Deen-ul-Sujanaa': The Prisoners’ Guide to Proper Islamic Life: Nineteen Steps to True Probation and Parole

Him!

Step One…Testimony Against the Self: Al-Haqqatu ‘Alaa-N-Nafs

The first step to any path of self-correction is admission of guilt. Whether you lied to the lawyers, judge, jury, etc. does not matter at this point; what matters is that you have a recording system built into your cerebral system of the human body that catches all information, truth and falsehood, and it keeps it for storage. Everything you have ever said, thought, imagined, dreamed, and done is on record within your system. So you cannot lie to your self because your self knows the truth, regardless of how you try to twist and bend or omit certain facts to make your self believe it is one thing, when the self knows exactly what and how and when and why and where and with whom each and every influence, verbal or otherwise, has been introduced to your self. Down to the millimeter and millisecond, everything is recorded in detail and cannot be erased from your DNA; the physical, mental and spiritual molecular structures designed for the capture of information to be used for accuracy, accounting and judgment of the self at some point in time or another. Allah (swt) has designed this recording system and it is fool proof and cannot and will not fail.

Since you have experience in court and the legal or judicial system, you know exactly how much information investigators can gather on you. Now imagine how much time they would save if your body and self testified against you! What if they could just plug you into a system and play the truth about everything you have ever heard, seen, said, or done, or even planned to do? What would they discover about you? Are you starting to get the picture of how GOD is going to judge you in the end? You cannot hide from your self, and your self will never tell a lie on you. However the self will testify only to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about you, as GOD has willed. You are your worst enemy, but you can also be your best friend if you turn your self away from evil and give your self over to GOD.

A prime example that everyone can attest to is when someone calls on the phone and is looking for you, and you command the person answering the phone to Tell them I’m not here. Now the person who answered the phone and who is in your presence knows that you are right there; the person knows that the command you have given him or her is a lie. You are sitting or standing right there! You know it, the person answering the phone knows it, GOD knows it, the Angels know it, and all of earth that bears witness to your DNA, footprint, voice print, and any other earthly representation you possess, knows that you are exactly where you are. Time and space even know that you are right where you are, but you tell the lie to falsely state that you are not there. So in truth, you only deceived yourself because in reality, you are present, even though you projected a lie to the person who called looking for you. There is only one reality and one truth! Are you there? Or are you not there? Which one is the truth?

How many times have you brought this scenario into your reality? How many times have you gone on record with this lie? Yet you still considered yourself to be a good, honest and godly person at the time you not only lied, but even worse, you caused an innocent person (usually your spouse or child) to represent your lie using their tongue. Even though they bore witness with their eyes and entire selves that you were present at the time of the call, you made them join you in the lie and fantasy of you not being there. It is a common practice in the technologically advanced societies where people can hide behind screens and devices and manipulate reality with falsehood. You just happened to be one of the liars. Own it!

Step One involves being honest with yourself and admitting that you are a liar and a loser! If you are guilty of any crime, even the ones you got away with and were not convicted of, admit them to your self and then apologize to your self and ask your self for forgiveness for having sullied your self and your soul. You caused this beautiful self and soul that GOD Himself created and gave directly to you for safe keeping to become dirty and shiftless. Look at what you have done with GOD’s spirit! Look! He breathed into of His Spirit so that you could become a living soul and look at what you have done with His Breath! You are languishing in a prison or in a state of pretrial detention with your dumb ass! God’s Breath is trapped inside your dumb and stupid ass! Yes ass! You are an ass! You are a donkey of Satan! Dumb ass! Look at your self! Look at what you have done! Look where you are! What can you do without your newly commissioned and appointed masters? Before jail, prison and detention, you had freedom to do whatever you wanted to do; but now you have correction officers telling you what, when, where and how to do everything; even what to wear, when and what to eat, how and where to walk, what time to get up and go to bed, what can and cannot be housed or read, etc. Dumb ass! You gave up your freedom for this life of incarceration? Knowing what jail and prison life is all about, you still went along with Satan’s plan to get you locked up? You’ve got to be one of the dumbest asses on the planet! Remember Shrek and the Donkey? You are the ass in the movie, not the ogre! You are now in the ass-hold; you are in a place where they hold dumb asses until the dumb asses do their time or they evolve from the state of an ass to that of a responsible and accountable human being; freeing their minds and spirits from incarceration and returning to The Creator, Allah, in submission and prostration. Allah says that the worst sound to His Ears is the braying of the ass (Al-Qur’an 31:19 - Surah Luqman: Ayat 19). Don’t be an ass! Be Muslim! Submit to Allah! Follow His Messengers and His Prophets! Submit!

