What is “Jailhouse Islam”?
What do they mean when they say “jailhouse Islam”? Are these things happening in a vacuum or is there a problem with insane converts to Islam? Another convert to Islam (happens to be in Philadelphia again) killed another police officer. It is a pretty good bet that he was mentally unstable.
The story and my thoughts are below the fold
The fact that Rasheed Scrugs allegedly announced he was going to kill a cop and then shot Philadelphia Police Officer John Pawlowski with a gun hidden inside his coat pocket has detectives digging deeper on Scrugs.
They’re still gathering evidence and trying to unravel why Friday night’s senseless murder happened, Fox 29’s Dave Schratwieser reported.
[...]“This individual was very violent and was bent on killing someone,” Ramsey said.
[...]Ramsey told Fox 29 News that police are now trying to determine if Scrugs — who also goes by the alias Rasheed Abdulghaffer — may have converted to a radical form of “jailhouse Islam” during his years in prison.
Ironically, Ramsey said he was briefed by FBI agents on Friday about this radical form of Islam. That was just hours before Pawlowski was shot.
Ramsey said there’s a growing concern among law enforcement.
“This is a radical form where certainly committing crime and killing police officers and so forth is part of it,” Ramsey said.
I have met mentally unstable converts almost since the day I converted. But it was not until I met Eric Fant that I saw that it could take a murderous turn. (Yes, I knew this maniac personally. He claimed at the time to be memorizing Bukhari and to be “training for jihad”. I just kinda ignored him as another lunatic (like I said, I’d met several) until I read about his killing spree in which he attempted to decapitate his victims. A friend of mine was decapitated by his convert wife - read about it here [.pdf] - after 6 months of marriage.
Last July, I was at the Dar Al Hijrah mosque on a typical day last year and this convert who’d been hanging around the masjid goes completely insane and starts to demand zakaat money or he would blow up the mosque. When the police arrived, he ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife and refused police orders to drop his weapon and even charged a police officer!
The police - to their credit - did NOT kill this individual. As a witness, I can tell you that had they shot him, they would have been perfectly within their right - as he had a weapon. Once he was apprehended, he was shouting jihadi slogans about taking over America and “dying shaheed”.
I have seen so many stories like this with my own eyes and there are so many other incidents that do not get reported. A doctor refuses to let a convert borrow money and gets his windshield smashed by that person. (”See how Allah’s Qadr works? I only asked for $100 and he refused. Now he will have to pay $300 to get his windshield fixed!“) The stories of those who are beat up, have their tires slashed, property defaced or stolen do not make news.
Imam Johari was attacked by a maniac (that is a so-called “Imam”) who did not agree with something that Imam Johari said. To make things worse, this maniac “Imam” brags about this event. Thuggish street cred and a way to express violent tendencies found in religion. Meanwhile we can continue to ignore the problem and run sane people away.
Filed under: Bad Culture, Black American Muslims, The Culture of Denial and Pretense
[...] noting a trend in the US of insane converts (the most prominent being Adam Gadahn). The latest event in Philly [...]
There is a natural tendency for people to gravitate toward their Lord while in jail. This is something I know from experience and if you have faced the sadness of life in prison then you know what I am talking about.
It is unfortunate that there are some Muslims who seek to merge their criminal lifestyle and Islam in prison and once they are out. These are people who may talk that sunnah talk; but in reality they only follow the code of the kafir street. Some are salafi, some are sufi, and some are who knows what and I have experience with these people.
It seems like Philly may be hardest hit by this problem. I just pray that they do not use this to further persecute and isolate the Muslim community and that the community can tackle this cultural problem.
Do we need to start doing a better job of establishing and/or referring community services like mental health? Even before your post, I argued yes. Reading this makes me thinks we need to be a little more urgent.
As-Salaamu ‘alaikum,
A few years ago I attended a mid-Ramadan gathering in west London, at which Shaikh Hamza Yusuf made an unannounced appearance. Also present was a mentally-unstable individual who had not long embraced Islam. We were sitting in the canteen talking about his recent history and how he embraced Islam. Then I got up to go to the loo, and when I came out, this man had decided I was a shaitaan, and was threatening to attack me but was restrained, although he did manage to throw a bottle at me.
Apparently there is some sort of facility for such people in that part of town (Notting Hill, Harrow Road end). There is also sheltered accommodation for blind people - not sure how the two get along.
As-salamu ‘alaikom~
I know it’s not isolated to the place by any means, but I’m really sorry for the entire Philly Muslim community when things like this happen. When I first moved there the local reputation was so bad that I, as a muslimah myself, was frankly borderline scared to even get involved.
@Tariq
All murders are not insane, at least most of the ones I grew up with were not insane, conversely all the insane are not murderous.
A major part of the problem is these da’i who have no damn hikmah, who most often won’t bust a grape themselves, who feed the warrior dreams of those seeking to belong to something.
As you know I am already working with others to devise a programic way to provide dawah to brothers in prison based upon tawheed and tarbiyyah. The thing is that we are also working on creating transitional housing to ease their returning to society.
Once we actively look to change the character and etiquette of these then we can better determine the ones who really have issues, apart from those that are misguided.
