Page 8 The Islamic Bulletin Issue 15 California where we had moved in 1959. While I was in there I met some Muslims, Nation of Islam Muslims, of course. We started talking and they shared their understanding of what Islam was. The thing that really impressedmewere the peoplewho came frommy neighborhood and had become Muslim. They were better people. They reformed. They became industrious, clean, concerned about other people in their lives, and their own health. This made a very strong impression on me. Q: Did your family object to your studying Islam? A: Not really. I started going to meetings when I was about 17. In my youthful enthusiasm I went home and started throwing away all the pork in the house. I didn’t want them to be feeding pork to my younger brothers and sisters. My father thought I was crazy. His response was, “Are you crazy, boy? You don’t buy the food in this house.” It was a valid point. That was the original position of my family in the early stages of my conversion. My mother was opposed to some of the NOI ideas. As she began to understand Islam she would (and still does) give Zakat (charity). She tells me that whenever she doesn’t give Zakat, it seems like “something always goes wrong with her money”! One day we were talking about my beliefs in Islam and she told me, “Son, you didn’t get cheated”. That said it all for me! Q: How did your mother react to your acceptance of Islam? A: Initially, because of the NOI, she had some reservations. My father did too. My father told me in 1970 when I really started to study and practice Islam while I was on Death Row, that I would be better off taking the direction that Malcom took. He said I would be better off following Malcom than Elijah. I told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about. That was my understanding at the time. He evidently had insight because of his life experiences, which in my youth I couldn’t appreciate then. Q: What is your relationship with your family as a Muslim? A: It’s very good. I have good relations with my mother. We talk and write. She is back in Illinois now. When she is around me she prays with me, she follows and joins in Salah with me. That’s a blessing. Recently I talked to her about accepting Allah and she didn’t say no. I’m very hopeful for her. My older brother who introduced me to NOI just made his Shahadu several weeks ago. I also have one brother and his wife who accepted Islam several years ago and my youngest sister who also accepted Islam. This is very pleasing to me and I pray that Allah give them blessings. Q: Were you concerned how your friends would react to your acceptance of Islam? A: Not really. When I really began practicing Islam I was 20 years old and onDeath Row. When I was about 17 I got involvedwith drugs and alcohol and ended up shooting a man and going to Death Row. That’s where I really started to practice Islam. In 1972 the death penalty was declared unconstitutional in California and my death sentence was commuted to a life sentence. As I became stronger inmy Islamic beliefs, I gained the reputation for being a good person based on my practice of Islam. As a matter of fact, the Associate Warden went to the parole board withme and told them I had done a 180-degree turn fromwho I was when I came into the institution. This was due to my practice of Islam. He encouraged them to give me an early release date. He told them I was helping others to improve their lives and become better individuals. They gaveme a two-year parole date. I paroledDecember 4, 1978. I paroled the same date I went in, December 4, 1970. Q: Do you wish that some things could have been different in your life? If you had to look back and make any changes in your life, what would you have wanted to do differently? A: I would have liked to have benefited more from education. I found racism in education so because of that I wasn’t interested in pursuing it. I wish I would have been more willing to go through academic institutions and complete them. As a Muslim, I am very interested in pursuing higher education and knowledge. Q: Did you feel intimidated or frightened by any of the beliefs and practices of Islam? A: Yes, some of it. When I first got into the NOI, we used to do a lot of physical and military types of training. This was while we were in prison. One day while doing exercises the person in charge was driving us to do push-ups on our knuckles and one of the others burst a knuckle on the rocky yard. I thought to myself, “What in the world have I gotten myself into?” It was like paramilitary training. Some of the people in charge were a little “drunk” on the militancy. Q: How difficult was it to suddenly stop and give up many of the non-Islamic things you had been doing? A: It was a challenge. Even down to speech. I went throughwithdrawals on cussing. I had to become conscious of my tongue, not using certain words or saying certain phrases. A lot of effort went into that. At that time since I was confined I didn’t have the temptations of drugs or alcohol which I had used for a brief period as a teenager. That part wasn’t a challenge for me while I was on Death Row. Once I returned to the main line population in the jail the opportunities or temptation to use those things were there. They were available in large quantities andwas a prevailing problem. Peoplewere hooked on heroin in prison. Having the self-worth that Islam gave me made me appreciate that my person was sacred. I no longer wanted to be a participant in my own desecration through the influences of drugs and alcohol. It was available, but it wasn’t a problem for me because by then I had been practicing Islam for two years and four months while on Death Row. I was praying and making Tahajed prayers (prayers done in the middle of the night). I believe to this day that it was due to the Tahajed prayers done with consistency while I was there that I was released. Q: Did anyone notice a difference or change in you after you accepted Islam? A: My father acknowledged changes. He commended Elijah Muhammad once for getting me to do things that he had been trying to get me to do for years which I had rebelled against and resisted. The administration in prison acknowledged the changes. People I had associated with in the so-called “free” society saw the changes. My friends, the people that really knew me, told me to never leave Islam. They said they didn’t want to see me go back and be the person I was before Islam. They were happy for me. They really encouraged me to stick with Islam and to be sincere. Q: Raised as a Christian, did you find it difficult to give up the belief of the Trinity when you accepted Islam? A: No. I feel that it was a blessing that my mother was the one who introduced me to the Christian religion and the Bible. I didn’t receive my early Christian teaching from preachers or people who had gone to theological seminaries. I got some very basic concepts about God and how He was All-knowing and took account of everything and was kind. She believed in Jesus, but she didn’t give me a heavy dose of Trinity. At about 12, I became aware of some inconsistencies and unanswered questions in the Christian teachings. I was being told things that just didn’t make any sense. I began to recognize some of the misinformation we were being given and I began to question. This is when I first began to have doubts about this doctrine. As a teenager, I began to hear some of the NOI arguments against Trinity, such as how could you get 3 in 1?. It is a contradiction and they would teach against it. I was influenced by some of those teachings, but the strongest influencewas the bad treatment of the Christian establishment towards African Americans. Something inside me wouldn’t allowme to accept a doctrine that had treated people so badly. Those things made me cautious and I never was able to accept or open up wholeheartedly to their beliefs. Although I believed in God wholeheartedly, there were certain aspects of Christianity that I couldn’t open myself to. Q: How do you address the subject of Trinity when you have dialog with a Christian concerning the Islamic belief of the Oneness of Allah which is the backbone of Islamic belief?
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