The Correlation Between Islamophobia and Muslim Inmates
In the years following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, there was a rapid increase in what has become known as islamophobia: a prejudice towards the nation of Islam and intolerance towards Muslims in general. In recent years, researchers have provided evidence that there has been a decline in islamophobia, which national Islamic civil rights groups’ claim is “small, but highly welcome” (Replogle, 2013). The Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR), revealed a report that claimed 78 bills or amendments were created to decline or prohibit Islamic religious practice in the United States from 2011-2012. On the other hand, another poll, taken 2010 …show more content…
A large portion of these converts within the United States are African American and Hispanic. These racial minorities also have the highest incarceration rates within America; consisting of 915,200 African American and Hispanic inmates according to the U.S Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics from December31, 2013 (Carson, 2014). This means that just over 60% of the prison population consists Hispanics and African Americans, while they only represent 28.6% of our overall population. Rough, and potentially skewed sources (SpearIt, 2013) claim that 35,000-40,000 inmates convert to Islam within America each year, which would mean that 350,000 (15%) of the United States prison population identifies themselves as a Muslim. Other, more credible sources (Cheema, n.d.) found that there are 9,768 Muslims inmates within New York State penitentiaries, and that 85% of Muslims within the New York prison system are African American. With these levels of institutional racism involving the encaging of racial minorities, it is not hard to understand why racial minorities within the prisons choose to adopt an alternative or atypical system of religious beliefs, yet many policymakers and citizens alike unjustly deem inmates who have converted to Islam as a radicals with the potential to development into violent jihadists or …show more content…
Omar Abdel Rahman (The Blind Sheik), considered to be “one of the world’s leading theologians of terrorism” (Mukasey, 2012), has become the poster child for Islamic inmates, even though his radical intentions directly oppose the overwhelming majority of the Islamic prison community. Abdel Rahman was detained for orchestrating the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; an attack that led to six casualties and numerous injuries. He also plotted to bomb other New York landmarks and assassinate former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Rahman was convicted of participating in seditious conspiracies in 1995. While in prison, Rahman continued to lead organized terrorist bracket Gama al Islamiyah, an organization responsible for the murder of over sixty tourist in Luxor, Egypt (Mukasey, 2012). Rahman was allowed to interact with other inmates during his sentence, and there is proof that he was involved in the Luxor attacks regardless of being detained (KPBS, n.d.). As troubling as these events are, it is important to keep in mind that it was an isolated incident that was used by
In the years following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, there was a rapid increase in what has become known as islamophobia: a prejudice towards the nation of Islam and intolerance towards Muslims in general. In recent years, researchers have provided evidence that there has been a decline in islamophobia, which national Islamic civil rights groups’ claim is “small, but highly welcome” (Replogle, 2013). The Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR), revealed a report that claimed 78 bills or amendments were created to decline or prohibit Islamic religious practice in the United States from 2011-2012. On the other hand, another poll, taken 2010 …show more content…
A large portion of these converts within the United States are African American and Hispanic. These racial minorities also have the highest incarceration rates within America; consisting of 915,200 African American and Hispanic inmates according to the U.S Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics from December31, 2013 (Carson, 2014). This means that just over 60% of the prison population consists Hispanics and African Americans, while they only represent 28.6% of our overall population. Rough, and potentially skewed sources (SpearIt, 2013) claim that 35,000-40,000 inmates convert to Islam within America each year, which would mean that 350,000 (15%) of the United States prison population identifies themselves as a Muslim. Other, more credible sources (Cheema, n.d.) found that there are 9,768 Muslims inmates within New York State penitentiaries, and that 85% of Muslims within the New York prison system are African American. With these levels of institutional racism involving the encaging of racial minorities, it is not hard to understand why racial minorities within the prisons choose to adopt an alternative or atypical system of religious beliefs, yet many policymakers and citizens alike unjustly deem inmates who have converted to Islam as a radicals with the potential to development into violent jihadists or …show more content…
Omar Abdel Rahman (The Blind Sheik), considered to be “one of the world’s leading theologians of terrorism” (Mukasey, 2012), has become the poster child for Islamic inmates, even though his radical intentions directly oppose the overwhelming majority of the Islamic prison community. Abdel Rahman was detained for orchestrating the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; an attack that led to six casualties and numerous injuries. He also plotted to bomb other New York landmarks and assassinate former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Rahman was convicted of participating in seditious conspiracies in 1995. While in prison, Rahman continued to lead organized terrorist bracket Gama al Islamiyah, an organization responsible for the murder of over sixty tourist in Luxor, Egypt (Mukasey, 2012). Rahman was allowed to interact with other inmates during his sentence, and there is proof that he was involved in the Luxor attacks regardless of being detained (KPBS, n.d.). As troubling as these events are, it is important to keep in mind that it was an isolated incident that was used by