers and sisters who are inside and help us support them and love them the way they need to be loved i mean thank you i'll make it so i mean and uh please if you could end us with a draw and we would love to hear from you thank you we ask you to purify our hearts from every characteristic that keeps us far away from you and from witnessing you yallah we ask you for all of the good that your nabi muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam asked you for and yallah we seek refuge in you from all of the evil that your nabi muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam that he saw refuge in you from and we ask you yallah to to to make our affairs easy we ask you yallah to raise up amongst the incarcerated community yallah make you know the ones that are sincere yallah make them awliya make them your friends yallah and help us yallah to become a more mature community that are that are helpful and they are empathetic and yallah they're willing to do this work for your sake wasallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu wasallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu wa sallallahu viewers if you've made it this far with us by watching this that means that there is something inside you that makes you want to help your other sisters so please in the description we have davah foundations website go out there support them inshallah and reach out to them and see how you can support your incarcerated brothers and sisters yallah give everybody peace and stay safe inshallah we'll see you soon wasallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu