Muslim Prisoners

Yesterday I gave a lecture at the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in Ladbroke Grove organized by cageprisoners. It  was not well attended, and most of those who did come were sisters. My lecture was to remind the Muslims of our duty to help our brothers and sisters, but I ended up being reminded myself!

What is happening is atrocious. Muslims are being arrested for no fair or reasonable cause. They faced being taken and separated from their families, often kidnapped and "arrested" in the most brutal manner. In some cases no one knows to where they are taken. The US policy of extraordinary rendition means that they are flown to countries such as Jordan, Morocco or Egypt, where they are subject to brutal torture. Others have ended up in Guantanamo.

I want you to imagine that all of this is happening to you. Picture yourself in those circumstance. Bound, hooded, chained, gagged, beaten, immobile in one position unable to move, drink, eat, or go to the toilet.

No courts, no hearing, no chance to plead your case. Imagine the heartache and suffering of your family. Maybe they don't even know where you are?

Justice and human rights UK/US style. By in Him in who's hands are our souls, it makes you realise why there is a Hell.

"Shall We treat those who believe and do good as those who spread corruption in the earth; or shall We treat the pious as the wicked?"
Surah Saad 38:28

Now what hopes would you have from your Muslim brothers and sisters? What would be your expectations be of them? Would you not wish the everyone of them was working tirelessly for your release, writing to their MP's, raising awareness about your plight and plight of those with you, harassing the media, embarrassing these hypocritical governments?
Maybe you won't have to imagine. Maybe it will one day be you. May Allah protect us. How can we sit complacent while our Muslim brothers and sisters suffer? Are we not one brotherhood? Did not the Prophet saws tell us:

"I swear by Him in who's hands is my life, you cannot be a true believer until you love for your brother what you love for yourself."

and that

"The connection between Muslims is like  the  bricks of a building, one part strengthens the other."

and that we are a single body, if one part feels suffering the whole body is restless. Is not the Muslim the brother of a Muslim?

"...he does not forsake him, nor despise him."

Is is not paradise to which we aspire, and hope and yearn for? But how will reach paradise without being believers?

"You will not enter paradise until you believe and you will not believe until you love one another."

Do you see how the Prophet linked belief in Allah with love for His slaves. What love is it, what faith is it, if we are not moved to action?

Al Hassan bin Ali was asked about the obligation of freeing the Muslim prisoners, he replied:
"It is obligatory upon the entire earth on which he was fighting."

The Prophet (saws) said:

"Indeed, it obligatory upon the Muslims to free the Muslim captives with goodness."

Be mindful of Allah, remember that our life is short and our meeting with Him, the Magnificent, is soon, and the day of Judgment is hard day, and the Hell a terrible destination and the Paradise a worthy goal!

Read these excellent articles:

Download by_sr_yvonne_ridley.doc

And please read sister Fatima's comment below!

 

 

Comments

[hoxzle]

brother Abdur-Raheen Green! mashAllah.. wow.. I love all your lectures! "Moments of Death" was the first lecture I heard after reading Qur'an, and it's the one that scared me into submission to Allah swt. JazakAllahkhair for all your hard work, I want to see you in Jannah (if i get there..)! I love you for the sake of Allah, brother. MashAllah. Hey I have a driving test tomorrow and I need the license to drive to the mosque (inshAllah), so please make du'a that I'll pass. I failed last week and had to retake it, they charge 100 bux for the retake! Subhan'Allah may Allah guide them! But honestly brother, I wanna be just like you, inshAllah. if I can't attend any one of your lecture, or if i don't meet you in this life, i'll come lookin for you in Jannah later on, inshAllah! (again, if i get there, mashAllah).

ARG comment:
here i was sitting at my desk, just feeling a bit down (yes it happens!) and then i get this, and a smile spreads on my face, and tears well up in my eyes, like both at the same time!
hoxzle...inshallha, may Allah make you better than me, much better. And may Allah help u pass your test, and get to the masjid easier, but whatever happens insahllah is for the best!
And I hope we meet in jennah too, if not before!

