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Ruling on Hunger Strikes For Prisoners

Many of our oppressed imprisoned brothers resort to hunger strikes when the world, including their Muslim brothers, turn their backs on them.

The question becomes whether or not this is allowed Islamically. The simple answer to this matter is that refusing to eat and/or drink until one dies or severely harms himself is not permissible and if he dies, then he falls under the same ruling as one who kills himself by jumping from a high rise or slicing his wrists…etc.

Islam came to honor and protect life as Allah سبحانه وتعالى warned about this in the Koran:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَأْكُلُوا أَمْوَالَكُم بَيْنَكُم بِالْبَاطِلِ إِلَّا أَن تَكُونَ تِجَارَةً عَن تَرَاضٍ مِّنكُمْ ۚ وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّـهَ كَانَ بِكُمْ رَحِيمًا﴿٢٩﴾ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَٰلِكَ عُدْوَانًا وَظُلْمًا فَسَوْفَ نُصْلِيهِ نَارًا ۚوَكَانَ ذَٰلِكَ عَلَى اللَّـهِ يَسِيرًا.(٣٠)ا

“And do not kill yourselves. Surely, Allah is Most Merciful to you. And whoever commits that through aggression and injustice, We shall cast him into the Fire.” (Sura An-Nisa, 29-30)

AlQurtuby said that there is consensus among scholars that this verse applies to not killing each other and its meaning applies to one who kills himself.

In both Bukhari and Muslim, Abu Hurierah رضي الله عنه narrated that the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said:

وفي الصحيحين من حديث أبي هريرة رضي الله عنه أن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال: ‏‏”من تردى من جبل فقتل نفسه فهو في نار جهنم يتردى فيها خالداً مخلداً فيها أبداً، ومن ‏تحسى سماً فقتل نفسه فسمه في يده يتحساه في نار جهنم خالداً مخلداً فيها أبداً، ومن قتل ‏نفسه بحديدة فحديدته في يده يجأ بها بطنه في نار جهنم خالداً مخلداً فيها أبداً

“He who commits suicide by throttling shall keep on throttling himself in the Hell Fire (forever). And he who takes poison to kill himself shall have poison in his hand to swallow in hell-fire. And he who commits suicide by stabbing himself shall keep on stabbing himself in the Hell-Fire.”

There are numerous verses, hadeeths and sayings of scholars to leave no doubt that committing suicide is prohibited. However, sometimes the hunger strikes taken by our brothers are not meant by the person to reach the point of death but rather to raise awakening and awareness to one’s cause or remove hardships one faces or retrieve rights taken away. That person does not mean to reach to the point of harming himself, let alone death. That matter returns upon oneself if he so thinks it will benefit his situation. If the hunger strike falls short of harming oneself then it falls under the mubah/permissible in Islam.

In Siyer A3lam AlNubala, (Aldahaby) narrated that Imam Ahmad رحمه الله remained eight days and nights not eating when he was imprisoned. We do not know why he did that but he did not, however, let it last long enough for serious injury or death to happen. It could have been to better his prison condition.

I know of brothers who went on hunger strikes in prisons and they were hiding food but letting the staff think they were not eating to remove torturous conditions we endured at the hands of the Americans.

To be practical, hunger strikes in USA prisons rarely work because Americans have mastered the art of torture for decades or rather centuries. They know from their experience in torture how to react in such conditions by letting a person remain in his status until he gets near death. Then they restrain him with belts and force feed him by nasal gastric feeding tubes, mostly done by correctional officers or non medical staff which at times causes death. Muslims in USA, along with their leaders overall–with some rare exceptions, are cowards who do not stand up for their brothers’ conditions, let alone their causes in USA prisons–contrary to many Muslims in other parts of the world–which only makes the matter worse.

The matter is slightly different in Palestine and other parts of the world where Muslims react to their brothers’ conditions and it tends to raise awareness and at times, prison staff or authorities tend to reason and compromise with the inmates. Even so, if the hunger strike continues by any Muslim and reaches a point where it harms one severely or causes death, then it is haram, regardless of the benefit.

A Muslim who undergoes a trial by Allah should be patient and accept the destiny Allah chose for him remembering that it is the path of the righteous messengers of Allah and those who follow them. In those trials, Allah will forgive the sins and raise the ranks inshallah and it’s a time for one to reflect and to ask Allah that HE take away his hard ship and release him from the hands of Kuffar and oppressors as Allah is the only one who answers the call of the distressed and oppressed

May Allah subhanu watala hasten the release of the oppressed and destroy and annihilate the oppressors…

By: Ahmad Musa Jibril

1 Comment

Posted by aseerun on June 10, 2012 in Maktabah

Tags: Ahmed Jibreel, hunger strike, psychological torture, suicide attempt, torture

Jesse Curtis Morton: February 17, 2012* (Solitary Confinement: A First-Hand Reflection on Domestic Torture in a Time of Terror)

20 Feb

They locked me in this room, Alone, by myself, just me –
With no one to talk to except for the walls, or the face in the mirror I see.
So I sit, listen, and watch
the television in my head
Not a notion to move nor a second spared
I record everything that is said –
Absence of Kindness, Distinct Memories of Pain
Caused by the things that they took away
So I’m holding my breath,until they let me out
But I’m afraid of what might happen the next time I breathe.

