"Let there be a Community of you calling to the good, and commanding to the right, and forbidding against the wrong" (wa-ltakum minkum ummatun yad'ouna ila-l khayr wa yamurouna bi-l ma'roufi wa yanhawna 'ani-l munkar [Q, Aal 'Imraan, 3:104])
"Whoever of you sees something reprehensible then let him change it with his hand, and if he's not yet able to do it, then with his tongue, and if he's not yet able to do it, then with his heart - and that is the weakest of faith." (Reported by Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri; transmitted by Muslim.)
"People, who when they see a bad thing and they do not change it, are on the verge of a sweeping punishment from Allah." (Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq; transmitted by Ibn Majah and Tirmidhi.)
And so many of the Muslims' representatives are so keen to be liked and fêted by Western institutions and their leaders, and to seek 'international recognition' from them, that they wouldn't fight back or retaliate even if they did notice: (...ayabtaghouna 'indahumu-l 'izzah?... [Q , An Nisaa, 4: 139]: "...do they seek importance from them?").
But the most barbaric and mediæval practices in any criminal justice system today are actually being perpetrated in the United States of America. Yet has any Muslim representative protested? Really? I must have blinked, then, because I missed it.
It seems clear to me that the Muslim World is going through a Dark Age of its own pusillanimous creation. This, however, is not relative to Western terms - we do not need to develop ourselves into any Middle Ages prior to a Renaissance, a Reformation, and then an Enlightenment (although some, mostly modernisers and missionaries, would argue this). In terms relative to the Islamic Tradition we are at a loss. We seem to be doing all the things that we shouldn't be doing, and, by implication, not doing any of things that we should be doing. We seem to be wallowing in an overflowing sea full of politics, back-stabbing, competitiveness, racism, self-seeking, money-grabbing, injustices, inequalities, anarchy, confusion, arrogance, ignorance, as well as arrogance in our ignorance... and perhaps only a few desert islands of justice, respectfulness, and true, honest wisdom remain. Far too much talking, and too little action. Quite the opposite of the Turkish Sufi saying, az lâf, çok is"less talk, more work".
Somewhat remiss for the Community of the Prophet, may be peace be upon him.
While the Muslim World argues among itself - about jihad, khilafah, bid'ah, and so on - there are people in the meantime around the world suffering greatly at the hands of injustice. Where we should be standing up to defend the weak and the oppressed, we have turned our backs on them.
Let us consider the American Criminal Justice System (if it exists) for a moment. The Christian fundamentalist molly-coddler of the United Nations, which is all too often throwing tantrums at the Muslim World for being "barbaric", is also a medieval womb to its own nest of barbarity.
Cases of institutional racism in the American Legal System, for example, as well as in the Police Force, are being exposed one after the other. It seems the Civil Rights Movement never really managed to get that far in many states. Reports of unsafe convictions are rife, as well as those of trial-fixing. Many innocents are ending up in jail, or, worse still, on Death Row, due to this. Many people are now aware of the on-going campaign of one such Muslim brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a convert to Islam, was condemned to Death Row for the murder of a policeman, whom he is said to have shot in defence of his brother, who was being beaten by police on the street. This arrest had followed a stream of police harassment. Mumia Abu-Jamal had also been an unpopular and outspoken journalist prior to being targeted by both the police and the media, mostly due to his previous support of the "Black Panthers". Many believe his arrest, therefore, to have been a "set-up".
Whether guilty or not, his trial was certainly a farce. As a result any verdict reached should have been declared "unsafe", and he should never have ended up on Death Row.
Several witnesses came forward to state that they had seen another man fleeing the scene, but they were never put in the witness box at the trial. Abu-Jamal's gun (a legally registered .38 inch) did not match the bullet in the victim's body, but this forensic evidence was also not brought forward at the trial.
Moreover, Mumia Abu-Jamal was not allowed to represent himself at his trial, because "his dreadlocks made jurors nervous" (Judge Sabo), and instead he was defended by a lawyer who was later disbarred for incompetence. The prosecutor also was later reprimanded for withholding evidence at another trial. The judge, Albert F. Sabo, has sentenced "more men to die (31 to date, only two of them white) than any other sitting judge in America" [Terry Bisson]. Meanwhile, all but one of the black jurors were removed from the trial so that there was a heavy white-black bias.
During most of the trial, Abu-Jamal was kept in a holding cell and "read about his own trial in the newspapers" [Bisson]. The prosecution seemed more interested in Abu-Jamal's political history than the trial itself.
Mumia Abu-Jamal has now been on Death Row for 17 years. His appeals for a "new trial, with an unbiased judge and a competent lawyer" [Bisson] have been consistently ignored or refused. A worldwide campaign has now sprung up in his defence, calling for justice.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a colourful, well-known figure (though perhaps not, inexplicably and unforgiveably, to the Muslim World), but his case is not the only one of its kind.
Many prisoners on Death Row are angrily trying to appeal against injustices. Only recently, the case of a Briton who is on Death Row in Florida after a miscarriage of justice came to light in the United Kingdom.
If the Muslim World is not interested in the internal problems of the USA, or about whether keeping someone on Death Row for nearly 20 years is inhumane in the extreme, then perhaps it might be interested if it hears an exposé of the scandalously poor treatment of these prisoners at the hands of the "Ummah".Apart from the fact that, in an ideal world, the Muslims should be championing the causes of these weak few and hammering at the doors of Capitol Hill demanding justice on their behalf, there are many other ways in which the Muslims have further let down these people.
Let us take the case of another brother who has not managed to find the same levels of publicity as Mumia Abu-Jamal, possibly because he has less of a politically-sensitive history. His name is Abdurrahman Sami Ali.