[Fatima Barkatulla]

Jazakallahu Khairan for raising this topic and speaking out about it. Recently I found out that one of the brothers in Guantanamo Bay who was a British Resident (in the process of attaining British citizenship, who had a British wife and children) was actually the husband of my childhood friend - I remember playing with his wife as a child and growing up around her family...then it really hit home what effect such an imprisonment had. Imagining my friend and her heartache, her beautiful children without their father...and then thinking of all the other sisters...and finally thinking about myself and my children and how devastating it would be to have my husband snatched from us indefinitely and worse still, to imagine what they were doing to one so beloved to me, to imagine what he had gone through and was going through. May Allah protect us al from that.

Then I read Moazzam Begg's book which was recently published: 'ENEMY COMBATANT, A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back'. And I must say that it should be compulsory reading for all Muslims. This is Begg's account of the background to his arrest and being held without charge or trial for 3 years in various prisons including Guantanamo Bay.

It is the most moving book I've read for a long time and I couldn't put it down. It is more than just about Guantanamo. It is about his childhood, his becoming a practising Muslim, his feelings for the Muslims of Bosnia when they were being slaughtered and raped and his desire to help them. There are lovely descriptions of his journey to Bosnia and then his migration with his family to Afghanistan to build a school there and his water pumps projects in Afghanistan.

It was a very moving read and I found myself weeping throughout it not just at what it contained, but also at my own inaction. But we can't hide from what it contains. We should know. The crazy way in which people were picked up left right and centre in the hope that some of them may have links to al-Qaidah, the purposeful humiliation of Muslims in ways which American soldiers knew Muslims would feel most humiliated, the torture and the deaths in prisons of our brothers who didn't have Western Passports and so would never be asked about. The account of how Moazzam was mentally tortured to get a confession out of him. How he was threatened with being deported to Egypt to be tortured into confessions of having links to al-Qaidah.

But also it contains some amazing insights: the Pakistani intelligence personell who sold their own brothers in Islam to the Americans, the American soldiers who were against the war and against Guantanamo. And the lovely conversations Brother Moazzam had with American soldiers about Islam and every other topic. How some American soldiers became Muslim! His conversations with other Muslims in the prison.

How in the most desperate of times, Brother Moazzam kept his Iman and got through it. How attached he was to his family and the suffering they had to go through.

Moazzam Begg and his family could be any one of us. And that is how I read this book. A painful book but one we have to read to wake up to the world we are in today.

May Allah free the remaining brothers in prisons all over the world who are held without charge. My heart aches for them all as well as their families.

Please read this book, if you reserve it at your library, the library will have to get it for you.

One last point: This book is an excellent da'wah tool. It contains within its pages, everything a non Muslim would need to know about Islam, including the Scientific facts in the Qur'an, the difference between Jews, Muslms and Christians...Jesus in Islam, the Shahadah! Ramadan and its purpose, Malcolm X. So it would be great to give to non-Muslims who are interested in politics or Guantanamo and they would learn all the basics of Islam....very cleverly weaved in by brother Moazzam.

[hoxzle]

alhamdulillah i just got back from the driving school, and i passed! haha jazakAllahkhair brother, Allah answered your du'a and mine, inshAllah for sure you're on a good standing with the Almighty! that's what everyone wants, and u got it, bro! so don't feel down, may Allah let that thing bringin you down be a means to giving you a higher rank in Jannah! ameen.

ps. if i get a scholarship to study in the UK (i've applied n they've called for an interview) we really might be able to meet, inshAllah! till then, assalamualaykum!

ARG
Alhamdulillah for passing the test! And i sure look forward to seing you when you come to the UK!

[Marcia Visanji]

Assalaamualaikum

Dear Moderator,

Your article Muslim Prisoners was posted on the site I subscribe to. I clicked the url and read. The first three paragraphs seem to be copied and pasted from my inner most thinking. It seemed like someone had entered my soul and was taking my most intimate thoughts.

What I find soul destroying is the apathy of the Muslims. What will it take them to take their children with them and protest in front of the parliament of their countries? Take their saucepans, wooden spoons anything but let them know that we are not going to accept them selling our men; our sons, our fathers, our brothers, our husbands, our uncles, our elderly….. I am so devastated by the “no interest shown” from the very people who I thought would think like me.

