November 20, 2009 ISSUE 2: The Shooting of Luqman Abdullah the luqman abdullah shooting and the darul “Police, so what? Police die too! Feds die too!...Do not carry a islam movement pistol if you’re going to give it up to police. You give them a bullet.” — Luqman Abdullah, the late imam of Masjid Al-Haqq1 The Shooting of Luqman Abdullah A Page 1 n October 2009 shootout at a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan, claimed the life Luqman Abdullah, the imam of Detroit’s Masjid al-Haqq, Jamil Al-Amin and in the process garnered national attention. Abdullah had been a Detroit The Former H. Rap Brown representative to al-Ummah, which the Muslim Alliance in North America Page 6 (MANA) describes as “an association of mosques in several cities in the U.S. that coordinates religious and social services primarily in the Black American The Darul Islam Movement in the community.”2 In contrast, a criminal complaint filed by an FBI special agent United States describes al-Ummah as “a nationwide radical fundamentalist Sunni group Page 10 consisting primarily of African-Americans.”3 Cause Célèbre Islam: Racism, Revolution, Black Nationalism Page 14 The Center for Terrorism Research (CTR) is a project of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. CTR studies terrorist movements and Masjid Al-Haqq in Detroit (center), surrounded by empty lots; served as the ideologies that drive them, and the home base for Detroit’s branch of al-Ummah seeks to identify how major trends in these areas will affect terrorism and counter-terrorism activities The shootout occurred during an FBI raid designed to disrupt a variety in the West. of illegal activities being carried out by Abdullah and at least ten of his associates—activities that were uncovered by an undercover investigation stretching back for about three years, and a series of transactions pursuant to a Group I Undercover Operation.4 According to local news reports, the www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr 1 ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting shooting came after FBI agents and police from the day-to-day operations for some time: he is currently Joint Terrorism Task Force “surrounded a warehouse serving a life sentence at the Supermax prison in and trucking firm on Miller Road near Michigan Florence, Colorado, following his 2002 conviction for Avenue where Abdullah shooting two police officers and four of his followers in Georgia. were hiding.”5 In May 2009 in Abdullah did not Alabama, Luqman Abdullah surrender when ordered claimed while under to; instead, he opened fire. surveillance that al-Amin He was shot to death, as had created al-Ummah was an FBI K-9, a three- out of fear of government year-old Belgian Malinois interference. Two years named Freddy. Although before Abdullah became press reports do not detail Imam Luqman Abdullah part of the movement, how the dog was shot, it is common practice for the several Darul members were killed in a shooting in FBI to introduce a K-9 to “locate and detain” a suspect New York. “Jamil Al-Amin said they had to divide who refuses to surrender. The four men with Abdullah the group because having too many people in one did lay down their arms and allow themselves to be organization made them an easy target,” the criminal arrested, although the DOJ’s press release leaves complaint against Abdullah recounts. “According to some ambiguity as to whether they did so before or Abdullah, the group is still Dar-Ul, but this is not widely after Abdullah was killed.6 known because of the United States government. The Ummah is a cover name for Dar-Ul.”8 The FBI has arrested ten of Abdullah’s associates, most of whom were members of his Multiple sources estimate that al-Ummah mosque and the al-Ummah movement. Three of under al-Amin had “approximately thirty branches them—Yassir Ali Khan, Mohammad Philistine, and in America and the Caribbean.”9 Muslim journalist Abdullah’s son Mujahid Carswell—were arrested in Steven Barboza stated that al-Amin’s “followers are Windsor, Ontario following the raids.7 Windsor is said to number around 10,000 Muslims.”10 located directly across from Detroit, over the U.S.- Canada border. Detroit’s Masjid Al-Haqq, which had been located at 4118 Joy Road, was an al-Ummah mosque. The arrested men face charges that include It was not only used for prayer services but also conspiracy to receive and sell goods that the for weapons and combat training. Abdullah also defendants believed were stolen from interstate lived on the premises with his family. In January shipments, conspiracy to commit mail fraud through 2009, Abdullah and his followers were evicted from an insurance scam involving arson, providing the mosque for nonpayment of property taxes. firearms to a known convicted felon, and tampering Authorities recovered firearms, knives and martial with motor vehicle identification numbers to further arts weapons from Abdullah’s apartment in the the theft of a vehicle. mosque, and observed “empty shell casings on the basement floor, and large holes in the concrete wall The Al-Ummah Movement of the ‘shooting range.’”11 Although the mosque was located in an urban environment, it was surrounded by empty lots on all sides, and was thus relatively Al-Ummah—which is either a splinter from, secluded. or a cover for, the Darul Islam movement (see this issue’s article on the history of Darul Islam)—had been led by Jamil al-Amin, who was formerly known In addition to describing al-Ummah as a as 1960s firebrand H. Rap Brown. Though al-Amin nationwide fundamentalist group, the criminal is reportedly still considered al-Ummah’s leader by complaint filed against Abdullah asserts that it has the group’s members, he has not been involved in the goal of establishing “a separate, sovereign Islamic 2 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting state…within the borders of the United States, their practice of idol worship. Abdullah said that just governed by Shariah law. The Ummah is to be ruled as “the government plots and plans against them so over by Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.”12 MANA, which had they need to plot and plan in return and ‘do whatever Luqman Abdullah on its majlis ash-shura, claims it takes.’”18 that this depiction of al-Ummah “is an offensive mis- characterization.”13 What would replace the U.S. government? Abdullah was rather unclear on this point, although It is difficult, from available open-source he clearly endorsed the idea of revolution. In this information, to make a definitive judgment about al- way, he was similar to his associate Jamil al-Amin. Ummah’s religious ideology. However, the three-year Before al-Amin’s conversion to Islam, when he was criminal investigation of Luqman Abdullah and his still known as H. Rap Brown, he spoke often of the associates yielded a great deal of information about U.S.’s inherently evil nature. Though Brown said that Abdullah’s ideas. “America’s very existence offends me,” and suggested that he endorsed a Communist-style revolution, Luqman Abdullah’s Teachings he never discussed in any detail the new order he wanted to impose.19 Luqman Abdullah seemed to blend One thing the agents and officers Islamist ideology with black nationalist grievances, charged with arresting Abdullah must supplemented by a healthy dose of criminality that have had in mind was his promise that if was afforded a thin veneer of religious justification. law enforcement came after him, there would be a reckoning. Abdullah saw the world as sharply divided in a struggle between good and evil. He understood those concepts not in racial terms, but rather saw Abdullah at one point suggested that perhaps Islam as good and the forces of disbelief as the evil small Islamic states could separate from the U.S., “like that must be opposed. To him the entire system of the Amish and the Mormons in Utah.”20 Of course, the United States was of the kuffar (infidels; singular, neither the Amish nor the Mormons are actually kafir). “The U.S. government,” he said, “is nothing separate from the United States. Abdullah echoed but Kuffars.”14 In October 2008, when the black this theme of separatism in August 2008, stating community was abuzz with excitement over Barack that “just as states and cities are separate entities Obama’s impending victory (as was the U.S. Muslim under the U.S. Government, the members of Masjid community writ large), Abdullah emphasized that an Al Haqq are also a separate entity independent of the Obama presidency would change nothing: “Obama government under their own set of laws.”21 At other is a Kafir. McCain, all the rest of them Kuffar, are times Abdullah suggested that rather than separating, Kuffars. You can’t make them a good Kafir, bad Kafir…. the Muslims should seize power. An FBI confidential The premise of Allah, and Islam said, ‘the worst of source stated that in a May 2009 sermon, Abdullah [unintelligible], the worst Muslim is better than the said his followers “should make America like Saudi best Kafir.”15 Arabia, where the Muslims took control by fighting and dying.”22 In the face of this corrupt, kafir system, Abdullah insisted that violence was necessary. “[W]e Abdullah expressed his approval for should be trying to figure out how to fight the Kuffar,” transnational jihadi movements. He told his he said. “You see, we need to figure out how to be a followers in February 2009 that “they need to be bullet.”16 He has also emphasized that “you cannot with the Taliban, Hizballah, and