Ramadan Reflections (2025)
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A Giant in Prison: Imam Jamil Al Amin | Ramadan Reflections
Pursued and imprisoned for a crime another man confessed to, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, remains a giant in jail. Stripped of his freedom, he now battles cancer behind bars—and still stands as a force of justice that injustice could never silence. Dr. Omar Suleiman reflects on his enduring fight, his undeniable innocence, and his unshakeable trust in Allah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.For those of you that attended Salatul Jumu'ah, as I was descending from the minbar after my khutbah, just about to start the salah, I looked at my phone and I received a message that Imam Jameel Al-Amin, Hafizahullah Ta'ala, who is imprisoned, has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. SubhanAllah, a few weeks ago there was an image that came out of a growth on his face, and of course he'd been neglected in prison, he spends quite a bit of time in solitary confinement, and they dragged their feet just like with everything else to get him treatment, which is the case with most of our high-profile Muslim prisoners. Now I want to actually, SubhanAllah, start from this place and talk a little bit about this. I called his son Kairi Al-Amin right after Salatul Jumu'ah, and this is a man whose entire adult life, I want you to just think about this, his entire adult life has been fighting for his father's freedom. From the moment he's hit puberty until now, he's been fighting for his father's freedom. And you have a confession of a man who committed, who says that he committed the crime that Imam Jameel has been in prison for, he's confessed multiple times, and the state of Georgia has not done anything, no one has moved on actually reopening the case and freeing Imam Jameel Al-Amin. And I want to tell you before I start my topic today, because a lot of times, you know, we talk about some of the things that our community doesn't do, but I want you to know that the way that you as a community made him feel when he came, for that program that we did for Imam Jameel last year, which was the biggest program that I've seen in this masjid outside of Ramadan, SubhanAllah, has endeared him to this community, and endeared this community to him and to Imam Jameel.
Since then, and so I want you to know that I'm extremely proud of this community and how it responded to that program. And Alhamdulillah, I mean, whether it's with Dr. Aafia Siddiqui and going out to protest for Dr. Aafia, yes, we can do better. But the programs in this masjid, the program for Imam Jameel, may Allah bless you all who have actually stayed the course for these people. Many of you have been following the Ramadan series that I've been doing, and it's called The Other Side. And we're talking about the barzakh. And SubhanAllah, the next two episodes, for those of you that are following along, are actually the two hardest episodes I've ever recorded in my life for a Ramadan series, because we talked about the state of the shuhada as they are right now, and the state of the tyrants as they are right now, and the state of the innocent children as they are right now in the barzakh. But here's the thing. Those people have passed. They are solely in the care of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala now, and the only thing we can do is make du'a for them as they've passed away. But many of you might remember the scenes in Syria when some of those prisoners, and I couldn't, I mean, when I was watching those scenes, may Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala help cure, may He cure those people of the trauma that they've been through, people for 50, 60 years that were under the ground, SubhanAllah, in these torture chambers. And imagine, people are having weddings above the surface, people are walking, building schools, going about their lives, and they don't realize that right under them, there are torture chambers where the sickest forms of torture are taking place. When we see right now our Palestinian hostages, by the way, we should stop calling them prisoners, and as this sick administration and the administration prior being sick as well spoke about hostages and the humanity of the other side of hostages, but our hostages never get any recognition whatsoever.