[Much of this information has been taken from R. S. Lewis, "The Last Round", 1997, to be found at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/2768 , and also from our own correspondence with Bro Abdurrahman.]
Abdurrahman Sami Ali found himself on Death Row at the age of 19, after an unsafe verdict found him guilty of triple murder, despite police records confirming that he could not possibly have been anywhere near the scene of the crime at the time in question. The murder had taken place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where it is well-known that the police have had a very active anti-black stance. During his interrogation, which took place after he had presented himself at the police station after hearing rumours that he was a suspect, he was subjected to unnecessary abuse.
During the trial, many things seemed to mirror that of Mumia Abu-Jamal's. The defence attorney assigned was incompetent and had not handled a criminal case for twenty years. He called no witnesses to try and establish the whereabouts of Abdurrahman at the time of the shooting. The real murderers, who pled guilty before trial in exchange for one life-sentence, and one minimal jail term, both condemned Abdurrahman as guilty. However, neither of them was sentenced until after Abdurrahman was found guilty. This was despite the fact that the eye-witnesses, although also biased, testified that there had only been two killers. The co-defendants had also been supplied with illegal drugs during the course of the trial. It was clear that some sort of deal had been made against Abdurrahman.
Amongst all this there were stories of the state forging signatures and statements, and of witnesses giving conflicting statements to police. The homicide detective in charge of the case was also under investigation for corruption and tampering with evidence.
The trial appears to have been another one of America's barbaric farces. The verdict was unsafe. Abdurrahman has also been on Death Row for 17 years. That is for most of his adult life, and for almost as long as he has been alive (he is now 34 years old). If he is freed, he will never be able to have a normal life. He has not yet managed to appeal this verdict because he does not have enough money to do so, and there are no political causes willing to campaign for him.
Meanwhile, Abdurrahman is kept in his cell for 23 hours-a-day. He is not allowed to attend jumu'ah prayers with the other prisoners, nor is he allowed to attend the classes given on Islam. He is not allowed use of the library most of the time, and so he has not even been able to teach himself about Islam. The visiting imam is in so much demand that he only sees Abdurrahman for a total of five minutes every 4 to 6 weeks.
Abdurrahman has been a Muslim for at least as long as the length of his incarceration, but he has managed to learn hardly anything about Islam because the facilities have not been provided for him. He has even written to several Islamic organisations worldwide appealing for support, help, and advice, and even for help with learning about Islam - but hardly any of these has even bothered to reply to him.
This man has a haqq over the whole of the Muslim World, not only as a convert in search of support and knowledge, but as someone who is weak, and possibly oppressed by a system that he cannot fight: he is mustad'af, mu'allaf, and raqabah (that is to say, he is "weak and oppressed", "one whose heart is soft towards Islam", and "one under constraint"). Helping him is a fardu-l kifaayah (a communal duty).
Although both men claim their innocence of these crimes, they are not asking anyone to believe them as such. What they are asking for is a fair and just trial. Islam's calls for justice is what has attracted these men to Islam, and it is what has given them hope despite the conditions in which they exist, and despite their inability to access the treasures of the world they have adopted. The patience and fortitude we see in them is a testament to their strength of belief in Islam, despite what went before (and that is between them and the Almighty). They ask their haqq - their Rights - of us, and so we must give to them. EXACTLY WHAT DOES THE MUSLIM WORLD THINK IT IS DOING?
The point is not whether these men are guilty or innocent, it is about the inhumanity of their circumstances, and the flaws of a much-championed judicial system.
The first injustice is the inequity of the judiciary, and the fact that there appear to be innocents on Death Row, with no-one apparently being concerned.
The second injustice is Death Row itself. Being confined to a cell 23 hours of the day for up to 20 years with only the electric chair or a lethal injection to look forward to, and little hope of an appeal, is, to me, totally inhumane.
To call this barbaric would be wrong, for even barbarians were rarely so sadistic. This is psychotic, it is evil, it is, in a word, Satanic.
The third injustice is that this is prima facie a flagrant abuse of their Constitutional Rights: the US Constitution outlaws the use of "cruel and unusual punishments". What is more "cruel and unusual" than their plight?
Let us compare this to the actual Islamic model (which is not necessarily being applied anywhere at the moment, it is fair to say).
A death sentence is not supposed to be applied except for certain crimes, and only when the evidence is cleared of any slightest doubt. There must be no shadow of a doubt in any of the judges' minds. The merest glimmer of a doubt obliges the judge, as he hopes for mercy from Allah Almighty himself, to apply a ta'zeer ("a lesser censure"). The trial is to be thorough, unbiased, and fair to all concerned. If the death penalty is found to be appropriate, and appeals have failed, then the punishment is to be quick and painless.
Therefore, under Islamic terms, such American-style prolonged mental and physical torture is not acceptable. If a person is to be killed, judicially as in war, it must be in the quickest and most painless manner possible, that inflicts the least possible suffering on the victim.
The electric chair as punishment is unacceptable, as it is extremely painful and takes some appreciable time for the victim to die. Even the lethal injection requires the accused to sit and wait for the inevitable once the injection has been given. There is too much sadistic mental abuse here for any of this to be considered civilised.
Let's face it, politics rarely helped anyone. In fact, the politics of American democracy clearly only destroys people, if this is anything to go by. So instead of kowtowing in prostration to America and the West, and grovelling in the dirt before their self-proclaimed love for Human Rights, we should be ACTING. After all, Allah Almighty is going to ask us what we DID with these lives He has given to us, and not what we feared other people thought of us, or how many fiqh rulings we handed out. We should be trembling at the thought of not having done enough that is good and honourable to show for ourselves.
The Muslim World has the resources to fight this injustice - not to mention the lobbying power of oil. We will all be answerable one day as to why we are doing nothing when we could be doing everything.
So - where is the Renaissance?