with Sheikh bin have a non-violent revolution.”17 In part, he taught Laden.”23 This was based on his binary view of the that violence was needed because the system was world: that Muslims are the party of God, while all conspiring against attempts to establish Islam. He else is the party of the devil. He likewise gave one FBI compared Washington to the Quraish, a Meccan tribe source a CD that the source described as “pro-Taliban that had viciously opposed the Prophet Muhammad propaganda.”24 because his strict monotheism posed a challenge to 3 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting A special place was reserved for law who were between ages 9 and 11, and “told them enforcement in Abdullah’s teachings. He encouraged stories about his shooting people with a 9mm gun.”32 his followers to always be armed, even though many Surveillance also revealed that he had handguns were convicted felons, to on him, even though this prepare for a confrontation with was illegal because he was a law enforcement. In April 2008 convicted felon. he described law enforcement as “being the devil and evil.”25 In addition to possessing He also suggested to an FBI and training with firearms, source that they should stalk Abdullah also expressed an and kill FBI “super Agents.”26 interest in creating TNT-based And in January 2009, Abdullah explosive material, which told the same source that if they he believed one of the FBI wanted a bullet proof vest, they informants could make for should shoot a police officer him. Abdullah later expressed in the head and take it. He an interest in C4 or another proceeded to jump around the Masjid Al-Haqq type of explosive that could room making shooting motions with his hands, while help him do “what he needed to do.”33 shouting “shoot cops in the head” and “pop, pop.”27 Abdullah helped arrange for a new VIN for a One thing the agents and officers charged truck that he believed to be stolen. He even justified with arresting Abdullah must have had in mind was this on religious grounds, arguing it was a form of jihad his promise that if law enforcement came after him, “because the kuffar would harm them if they were to there would be a reckoning. At one point he said that get caught.”34 Likewise, Abdullah provided religious if law enforcement tried to arrest him, it would be sanction for an arson orchestrated by Ummah worse than Waco—“a straight up war.”28 He also said: member Mohammad Abdul Bassir: in order to collect “These pigs don’t even know, their department will insurance money, Bassir hired his neighbor’s nephew have a bad day when they deal with me.”29 to burn down his house while he was working as a DJ at a cabaret (and thus had an alibi).35 Criminal Activities Based on this pattern of criminal activity, Though there are several disturbing aspects as well as several mosque members’ expressions to Abdullah’s teachings and ideology, this was not of willingness to fence stolen merchandise, the FBI a terrorism case. Rather, the criminal complaint obtained the necessary approval to conduct a Group describes a pattern of criminal activity culminating I Undercover Operation. The operation was designed in a major undercover operation. to give members of Masjid Al-Haqq the opportunity to fence merchandise that they believed to be stolen. Some of this criminality involved crimes of At first Abdullah gave religious sanction to these acts, violence by Abdullah and his followers. One FBI source insisting repeatedly that he should be given one fifth testified that he saw Muhammad Abdul Salaam, who of the proceeds because “they need to keep Allah first,” is believed to be Masjid Al-Haqq’s First Emir, murder and by giving 20% to Abdullah “the ‘dirty’ money is a person whom he thought had killed his brother.30 purified.”36 Later, he became more directly involved Abdullah loved to boast about murdering people. In in the process. Overall, the undercover operation May 2009 he visited another al-Ummah mosque in featured ten transactions, with the merchandise Montgomery, Alabama, and prior to a study session that Masjid Al-Haqq members were involved in that he was to lead he told the attendees about his fencing including stolen furs, laptop computers, LCD experiences shooting other people. Abdullah, quite television sets, and loads of cigarettes. animated, illustrated how their bodies reacted when shot.31 At another al-Ummah mosque in Gainesville, Georgia, Abdullah sat with the imam’s children, 4 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting Controversy Subject Fatally Shot During Arrest,” Oct. 28, 2009. 7. Canwest News Service, Nov. 2, 2009. Following Abdullah’s death, some American 8. Leone, Criminal Complaint, ¶ 67. Muslim organizations jumped into the fray. MANA, 9. Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience for example, issued a press release: (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2nd ed. 2003), p. 233. 10. Steven Barboza, American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm X (New York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 48. To those who have worked with Imam Luqman 11. Leone, Criminal Complaint, ¶ 13. A. Abdullah, allegations of illegal activity, 12. Ibid., ¶ 5. resisting arrest, and “offensive jihad against 13. MANA, “The FBI Raid and Shooting Death of Imam Luqman.” the American government” are shocking and Abdullah is listed as a member of MANA’s majlis ash-shura on its inconsistent. In his ministry he consistently web site. See http://www.mana-net.org/subpage.php?ID=about advocated for the downtrodden and always (accessed Nov. 16, 2009). spoke about the importance of connecting 14. Leone, Criminal Complaint, ¶ 22. with the needs of the poor…. We urge the 15. Ibid., ¶ 18. Muslim community and all Americans 16. Ibid. committed to justice to actively monitor both 17. Ibid. See also ibid. ¶ 24, in which Abdullah states: “We are the investigation and trial of the accused.37 going to have to fight against the Kafir.” 18. Ibid., ¶¶ 20, 37. The American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights 19. H. Rap Brown, Die Nigger Die! (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major U.S.- 1969), p. 135. For examples of Brown’s endorsement of the based Islamic organizations, has also called for an need for revolutionary action, without a specific revolutionary independent investigation into the shooting that program, see pp. 128-29. Another intellectual thread that the “makes[s] public the exact circumstances in which Brown in his black nationalist days and Abdullah had in common he died.”38 The AMT is an umbrella organization is the idea that necessary change could only be obtained through that includes such groups as the American Muslim “long, protracted, bloody, brutal and violent wars with our Alliance (AMA), American Muslims for Palestine oppressors.” Ibid., p. 128. (AMP), Council on American-Islamic Relations 20. Leone, Criminal Complaint, ¶ 22. (CAIR), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and 21. Ibid., ¶ 41. MAS-Freedom. 22. Ibid., ¶ 61. Abdullah also stated in this sermon “that they hate the Jews and that God hates the Jews.” Ibid. 23. Ibid., ¶ 48. 1. Quoted in Gary Leone, Criminal Complaint, United States v. 24. Ibid., ¶ 53. Abdullah, No. 2:09-MJ-30436 (E.D. Mich., Oct. 27, 2009), ¶ 11. 25. Ibid., ¶ 29. 2. Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), “The FBI Raid and 26. Ibid., ¶ 25. Shooting Death of Imam Luqman,” Oct. 29, 2009. 27. Ibid., ¶ 47. 3. Leone, Criminal Complaint, ¶ 5. 28. Ibid., ¶ 38. 4. Unlike a Group II Undercover Operation, which can be 29. Ibid., ¶ 45. approved by the Special Agent in Charge in the relevant FBI field 30. Ibid., ¶ 92. office along with the local U.S. Attorney, a Group I Undercover 31. Ibid., ¶ 66. Operation requires “painstaking planning, substantial amounts 32. Ibid., ¶ 70. of documentation, lots of coordination, and minute review 33. Ibid., ¶ 65. by a panel of senior FBI Headquarters and Department of 34. Ibid., ¶ 33. Justice officials.” Joseph W. Koletar, The FBI Career Guide: Inside 35. Ibid., ¶¶ 85-88. Information on Getting Chosen for and Succeeding in One of the 36. Ibid., ¶ 149. Toughest, Most Prestigious Jobs in the World (New York: AMACOM, 37. MANA, “The FBI Raid and Shooting Death of Imam Luqman.” 2006), p. 77. 38. American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections, 5. Paul Egan, “Detroit Mosque Leader Killed in FBI Raids,” Detroit Press Release, “Coalition Calls for Probe into FBI Shooting Death News, Oct. 28, 2009. of Imam,” Oct. 30, 2009. 6. See U.S. Department of Justice, Press Release, “11 Members/ Associates of Ummah Charged with Federal Violations; One 5 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting jamil al-amin on the name Rap because of his “ability to talk,” and even claimed that rap music was named after him.3 the former h. rap brown We could not, however, find any credible sources to corroborate this claim. Prior to his conversion to Islam, al-Amin did rap (“signifyin”),4 often in a boisterous and sexually explicit tone: I’m sweet peeter jeeter the womb beater The baby maker the cradle shaker The deerslayer the buckbinder the women finder… I’m the bed tucker the cock plucker the motherfucker The milkshaker the record breaker the population maker The gun-slinger the baby bringer The hum-dinger the pussy ringer The man with the terrible middle finger.5 In 1967, at age 23, H. Rap Brown became the The criminal complaint against Luqman chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Abdullah and his associates states that when al- Committee (SNCC). He was preceded in this position Ummah succeeds in establishing a “separate, by Stokely Carmichael. Rep. John Lewis (D.