I wrote that poem when I was 17. These days I am living it; all over again. Then it was a proverbial prison. I was a conscious youth inside one of the most dangerous institutions of America: the public high school. Today, 16 years later, I am in another – the U.S.prison system where I am but one of a growing number of Muslim Americans who dared to speak out. Today I am a pretrial federal inmate housed in solitary confinement and in conditions that best resemble those of Guantanamo Bay.

Trust me I am not alone. In 1994, my junior year of high school, the U.S. Justice Department announced that the prison population had reached one million. By 2009, that number had more than doubled to 2.3 million with 5 million more on probation or parole. U.S. citizens now represent only 5% of the global population but account for 25% of the world’s prisoners. Additionally,1 in15 Americans is in “extreme poverty” with 48% of Americans labeled “in poverty” or “working poor”, but a recent Gallup poll documented that the percentage of Americans that realize the levels of poverty are so high, has dramatically decreased. These two seemingly distinct sets of statistics suggest something more sinister is going on.

The civil rights era included prison protests like the Attica riots of 1971 and paved a way for productive reform, but today talk of human rights tends to cover a manipulative compromise with the power elite and diverts attention away from structural cause. Generally prisoners today have enhanced rights and services but like the starving people fed by NGO’s in Africa or refugee camps in Afghanistan, such rights and philanthropy are counterproductive where they allow society to ignore the root causes of such appalling levels of crime, punishment, hunger or war. These contradictions become apparent with regard to civil liberties in a time of confrontation, when the citizen is reduced to an object of propaganda about domestic enemies in order to maintain public support for wars abroad.

The authors of the American constitution unanimously resented any sacrifice of civil liberties in the name of national security, but the reaction to 9/11, the immediate passage of the Patriot Act and a new approach to law enforcement the Bush Administration called a “preventative paradigm” ushered in an order of sustained national liberty sacrifice. These changes disproportionately affected American Muslims, however while “terrorists” abroad were “disappeared”, water boarded and held without charges at Guantanamo Bay, the courts approved warrantless wiretapping, ethnic profiling, blacksite rendition and preventative detention targeting Muslims on America’s shores. Wartime propaganda alongside a wave of arrests utilizing entrapment, where undercover agents encourage fund, and coerce potential terrorist attacks, have helped to sustain support. Recent polling documents that two-thirds of Americans support sacrificing some privacy and freedoms in the fight against terrorism. Read the rest of this entry »

An Open Letter to the American Government: Transfer Our Husband to Guantanamo…

12 Feb

… It’s Much More Merciful

Peace upon those who follow the guidance:

We the undersigned Nouzha Amrani and Fatiha Hassani (Um Adam El-Mejjati), the lawful wives of Moulay Umar Amrani Hadi who is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment unjustly. He is constantly being transferred to and from Toulal 2 prison and Sale’ 2 prison. We appeal to the American government to transfer its prisoner from its previously mentioned prisons to its detention centre in Guantanamo, Cuba.

This is for the following reasons:

Your prisoner suffers from various chronic illnesses, he is 47 years old, yet he is always subjected to torture. Bearing in mind he was sentenced to prison only not prison and torture.

Types of torture:

Psychological torture:

Subjecting him to constant psychological pressure by, Provocation, humiliation, Insults and threats. He is held in a wing with the general prison population where cigarette smoke fills the air, abusive language is the norm and there is constant noise that prevents him from sleeping. For nine months he has been held in solitary confinement, in a very small cell that lacks the conditions for human residence. He was put in a punishment cell twice within three months. He is prevented from direct visits (without barriers), and being with his wife Nouzha Amrani. They suffice with a barrier visit, even his kids, Abdulrahman, 7, and Zainab, 5. Since three weeks ago his son visited him without a barrier for 15 minutes only in an office. They had a desk in-between them and were surrounded by guards. Zainab refused to go to the visit because of what she experienced before. She would remember the barriers and small windows and the fact she couldn’t sit with her father nor kiss him. He is prevented from seeing his second wife Um Adam, since the 4^th of July 2011, even if the visit is a barrier visit. This continues although she has legal permission from the general prosecutor of the King in Meknes. The prison administration and all those behind it, have sought to hinder the process of completing a legal (marriage) contract, bearing in mind we have completed all the necessary procedures on our part from the date of the 28^th of February 2011. Read the rest of this entry »