Of course not. But (any) religion and insanity can be a combustible combination given the wrong conditions. This is my point. If an unstable person hears dehumanizing talk about “the other” for example (whoever “the other” may be) then one should not be surprised when a lunatic takes some of the harsh rhetoric seriously. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
@Tariq
Also, another MAJOR issue that is being over looked by our Masajid is that are number of children now young adults with Muslim names who are simply not Muslim. I’m talking about cases where either non-Muslims simply give their children Muslim names or cases where the mother appostates with young children and the only thing they know of Islam is that their father is Muslim.
Yes, there are ton of those. But the people I am speaking of are converts - usually from prison
What do you think happens when WOMEN get into marriages with these individuals? Everyone here is worried about random brothers being beat up at the masjid. What about the poor sister at home that gets beaten every night? What about the mentally and physically torture the sisters endure while the community takes HIS side? Why is it that no one bothers to tell the sisters that these brothers have mental problems beforehand? Not even the Wali!
I’ve seen sisters with massive black eyes and broken bones yet the community will tell the sister that she has to endure it! They will tell her that it is haraam to call the police if her husband is beating her. She thinks that she will go to Hell if she calls the police to save herself from this insane man. I even have a girlfriend that had her finger cut off by her ex-husband. He refused to divorce her, so she left on her own with no help at all.
Learn something new everyday…
I think a lot of these brothers, who have serious mental conditions, are thrown off when they hear people telling them just believe in Allah and follow the Sunnah and they won’t need their meds.
Some people are on medication who, most likely, don’t really need it (yuppie depression and so forth). Then there are some who really need it until (and if ever) they can work out their problems without it.
There is a brother I know who is a crack head. Every time I tell him he needs to go to rehab he just says, “That’s not Islamic. Those programs are Christian based. I just have to believe in Allah and that’s enough.” Meanwhile he relapses every two weeks. There’s not much you can really say at that point; a lot of these mental conditions are the result of excessive drug use in the first place.
The guy who shot the cop was high on drugs at the time, he had 19 packets of crack cocaine on him. It was reported he told staff at the hospital he couldn’t believe he shot the cop, and was remorseful. There are a lot of people in Philadelphia that dress like Muslims and have Muslim names, but don’t follow the religion. Before I converted I was talking to a guy who told me he was a Muslim, he had the beard, thobe above the ankles, etc. He was also drinking a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and eating donuts, and this was in the afternoon during Ramadan. He could have been a diabetic or something, but you see a lot of people dressed as Muslims and eating during the day during Ramadan here. I’m in the religion only a few weeks and have very little knowledge, so these people could have a reason for not fasting?.
I hope he’s executed. He deliberately murdered the cop, there was no self-defense or anything like that.
If he’ll murder a cop, just consider for a moment what he would do to you or I.
And I don’t give a rat’s behind who he prays to. There’s no room in America for trash like this.
BTW, I’m guessing that, since he’s a felon, he didn’t have a right to bear arms. Yep, we can definitely do without this sh*tbag.
I have met many converts to many religions. It makes sense that converts to any religion have issues, it is these very issues that drive someone to seek answers.
I remember going to Friday prayers at Dar al Hijrah several years ago before we stared doing them at our work. There was a guy who used to show up and I remember once during Christmas he’d wear a santa’s hat to the prayers. It was a shock and everyone you could see thought the guy was a bit off.
I mentioned it to one brother and it seems they had had many issues with this brother and that many people were afraid of him.
I am not one to be scared of almost anyone because I have seen it all, but there is something about those who really seem to be crazy that always give me cause to concern. You cannot accurately judge or predict what they are going to do because they do not act logical.
Abu Sinan,
I actually remember that guy. I think they had to put a restraining order against him.
I work in a Jail. Ever since my county allowed Muslim chaplains in our jail, the so called Jail Islam has almost vanished. The self appointed Shaykhs have been silenced.
As br. Ra’oof noted a huge step in the right direction is for sensible Muslims to organize, create screening processes and standards for Muslim chaplains and volunteers in correctional institutions and work with wardens etc to institute them. A lot of these crazy ideas, at least on the West coast, are the result of backward, ignorant “imams” , volunteers and chaplains who bring them into the jails and prisons.
I can tell you what is not jail house Islam, some inaccuracies on HBO’s Oz. They should have got better consultants about how the brothers organize and conduct themselves, atleast on the West Coast.
those who convert to islam dont know it properly, infact i live in pakistan but here too 90% people dont know the true face of islam. if they learn it as it is they would abhore. its totally misfit in the civilization
Stellar Thanks for telling blacks that. My teachers are from Sudan and were slaves of Arab Muslims because they said allah created blacks for slavery of whites. Arabs are Caucasians and Turks.
BARE NAKED ISLAM HAS A UGLY SITE WHERE SUNNI HAD CUT UP SHIA LIKE PIG FEET.+
There is good and bad of everything.This a Judeo Cristian Society of Course everthing somebody outside of their ideological way is scrutinized and label as wrong.Wrong is wrong religion has nothing to do with .If a few muslim commits a crimes you cant jugde the community as a whole.Every other person who has commited a crime in this society and release from prison who continue to crimes they arent labeled.I dont hear anyone saying Jail House Cristain when marjority of the prisoners are Cristian.So lets leave the Religions out of it lets point the fingers at the people who commit the crimes,and not start new aged racism.
Asalaamu Aleykieum,
I see this blog but all I see is negative comments about AA’s What does it matter where someone reverts to Islam? Who are we to put down what Allah(swt) has decided? To Tariq why don’t you focus on spreading Dawha than all this negative foolishness. You must want for your brother what you want for yourself and No Muslim is better than the other except by piety.