We have to remind the American public and beyond that we have thousands of hostages that are being held by this cruel Zionist entity, and they are mistreated in ways that every human rights organization has documented at this point, whether it is rape or it is, I mean, people have been raped to death on camera, whether it is people that are coming out of these dungeons that were taken as children and now 50, 60 years coming out. SubhanAllah, you have to imagine how much of these people is still alive at this point with everything that they've been through. And the reason why I start with that is because when we talk about our political prisoners, hostages of the American Muslim community, whether it's Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, or it's Imam Jameel Al-Amin, or it's Shukri Abu Bakr, or it's Ghassan Al-Ashiq, what right does a community have to ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala for help if we abandon these people while they're still alive in our midst? What makes us deserving of the help of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala when we're facing all forms of transgression and all forms of threats, whether it's domestic or foreign, about our community when we abandon our own as they are in prison cells all around us and framed with crimes that we know that they did not commit? What right do we have to complain at that point? And so when someone says, well, what are you going to get out of a Dr. Aafia Siddiqui after the trauma that she's been through, even if it's two days before Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala takes her soul from this earth, I pray that while she's still our responsibility as she's in that prison, she's our responsibility, that she gets whatever's left of her life with her family here. I don't care what her mental state is, I don't care what her physical state is, at least she's in our care as long as she's on this earth, we have a responsibility to her.
Imam Jameel Al-Amin, for those of you that don't know and have not studied him, in the 1960s when you heard the names Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Al-Hajj Malik Shabazz, Rahimahullah, Medgar Evers, Fred Hampton afterwards and Stokely Carmichael and the Black Panthers, there was a man named H. Rap Brown, he was one of the most famous black leaders in America. He headed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee that's famous obviously for its founding or its association with Martin Luther King Jr. He was the Justice Minister of the Black Panther. The FBI openly wanted to take out what they would call was the black messiah. There was a fear of a black leader that would be too charismatic and that would lift black people in America up to be able to overcome their condition and so these leaders were targeted one by one. H. Rap Brown became Muslim and Imam Jameel Al-Amin and became a great leader of the Muslim community, formed an incredibly vibrant Muslim community, wrote books, talked about the transformation of his mindset and he was targeted. SubhanAllah, this man has been in prison now for over two decades or around two decades and here we are and there has been an effort now to reopen the case of Imam Jameel Al-Amin. I've spoken to him multiple times in prison. He sounds like a man who's never been to prison and if there's anyone that can overcome the odds, it's someone whose spirit has not been broken by solitary confinement and America's prison system for two decades. And so I still believe that while he's here, if Allah 'Azza wa Jal answers our du'as for shifa and He is certainly capable of doing so, then we would have done our part and if Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala chooses that it's his time, then we still would have done our part and relegated that to Allah 'Azza wa Jal.
But we cannot abandon these people to languish in these prisons. We will be asked about them. I want you to understand that there is nothing that is more similar to a grave than a prison cell in the United States, than people that dwell in solitary confinement. And they frame them with crimes that are not directly tied to why they are really put in these prisons in the first place so that the community backs off from them and the community gets scared. But dear brothers and sisters, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala will test us if we don't respond to these tests properly. They were not afraid, we should not be afraid, especially when we're advocating for them. This was a man that used to protest for the Muslim community, that used to do for the Muslim community, that was a vibrant leader and a historical figure in this country. And I even hear myself right now and I keep saying was and I have to correct myself because it's unfortunate that sometimes we talk about these people as if they're dead. They're still alive. I still hear his voice in prison and SubhanAllah he's the one reminding about the ayat and the ahadith and we had that moment where he called in and we were able to put him on the microphone here and Alhamdulillah he addressed this entire congregation through that phone. Even with the mass in his face, it was disrupting his speech and he's still saying Alhamdulillah, I trust Allah, I believe in Allah, it's okay and he's comforting those that are outside of the prison cell. This is not an ordinary human being and it's not an ordinary case. We are just at the cusp of making progress of putting out a powerful docuseries. By the way, since that program, some of us in this community Alhamdulillah have been in touch with those that are producing that docuseries. It's a powerful docuseries. It has some of the most powerful voices in America testifying to the role of Imam Jameel Al-Amin, to the role of H. Rap Brown in American history and not leaving him behind.
