Conversion to Islam in U.S. prisons

Part of a series on
Islamization
Islamizations Late Antiquity - Middle Ages - Modern Islamization Spread of Islam Early Muslim conquests Islamic missionary activity Islamization of Palestine Islamization of Jerusalem Islamization of Syria Islamization of Egypt Islamization of Iran Islamization and Turkification of Xinjiang Islamization of Bosnia and Herzegovina Islamization of the Sudan region Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia Spread of Islam in Indonesia Islamization of Albania Islamization in Pakistan Islamization in Bangladesh Conversion to Islam Conversion to Islam in prisons Conversion to Islam in U.S. prisons Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques List of converts to Islam
v t e

The contemporary rate of

The Hands-off Doctrine, the approach where federal courts refrained from interfering on inmate rights cases for many decades,^[18] was a practice that dated back to the early 20th century and was still practiced by 1960.^[4] Despite the growth of conversions to Islam within prisons, states such as California,^[4] New York^[7] and Texas^[19] still had not yet recognized or accommodated the religious activity of Muslim inmates by the start of the 1960s. As the number of incarcerated Muslims began to reach a critical mass, prisoners petitioned courts to advance their religious rights.^[4] The Hands-off Doctrine began to diminish during the 1960s as courts started to look into specific violations regarding prisoners.^[20] Cases involving Muslim prisoners began succeeding in gaining recognition for a variety of rights over the next several years, such as freedom from punishment due to religion, the right to hold religious services, the right to possess and wear religious medals, and the right to proselytize.^[4] New York's State Department of Correctional Services offered to hire Muslim chaplains as department employees by 1975,^[7] with the Texas Department of Corrections hiring its first Muslim chaplain two years later.^[21]

Muslims later won the legal right to obtain religious (

Between October 2017 and January 2019, there were at least 163 lawsuits filed in which Muslim inmates alleged their right to practice Islam had been violated by prisons.^[24] A 2019 report by advocacy group Muslim Advocates found that state prisons were inconsistent in providing inmates with accommodations such as halal foods, prayer mats, religious books, religious assembly, and Islamic burial rites. "More and more" states are fully accommodating of Muslim prisoners, but in other states, accommodations are difficult or impossible to obtain.^[25] In New Jersey, deceased prisoners have been cremated despite the burial wishes of prisoners – cremation being considered haram (religiously forbidden) in Islam.^[26] In 2019, in Alabama, a Muslim prisoner was executed without being allowed to have an imam present with him; his request for a Muslim chaplain to be present was blocked by the prison and denied by the Supreme Court of the United States in a 5-4 decision, because the prisoner had waited too long to file the request. Dissenting judges called the decision "profoundly wrong". Justice Elena Kagan wrote, "The clearest command of the Establishment Clause" is that "one religious denomination cannot be officially preferred over another ... But the State's policy does just that."^[27]

Professor Lawrence Mamiya of Religion and Africana Studies argues that Islam's appeal in prison is partially due to the spiritual and theological dimensions of the religion (such as brotherhood along with racial and social justice)^[11] as well as the social aspect (such as protection and communal life) it provides the inmate.^[23] J. Michael Waller, senior analyst for Strategy at the far-right Center for Security Policy, claims that 80% of the prisoners who find faith while in prison convert to Islam.^[28] He also claims that Muslim inmates comprise 17–20% of the prison population in New York, or roughly 350,000 inmates in 2003. Independent studies show similar rates within prisons in the upper Midwest (in urban areas such as Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland) and on the West Coast (in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles).^[23] These converted inmates are mostly African American, with a growing Hispanic minority.^[29] According to a 2003 estimate by FBI, there are 350,000 Muslims in federal, state and local prison, about 30,000 – 40,000 more being converted every year.^[10][30]

Muslims prisoners have been characterized as a danger or threat for radicalization in the media.

Thousands convert to Islam in US prisons every year.[1]

• Muhammad Ahmad – civil rights activist, cofounder of the Revolutionary Action Movement
• Jamil Al-Amin – former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader
• Charles Brooks, Jr.
  – convicted murderer executed in 1982
• Tray Deee
  – rapper
• Dave East – rapper^[39]
• Black P. Stones
• Kevin Gates – rapper
• Bernard Hopkins – former middleweight and light heavyweight boxing champion
• Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell – basketball player
• Abdul Alim Musa – Muslim-American activist
• Jalil Muntaqim – political activist, former member of Black Panther Party^[40]
• Montel Vontavious Porter – professional wrestler signed to the WWE
• Sanyika Shakur – author, activist, former gang member
• Russell Maroon Shoatz – activist, member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army^[41]
• Mike Tyson – professional boxer^[42]
• Marcellus "Khalifah" Williams – controversially executed in 2024 for murder
• Malcolm X – revolutionary and human rights activist
• Flesh-n-Bone – rapper, member of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
• B.G. Knocc Out – rapper^[43]
• Lil Reese – rapper^[44]

Terry Holdbrooks is a former prison guard at Guantanamo Bay detention camp who converted to Islam and became an author and public speaker.^[45]

• Conversion to Islam and Conversion to Islam in prisons
• Islam in the African diaspora
• Islam in the United States
• Islamic missionary activity
• Jihadist extremism in United States prisons
• Religion in United States prisons
• Freedom of religion in the United States

• Felber, Garrett. 2018. "“Shades of Mississippi”: The Nation of Islam's Prison Organizing, the Carceral State, and the Black Freedom Struggle." Journal of American History 105(1): 71–95.
• Felber, Garrett. 2020. Those Who Know Don't Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State. University of North Carolina Press.