-Ga.), sovereign Islamic state,” they intend for it to be led who had once chaired SNCC, recalled: “Some people by Jamil al-Amin, who is currently serving a life thought that Stokely was too moderate. But after they sentence after being convicted of shooting two police asked Rap, Stokely told me: ‘This is a bad cat. They’re officers.1 Further underscoring al-Amin’s importance going to wish they had me back.’”6 to the movement, an al-Ummah mosque, Atlanta’s Community Masjid, still lists him as its leader despite his incarceration.2 This article explores al-Amin’s Brown, a towering figure at 6-foot-5 and a naturally gifted athlete, did indeed generate background, and how the framework for al-Ummah’s enormous controversy. He had a notable ability to ideology was built. package revolutionary slogans in a pithy, memorable way; his most famous such statement held that Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown, made “violence … is as American as cherry pie.” the transition from black nationalist firebrand to nationally prominent Sunni imam. In the 1960s, he In July 1967, Brown delivered a fiery speech in issued scathing indictments of America and called Cambridge, Maryland, saying: “This town is ready to for violent revolution. After his conversion to Islam, explode … if you don’t have guns, don’t be here … you al-Amin adopted a more measured tone in his have to be ready to die.”7 After a school and two city societal criticism, but remained attached to the idea blocks burned the next morning, he was charged with of revolution. Though he focused on a more inward- incitement to riot. A supporter of Brown’s described looking revolution, one that would transform his the legal maneuvering that followed as “Kafkaesque,” community morally, al-Amin continued to believe writing: “It seemed like every few months he would be that the system writ large was sick and broken. hauled into court in a new jurisdiction on a different Some analysts have questioned how far al-Amin charge and held under an oppressively large bond…. truly progressed from the violent ideals that he once Rap would eventually come out and in a matter of openly proclaimed. days be reported somewhere else making even more ‘incendiary’ utterances and be back in custody, there H. Rap Brown to begin the dismal cycle all over again.”8 Jamil al-Amin was born Hubert Gerold Brown Brown’s militant orientation, though, was never in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Oct. 4, 1943, and was in question. He was critical to SNCC’s decision to known during the late 1960s as H. Rap Brown. (He did renounce non-violence and remove the word “Non- not adopt the moniker of al-Amin until his jailhouse Violent” from its name, and its ill-fated attempt to conversion to Islam in 1971). He has said that he took 6 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting merge with the Black Panther Party.9 Brown was Brown continues: “This country is the world’s slop named the Panthers’ Minister of Justice; and though jar. America’s very existence offends me…. The animal he was only a Panther for five months or so, “it that is america [sic] must be destroyed.”13 remains the tie for which he is best known.”10 In 1969 Brown published his political memoir, Die Nigger Die! Despite these commonalities, Brown does not come across well in his own book. For one thing, Malcolm X was a towering figure within the there is his anti-intellectualism, something he did black nationalist movement whose autobiography not abandon as an imam. Explaining his refusal to is regarded as a literary classic. A comparison of study Shakespeare, for example, he rattles off several his book with Brown’s is interesting both for the bawdy verses from games of dozens (a competition commonalities they share, and the differences. One that is part of the African-American oral tradition commonality that Brown’s book has with Malcolm wherein two competitors go head-to-head in often X’s, in light of Brown’s later conversion to Islam, is its coarse trash talk): “I fucked your mama / For a solid critique of Christianity as a tool of racial subjugation. hour. / Baby came out / Screaming, Black Power.” In the book’s first chapter, Brown writes: After three such verses, he triumphantly concludes: “And the teacher expected me to sit up in class and White nationalism divides history into two study poetry after I could run down shit like that. If parts, B.C. and A.D.