Alhamdulillah, we raised the majority of the money from this community. There's still about 90 something thousand dollars left to produce the whole series. If you go to WhatHappenedToRap.com, what happened, the number 2, WhatHappened2Rap.com and I want everyone to go in there and pitch in something and follow it. You'll see the progress of the docuseries with Alhamdulillah Ibrahim. It's right there. It's right there and he has some of the most powerful and profound voices that are testifying to his innocence and testifying to his contribution in this country and the necessity to free him now. We're right there with the publication of this docuseries. Someone might say, well now, stage four cancer. قَدَّرَ اللَّهُ وَمَا شَاءَ فَعَلَ You know what? If Allah 'Azza wa Jal decrees and we trust Allah's wisdom as we believe in Allah's power, that this is the cancer that he will die from, if our efforts can ensure that he comes out of prison for four days, it's worth every single dollar, every single moment spent. And so I want to call on this community. By the way, and I know he'll watch this, SubhanAllah, his son says this is the first community in a long time he felt really at home in. Like he considers this his home and I told him, come spend the last ten nights with us. And SubhanAllah, this is where he found a spiritual home. Jazakumullahu khayran, truly, to all of you who showed him that love and showed that support when he came here because the families of these prisoners, they really suffer. They're traumatized as well by what's happening to them. So I'm just going to read you an excerpt. I pick up this book, Revolution by the Book, which was a book that Imam Jameel wrote. And he wrote reflections on the five pillars of Islam. And at the end of the pillar of fasting, which he calls God's diet, that's the title of the chapter, it's a beautiful chapter.
He says how many of us are able to discipline ourselves to use this as part of our program that will enable us to bring about the change that we say we want to see, the change that is necessary to be able to be successful in fighting for what we believe. Everybody can fight, but everybody can't win. And if you can't beat yourself, you can't beat anybody else. The end of the book, where he ends with his du'a. He says we must be able to detach ourselves from man-made concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, individuality and equality in order to see our problem objectively and define our struggle. We must elevate our consciousness above the temporal concepts found in man-made documents only by becoming aware of the sacred source of legislation can we understand for what goals we should be struggling. Let us seek to implement divine justice. Let us struggle for what God has commanded. And he has a du'a here. I found it very beautiful. He said may Allah make us mindful concerning the signs that have been made prevalent around us at this time. Say ameen. Think about it when he wrote the du'a. May Allah make us mindful concerning the signs that have been made prevalent around us at this time. Signs within our very selves, signs that are within our households, signs that are all around us. These are signs which Allah makes so clear that we can only ignore them, refuse them as a result of the hardness of our hearts. SubhanAllah was the khutbah today. When we can perceive what the hardness of our hearts is producing in our lives, when we recognize our error, we shall see the signs. May Allah give us the strength to turn from those things which are unnatural and ungodly.
There is nothing more unnatural than the zulm that is being carried out against our Palestinian hostages in Palestine, against our Syrian brothers and sisters that we were discovering as we were pulling out of the dungeons, against Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, against Imam Jameel Al-Amin, against all of those people that have been unjustly targeted. And it is unnatural and ungodly that we ignore these people while they are still alive on this side of the world. So I ask you, dear brothers and sisters, please keep him in your du'a. Go to the website WhatHappened2Rap.com. Again, that's what happened, the number 2, WhatHappened2Rap.com. If you can donate, MashaAllah, the QR code is on the screen. If you can go ahead and take your phone out, MashaAllah Ta'ala. I want everyone just to go at least read on it again, even if you've given already. Acquaint yourself with the series. So just take your phones out, MashaAllah Ta'ala, and scan the QR code. Jazakumullahu khayran to the brothers in the AV room for putting that up so quickly. So just scan it, please, InshaAllah Ta'ala, WhatHappened2Rap.com. Make du'a for him. Do not lose heart for Imam Jameel, for Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, for the remaining of the HLF-5 that are in prison, and for anyone in your community that's targeted for believing in what you claim to believe and what I claim to believe as well. May Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala alleviate their suffering, and may Allah 'Azza wa Jal make us voices for them and enable us to be a part of healing their pain. Allahumma ameen. Jazakumullahu khayran. Wassalamu'alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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