I am in Italy and one of our Imam’s from Milano has disappeared – kidnapped by CIA and sent to Egypt. The Italian minister of justice will not sign the warrants for the 19 CIA goons. I wrote to the IHR in UK and informed them that they will get no information from EU countries because they are all complicit in this barbarity called “Rendition” . The EU Commissioner of justice is another Italian by the name of Franco Frattini. Any post held by an Italian is corrupt and Islamophobic. (See his comments prior to taking on the post). The only thing Italians know is “Mafia + money”. (

[mailto:?subject=Information Clearing House - News&Body=Thought you might find this interesting http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13052.htm]

Italian Pay-off From Niger Forgery?

By Jeffrey Klein and Paolo Pontoniere
New America Media

05/15/06 "Alternet"

Due to the lack of support from my beloved community who have stuck a knife in me and every time I need their support they pull the knife and stick it deeper in my soul. I thought that I would be immune by now but it hurts like hell and I am glad to know that I have not become one of the “Inshallha people”.

I can tell you of the number of countries which do not accept my protest mail ( sent to GCC: [PIR] AL-HILAL 282 E

Ref: ARAB MEN RULERS ARE TRYING TO TAKE THEIR HIJAB OFF!

Arabs pledge same level of aid for Palestinians

Qatar, UAE, BAHRAIN AND KUWAIT can charge America $650m p.a. extra fees for the military facilities these states are providing to the US and pay these sum to the Palestinian state

The GCC can earn the respect of their people and the Ummah but will they do the right thing?).

Almost all these Gulf countries are countries that have no history. If they do want to tell their history it is that of collaboration with the enemy... And now they would come and tell me how I should pray? What I should do? And what not? I wonder if they are not the ones who are paying all those terrorists who are not killing almost everyday innocent people in the Muslim world... Like The US took gang leaders in Afghanistan and gave them training so that they would become leaders in their country and also to lead the guerrilla against the Soviets...

If developing countries must have "transparency", so should developed nations. Most corrupt deals in the energy, raw-materials and commodities sectors are controlled by corporate interests and their servants in high decision-making positions. The kickbacks taken by former senior US officials from energy deals in the new Central Asian republics or by others in Angola or Congo and money given to the dictators runs into billions of dollars, which has further impoverished these poor nations

I can tell you that I wrote to bbc & al Jazeera to give me 5 seconds on their channels to make my appeal to the terrorist not to exterminate my people and not to destroy my beloved Holy land – the city of 150 mosques al Falluja and yet not a single Muslim supported me but they will turn out in huge numbers and from the highest levels of my Muslim community to plead for Italian mercenaries and the so called security workers - a name that would shame anyone in the security business.

I do know that the only one who supports me is my Allah and that is enough.

I asked for Allah’s wisdom in my prayers and now I read:

The French minister who ruled against my sister adorning their Hijab is in trouble.

Those who used their words against my beloved Prophet have their problems: Somali-born Dutch MP in asylum row

The two of the biggest terrorist who took their butcher god agenda to my Holy land are in trouble.

The mad COWs (Coalition of the willing) have their problems – energy crisis

The butcher of Sabra & Chatila is in vegetative state and he did not have the possibility of seeing his agenda come to light

…….etc

And poor Iraq continues to burn? And is that a little thing? Chechenya is a ruin is that a little thing? Afghanistan is sluggish and is that a little thing? Pakistan has her terrorist attack with her toll of death every week and do we dare to say that is a little thing? And at the same time we have forgotten about the last Tsunamis victims of Indonesia and the last Azaad Kashmiri earthquake... But it is a big issue if you talk about these:) La Hawla Wala Kuwata... And you are asked to relax and drink tea or coffee... :))) Strange world after all we are living in a culture of cinema, aren't we?

These brain washed people, my Ummah people expect Kosher/Hollywood kind of justice but they have forgotten that Allah’s justice is the highest, classiest and the most elegante.

I can’t make my Ummah understand “People of the Muslim world, these 'civilised' men hate your freedom, and they fear your example On the Eve by Ian Buckley:

They put profit before Prophets!

I will keep protesting and Allah has helped me.

Cordiali Saluti

Marcia Visanji

[new balance]

Yeah, I strongly agree with you. It seems there are really talented writers who are willing to share a very good articles online.