—before the white man’s anybody needed to study poetry, she needed to study religion and after it. And “progress,” of course, mine.”14 is considered to have taken place only after the white man’s religion came into being. The A more serious flaw is that Brown leaves his implication is evident: God is on the white experiences with racism nebulous. This is different man’s side, for white Jesus was the “son” of from Malcolm X’s book, the first sentence of which God.11 describes his mother being intimidated by hooded Ku Klux Klan riders while pregnant with Malcolm,15 and which provides enough richness of experience that the reader can empathize with how he was driven to extreme conclusions. In contrast, some of Brown’s examples of discrimination seem petty and contrived. He writes that he “began to see where ‘the man’ was at” while employed as a neighborhood worker with “the poverty program.” The program apparently sought to financially incentivize good performance; but to Brown, this exposed the sinister stratagems of “the man.” He wrote: “It was the whole trick of the stick and the carrot in front of the mule. If you do a better job than this other dude, then you get this carrot.”16 Brown at a SNCC news conference, 1967 Despite the dubious nature of many of Brown also sarcastically refers to how whites Brown’s complaints, the reality of racism—pervasive, try to “[c]ivilize the savage through Christianity,” and often deadly racism—was undeniable during this states that one of the problems a black child has is that period. Just as undeniable is the fact that Brown was “the big white world … forces a white God and a white personally stung by it. Yet his attitude in Die Nigger Jesus on him and has him worshipping somebody Die! seems to be that this justifies virtually anything that doesn’t even look like him.”12 Also like Malcolm X, on his part: Brown writes of his open insubordination Brown believes that the U.S. is flawed to its very core, toward every employer he had before SNCC, beyond redemption. He writes that it “represents assuming the reader will side with him because they everything that humans have suffered from,” and the were his employers, rather than showing any kind of fact of its existence “appals [sic] most of mankind.” injustice or racism on their part. He feels justified in 7 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting threatening whites physically, or lying about them to first year in Atlanta al-Amin “opened a one-room store their managers; and he endorses the idea of collective across from West End Park, and in that neighborhood racial guilt, stating that after some whites attacked a of danger and drugs became an imam.”24 Indeed, he black man in Fort Deposit, Alabama, “I thought that helped clean up the neighborhood where he made we should at least jack up 10 or 12 crackers.”17 Even his new home, something that both Muslim and theft is justified under this worldview as an act of non-Muslim residents deeply appreciated. As West “liberat[ing] food.”18 End resident Barbara Jordan told the Atlanta Journal Constitution five years later, al-Amin’s followers “laid Conversion to Islam the law down” when they confronted drug dealers and other undesirable elements that were then ubiquitous in the neighborhood.25 In March 1970, Brown skipped his trial date for the Cambridge riot and disappeared for about 17 months. During his time on the run, the FBI placed him on its Most Wanted List. He was apprehended in 1972 after robbing the Red Carpet Lounge, a bar in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Time reports that Brown and his three accomplices “ordered about 25 customers to lie on the floor, assaulted some of them, took their wallets and laid down a barrage of fire as they left.”19 After leaving the bar, the robbers were chased by six carloads of police. The ensuing “running gun battle” left two policemen injured, and resulted in Brown being wounded by two shots to the abdomen and ultimately captured.20 Though Brown’s Community Masjid in Atlanta, at which al-Amin was the imam standing declined after this because he “seemed to have crossed the line between militant political defiance and flat-out criminality,”21 some of his Al-Amin became the leader of Darul Islam/ supporters have attempted to justify the episode by al-Ummah, and multiple sources estimate that arguing that the bar was targeted for its exploitation “approximately thirty branches in America and of the local community. the Caribbean” fell under his leadership.26 Muslim journalist Steven Barboza stated in 1994 that al- Amin’s “followers are said to number around 10,000 Brown converted to Islam in 1971 while in Muslims.”27 Al-Amin also cultivated relationships prison, and adopted the new name Jamil al-Amin. with a variety of nationally prominent Muslim He later explained that he found Islam through the organizations. He was elected Vice President of the Darul Islam movement: “I was in prison in New York. American Muslim Council in 1990, and became a The Dar-ul-Islam movement had a prison program member of the Bosnia Task Force, USA in 1992. He was and brothers would come in to conduct juma and later elected chairman of the Islamic Shura Council, for dawah purposes.”22 Ihsan Bagby, who currently an umbrella group that also included the secretary is an associate professor of Islamic Studies at the generals of the Islamic Society North America (ISNA) University of Kentucky, told the Associated Press in and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA). 