Bilal Ahmad
A4773AY
26/02/2011

Bismillaah ar Rahmaan ar Raheem

As salaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakaatu.

I pray this letter finds you in the best of health and strongest of emaan. To introduce myself, my name is Bilal, I’m from West Midlands, and I’m the cousin of Abu Abbas. I am writing to you to convey my feelings in the hope you could offer me some good naseehah as an older brother fi-llaah, with the assumption you may be able to identify with my ordeal. I am currently in prison on remand for four charges: one count of solicitation to murder the MP’s that voted for the Iraq war, and 3 counts of collecting information that could be deemed useful to a terrorist. I was refused bail after the offer of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of equity and house arrest as the Crown Prosecution Service announced they wanted to add further charges: another count of solicitation to murder (the deposed leader of the English Defence League), encouraging terrorism, dissemination of terrorist publications, incitement to racial and religious hatred, and membership of two proscribed terrorist organisations. They’ve also moved my trial to Nottingham crown court because they’re alleging I threatened one of the “judges” on the London circuit. 

I am 23 years old. Have a bachelor of science honours degree, had a career, my own rented house and all I had left to do with my worldly ambitions was to find a wife – but this livelihood was taken away by the qadr of Allah and the ajal of that rizq has expired, and one of the arkaan of eemaan is to be pleased with it be it good or bad. They raided my house, my parents house and my workplace. I was arrested after being pulled over on the M1 by the counter-terrorism unit of West Midlands police/CO-15. They held me at Coventry police station for 6 days and interviewed me 27 times. After they charged me, they took me to the city of Westminister magistrates court, refused me bail and sent me to Pentonville. I’ve been here since November 2010. My provisional trial date was originally 7th June 2011, but my solicitor Imran Khan told me the CPS have announced ‘slippage’ meaning the trial has been delayed until further notice, because the CPS haven’t got their case together on time.

I’ve been reading books while I’ve been here, TV does my head in. I’ve been keeping up to date with the news though. It makes me laugh the way the West ‘observe’ what is happening in Libya and Egypt, and the way their media invite guests to speak and they ask them about the ‘threat’ of ‘Islamists’ taking power, always with a polemic undertone to coerce their guests to dismiss such a notion as against all odds of the will of the people, as if they are trying to reassure their colonial slavemasters – yet when you hear the peoples slogans on the streets, they are more than often religiously oriented.

However, as we all know, the will of the homogeneic population is irrelevant in the face of opposing the West’s ‘best interests’ (i.e. imperialism, hegemony and annexation) which as we know is to rape and pillage others’ land of all its resources and honour. They love to exploit the revolutions in our countries as a source of entertainment, setting aside the fact that these oppressive dictatorships have always been propped up and sustained by the West themselves. Then they come out with all these patronising labels for the people who revolted; ‘The Facebook generation’ – what does Facebook have to do with 30 years of dictatorship and its overthrowal? Look at the West’s ‘Facebook generation;’ a nation of binge-drinking bastards, whores and homosexuals with STD’s. This experience is what I make of it, and I can use it to my benefit by way of learning, or let it be used to my detriment by allowing it to demoralise me.

I will not let them break my mind, body, spirit or eemaan insha’Allah wa la hawla wa la quwatta illa billah. I read in the January edition of ‘The Muslim News’ how Muslim schools perform amongst the best in the country. The government recently allocated something like £70,000 to Jewish faith schools. They’ve never given Muslim schools a penny. Rather, they commission Dispatches to demonise them based on a needle in the haystack. I’m reading a book right now called ‘I Saw Ramallah’ by Mourid Barghouti. In its poetic style, I’ve learned a few lessons in its food for thought. For example at one bit Mourid writes about how his uncle used to trap birds by initially setting them bait. His uncle described them as ‘stupid’ because they always fell for the bait without ever wising up to the trap. I think that in my case and the case of many Muslims in this country that feel disenfranchised; the bait is to react to antagonistic and provocative actions by the government and media under the false illusion of ‘freedom of speech,’ and the trap is then executed under the draconian anti-terror legislations. If non-Muslims vitriolically and unfairly malign Islaam and Muslims, then it is considered ‘intellectual vigour’ and ‘freedom of speech’ but if a Muslim says anything about their way of life it is considered ‘hate speech’ and ‘a threat to our way of life.’

I just saw how a Libyan brother who is my age from Essex called Muhammad was sentenced to 5 years in prison at the Old Bailey for similar/the same charges to mine. May Allah make his burden easy. So then the quagmire ensues; how does one vent their legitimate pent-up frustrations without being imprisoned based on double-standards, while publicised organisations like the English Defence League are given the leeway and encouragement to incite their poisonous, racist hatred and threats openly and on a much larger scale? And of course all happens by the qadr of Allah.