2000 that “the Dar-ul Islam movement appealed to Al-Amin and many other black militants because it blended the rhetoric of black power with a call for The most comprehensive expression of al- strict devotion to Islam.”23 Amin’s Islamic thought is his 1994 book Revolution by the Book. The first five chapters are themed around the five pillars of Islam—tawheed, prayer, Islamic Activism and Ideology zakat, fasting, and hajj. They make clear that al-Amin is theologically situated within the Sunni tradition, After leaving prison, al-Amin went on hajj to and is not part of one of the quasi-Islamic movements Mecca, then moved to Atlanta. In a 1995 profile of him, that is more black nationalist than it is Muslim (such the Atlanta Journal Constitution explained that in his 8 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting as the Nation of Islam). You may be totally “out-of-pocket” in terms of what you see or perceive after you drink Al-Amin makes clear that he continues to chemicals.34 embrace revolutionary struggle, that his To al-Amin, the U.S. Constitution is a conversion to Islam was “a continuation part of the problem by reinforcing secular of a lifestyle” rather than a 180-degree culture, being “diametrically opposed to transformation. “See,” he explains, “most what Allah has commanded upon us.” Its people don’t have a true picture of what concept of freedom is “unique,” blinding us Islam is. Islam is not nonviolent. There is a to “our relationship with our Creator” and right to self-defense, and there is [a] right thus blinding us “to true freedom.”35 to defend your faith. Allah says that fighting is prescribed for you.”28 He argues that Past revolutionary movements in success in revolutionary struggle “requires the United States failed because their a spiritual consciousness,”29 and that the understanding was limited. Al-Amin is problem with social movements in the particularly critical of the movements of 1990s was that they had been reduced to the 1960s, of which he was a part. Though sloganeering: 1960s era social movements “rebelled against the unnatural way human beings were being treated,” the It is criminal that, in the 1990’s, we still revolution “was defused because it was not based on approach struggle on the basis of sloganeering, a Divine program. In many ways, it was itself artificial, saying, “by any means necessary,” as if that’s a based on man-made solutions and personal agendas, program. Or, “we shall overcome,” as if that’s a devoid of truth and sincerity.”36 program. Slogans are not programs.30 Al-Amin sees Islam a methodology for What did al-Amin want to overthrow? Though revolution, and the Prophet Muhammad’s life as “a his tone was far more measured, he continued to see clear blueprint for changing a society, for bringing the entire system as overrun by sickness. The cause about revolutionary change even under the most of the malady seemed to be secularism, “the distance difficult conditions.”37 Much of what he advocates is from the Word of God that keeps an individual in inner struggle designed to remove ignorance, to help darkness.”31 This is manifested in a polluted and Muslims curb their appetite. “The Qur’an,” he writes, degraded natural environment, and citizens who “is either an argument for you or against you. Islam is pollute and degrade themselves. This occurs even in a cutting force; it is a vanguard movement that sets a the diet, wherein preservatives and the hormones standard for people.”38 we give to animals disrupt the digestive process. Moreover, al-Amin claims that when males eat these Conclusion hormones, “the male begins to take on feminine characteristics. He takes on an affinity for feminine Throughout the 1990s, al-Amin was seen by things. He wants to pierce his ears, he wants to get many who knew him as having changed from violent manicures.”32 to non-violent revolutionary, from focusing on the outward struggle to the inward one. As Nation of “If a person takes LSD, he might hallucinate,” Islam spokesman Wendell Muhammad told the local al-Amin writes.33 But noting the artificiality of Tang, press: “He did a 180-degree turn on that. He was the al-Amin likens the breakfast drink to LSD: epitome of the peace of Islam.”39 However, there were I often think of Tang, the breakfast drink that clues that this was not the entire picture of Jamil al- they have out there for you to buy. Tang does Amin. Some of these clues came from his followers. In not have even one natural ingredient in it. Not the criminal complaint filed in the Luqman Abdullah even one. It is a totally chemical drink that is case, for example, Mohammad Abdul Bassir told an flavored with a chemical orange flavor, that is FBI source that “he learned from Jamil Al-Amin that sweetened by processed sugar. And when you one does not have to appear angry in order to let consume it, there has to be some effect on you. 9 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr ctr vantage the luqman abdullah shooting somebody know that you would kill them.”40 20. Ibid. 21. Thelwell, “Foreword,” p. xxiv. The biggest clue, of course, is his 2002 22. Barboza, American Jihad, p. 49 conviction for shooting two police officers in Georgia, 23. Justin Bachman, “Who is Al-Amin?,” Associated Press, May 12, one of whom died. Following the shooting, al-Amin 2000. was again on the run, again placed on the FBI’s Most 24. David Kindred, “Imam Jamil Al-Amin Has No Regrets,” Atlanta Wanted List, and eventually arrested in White Hall, Journal Constitution, Aug. 16, 1995. Alabama. He is now serving a life sentence at the 25. John Blake, “Mosque a Stabilizing Influence,” Atlanta Journal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Constitution, Mar. 17, 2000. 26. E.g., Richard Brent Turner, Islam in the African-American Experience (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2nd ed. His supporters maintain his innocence to this 2003), p. 233. day, and there are web sites dedicated to freeing Jamil 27. Steven Barboza, American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm X (New al-Amin. He will continue to be regarded as a leader York: Doubleday, 1994), p. 48. within al-Ummah, and his imprisonment one of the 28. Jamil al-Amin, Revolution by the Book: The Rap is Live perceived injustices around which its members rally. (Beltsville, MD: Writers’ Inc., 1994), p. xvi. 29. Ibid., p. 6. 30. Ibid., p. 119. 31. Ibid., p. 103. 1. Gary Leone, Criminal Complaint, United States v. Abdullah, No. 32.. Ibid., p. 47. 2:09-MJ-30436 (E.D. Mich., Oct. 27, 2009), ¶ 5. 33. Ibid., p. 56. 2. This statement can be found at http://communitymasjid.org/ 34. Ibid. home.html (accessed Nov. 18, 2009). 35. Ibid., p. 126. 3. Quoted in Steven Barboza, American Jihad: Islam After Malcolm 36. Ibid., p. 153. X (New York: Image/Doubleday, 1994), p. 49. 37. Ibid., p. 10. 4. “Signifyin occurs when one makes an indirect statement about 38. Ibid., p. 144. a situation or another person; the meaning is often allusive and, 39. Blake, “Mosque a Stabilizing Influence.” in some cases, indeterminate.” Cheryl L. Keyes, Rap Music and 40. Leone, Criminal Complaint, United States v. Abdullah, ¶ 85. Street Consciousness (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 24. “[S]torytelling, ritualized games” like signifyin and the dozens “provided a foundation for rap.” Ibid. 5. H. Rap Brown, Die Nigger Die! (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, The Darul Islam Movement 1969), p. 27. in the United States 6. Richard Lezin Jones, “Conflicting Images of a Former Panther,” Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 22, 2000. 7. Quoted in Ekwueme Michael Thelwell, “Foreword,” in Die Nigger Die! (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2002), p. xx. The 1960s were a time of great social upheaval 8. Ibid., p. xxi. in the U.S. Within the African-American Muslim 9. R. Robin McDonald, “Spiritual Ministry Replaces Rhetoric from population, young organizations trumpeted Earlier Era,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, Aug. 9, 1995. separation from mainstream American culture. Of 10. Jones, “Conflicting Images of a Former Panther.” these groups, Darul Islam “was the largest indigenous 11. Brown, Die Nigger Die!, p. 4. Muslim group until W. Deen Mohammed transformed 12. Ibid., pp. 14, 47. the Nation into a more inclusive Sunni Islam.”1 This 13. Ibid., p. 135. article explores the evolution of Darul Islam. 14. Ibid., p. 26. 15. Malcolm X with Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X The Islamic Mission to America and Darul Islam’s (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), p. 1. Founding 16. Brown, Die Nigger Die!, p. 75. 17. Ibid., p. 93. Darul Islam’s founding members came from the 18. Ibid. Islamic Mission of America, which was founded in 19. “Cherry Pie,” Time, Oct. 25, 1971. 1924 by Sheikh Daoud Ahmed Faisal and based out 10 www.defenddemocracy.org/ctr