The CPS are trying to claim I have a perpetuance for violence because I was arrested for ABH on 31/12/2005, was photographed at a riot with the EDL in Harrow in The Guardian newspaper on 11/09/2009 and was arrested for ‘possession of an offensive weapon’ at the US Embassy on 11/09/2010 in a face-off with the EDL. My case, I believe, is being exaggerated by the crown prosecution service – and that is why I believe they are using ploys of entrapment by way of sending leading text messages and Facebook messages to my contacts, in order to incriminate ‘my associates’ and thus further exacerbate the false image they are portraying of me. It’s so pathetic it’s almost laughable. I would love for Muslim community leaders to come together and discuss methods to effectively tackle the second-class-citizen treatment we suffer – but that would of course be asking too much of a reality where these so-called community ‘leaders’ prostitute our rights and sanctity for a false sense of prestige and a puny position handed down as crumbs from the table of those [who] violate us, and the community themselves who are generally apathetic and blissfully ignorant in both our deen and thus affairs.

Imran Khan told me that if the jury finds me guilty. I should have in my mind the expectation of 5-10 years. I am so disillusioned with the system and its repression of our words by way of our imprisonment, that I don’t know what I can and can’t say anymore, lest it incriminates me; regardless of the fact that it is supposedly legal within the ambit of their own law. This being the case therefore makes it clear to me that it is the government, media and crown prosecution service that are ‘extremists’ not I. Collins English Dictionary gives its definition of ‘political prisoner’ as ‘someone imprisoned for holding, expressing or acting in accord with particular political beliefs.’ Nowadays we find people not only being imprisoned for vocally objecting to the murder, rape, pillaging, destruction of infrastructure, imprisonment of innocent civilians and political activists and genocide; but also for reasons like just for voicing their opinion that homosexuality is immoral – their imprisonment is a result of their peacefully expressing to something, you could say, they politically object to ‘Dictatorship – A country ruled by a dictator or dictators.’ ‘Dictate – To act in a tyrannical manner; seek to impose ones (human) will on others.’

I genuinely believe the United Kingdom is a dictatorship for practising Muslims. When I convey these sentiments to brothers in prison – they all say I should write a book – but I don’t; because the opinions of a Muslim that contends the agenda of the UK government must be repressed, otherwise the Muslim will be oppressed (even further), and their words will more-than-likely be suppressed anyway. They are even trying to humiliate our identity in programmes like ‘Shameless’ and ‘Eastenders’ by way of portraying and depicting their ‘Muslim’ characters decadently, such as homosexuals, promiscuous fornicators with Kuffaar and consumers of alcohol. Yesterday there was a film on TV in which one of the main characters was an Arab (Muslim) woman who was an illegal immigrant in London with aspirations to go to New York, who was used sexually in manipulation not to be reported to immigration, and later her virginity was taken in exchange for a fake passport. It was called ‘Dirty Pretty Things.’ At least the actress was a kaafira though in real-life (Audrey Tauton) – kaafira name. In the ‘Eastern Eye’ newspaper they had some ‘American Muslim’ Pakistani licentious woman called Tehmeena Afzal who was posing semi-naked and gave an interview about how she aspires to be in Playboy magazine. Naturally, I feel livid when I have to witness such things, and all I can do here is make du’aa; and making du’aa is the only thing that saves me from feeling completely impotent in the face of these adversities. Wallaahi, I love the Muslims so much. Only Allah knows how much I love them. I belong to the biggest family on the planet, and the Muslims are it. It hurts me so much to see them degrade themselves in such a manner, because they are worth more than anything this cruel world has to offer, and by their wrongdoing they are only wronging themselves.

The ‘authorities’ know I’m not a physical threat to national security (their own politicians are the biggest threat to national security); that’s why they put me in a category B dungeon and not a category A one. What I wonder though is what else they hope to achieve by this draconian treatment I am victim to, besides turn me back from my deen. Could it be to scaremonger the society best of planners. Allah has tested me throughout my life, by way of different trials and tribulations like living in a refuge home as a young child, amongst other things, therefore I am no stranger to hardships and would be ungrateful to whinge given the calamities the Ummah faces today, and more importantly given the rizq and barakah Allah has given me.

I’ve been living alone since age 18, initially for University in Birmingham and later for work. I am my mother’s only son, and I worry for her. I miss my family. On surface level I’m bearing this with patience and remaining steadfast, but inside I have had to train my emotions to be stoic – oblivious to both pleasure and pain. Sometimes being alive in this grave/cell, it’s as if I’ve psychologically died, and all the people and places I knew don’t exist anymore. My family are in the Midlands so it’s difficult for them to visit. But I tell myself that ‘they can lock the lock but they can’t stop the clock.’ They can’t keep me caged up in here like an animal forever, unless Allah wills. And Allah is Al – Haqq, and Al – Haqq said ‘Innam al ‘usri yussrah.’ At this point I wish to seek for your forgiveness, because I never wrote you a letter when Allah was testing you, although I did intend to, Shaytaan’s whisperings led me to forget, or ‘do it later.’ Anything good I’ve said is from Allah, and anything incorrect I wrote is from the evil of my ownself, from the whisperings of the shaytaan. May Allah grant you, your family and the brothers jannatul firdaws – please relay my salams and du’aas to them all.

Wa salaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh.

Akhuk, Bilal