You are incarcerated! The only liberation you will have at this moment in your life is when you surrender to GOD and become something more than and better than what you were before you got caught. Before you let go of GOD’s Rope, jumped out of His Hands, took ahold of Satan’s hand, and skipped, hopped, ran, and jumped along the path of defiance to GOD, you had opportunities to be righteous. Your defiance of GOD landed you where you are today. It wasn’t anything else but that. If you are not locked up for protesting an evil in the land or defying a corrupt system or law, or because you represented religious freedom and rights, then you are locked up for defying GOD’s Word and Will. Admit it! You were a dumb ass! And if you still carry the very arrogance that got you locked up in the first place, then you are still and will continue to be a dumb ass and a tool of Satan; you will spread mischief, drugs, alcohol, dope, prostitution, gambling, lies, deceit, crime, corruption, evil, and sin upon the Earth and work for Satan until you repent and change your ways. You cannot help it! Without GOD you will do the crime and you will do the time. This is not godliness at all. This makes you a dumb ass! So are you ready to make a change for the better, or are you still an ass or a donkey for Satan?

Admission of wrong and guilt must come first so that you yourself know exactly where you stand and what you are. This is the first thing you are taught at Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings; You say, Hello, my name is Jim and I’m an alcoholic. Hello, my name is Theresa and I’m a crack addict. Etc. Admit that you have a problem so that the problem can be fixed. The longer you deny the truth, the longer you languish in the prison of your mind and spirit, and the longer you are affected, infected and diseased by Satan. The Bible says, …and the Truth shall set you free. Do you want freedom? If your answer is Yes, then tell the truth so that you and your self can be in harmony with truth and you both can now go before GOD and do the reparations and make the adjustments, alterations, remodeling, etc. required for you to attain righteousness. Prophet Muhammad said, Speak the truth, even if it be against your own selves. Admit your sins before GOD! GOD knows you; He already knows your good and bad! Your self already knows them. You already know them. There is no point in lying and deceiving you, yourself, or the world anymore. You cannot deceive your self or GOD, so the only chump or fool in this equation is You! Dumb ass! Everything and everyone else is operating on nothing but the truth; truth stands out clearly from all of the errors you have made and have brought into your system of life. Trying to pass falsehoods off as truths makes you a dumb ass. Sorry! You are now in GOD’s World and that crap doesn’t fly here!

Counterfeit! You are counterfeited human waste! You have lied so much to your self that you don’t even know if you are coming or going. Stop the suffering and the fantasy! Get off the Ferris wheel ride. Nothing exists but the truth. The lies do not even exist! This is why they call them lies. They are not reality! Truth is Reality, and once you get to know GOD, you will discover that He is The Reality and the Truth (Al-Haqq). So why try to avoid GOD? That is pure stupidity and insanity. Are you insane? Are you stupid? Then stop lying and start telling the truth! Stop being an ass!

Let’s start with your crimes against your self, then against others and your victims, then against society and humanity at-large, and finally against GOD and GOD’s. Admit your weakness so that you can acquire strength. What do you do with a weak and rotten tooth? You pull it out from the gums! So pull the weaknesses out of your self, get rid of them, and then replace them with strengths! We are still only at Step One. You have a lot of work to do.

You remember being in school, right? You turned in your work and the teacher put red marks on your paper, highlighting the wrong answers or misspelled words and poor grammar, etc. Do you remember that? Well, take that teacher and replace him or her with GOD and imagine GOD correcting your entire life in every place where you got the answers and actions wrong! Imagine that your life is that graded paper, test or homework! How many red marks, corrections and wrong answers will you have? Are you getting the importance of admission of guilt and error? If you don’t, it’s like telling your teacher that corrected your paper, I don’t care what you say or write, I know I got the answers to those questions right. How can you tell the teacher that you know better or best? This is what we do when we arrogantly pursue the wrong that we do. When we know that GOD is not pleased with our actions we do them anyway. But if we got burned, cut, stoned, chopped, electrocuted, gassed, or beaten every time we did that same crime, evil, or wrong thing we would at least pause and reconsider the consequences of our actions. Yet, because GOD is so Merciful, Kind, Forgiving and Overlooking, He allows us to continue down a path of destruction until we reach our master teacher called Hard Knocks or Life Experience, then we run into that wall or get that teachable moment that stops us dead or injured in our tracks and places us in a state of mind or being where we have to take time out and away from our evil selves and hasten to the Reality of GOD and Truth. You have run into that master and teacher, and now you have to face the reality and truth and make concrete decisions. Will you remain a dumb ass prisoner, inmate or detainee, or evolve into something cleaner, wiser and better? Be truthful to yourself and know your capabilities. Don’t lie to you or yourself anymore! It’s time to get free: The truth will set you free.

Step One is the first step necessary to enter into the realm of Reality and to get a truthful and productive relationship with your Lord and God. God isn’t Jesus, Satan, Joseph, Mary, Buddha or Muhammad; there is no god except The GOD and He is no man or woman or created thing. He is The Creator of men, women and material things. If it is material, wood, stone, metal, organic, flesh, bone, blood, etc. then it was made from matter created by The Creator; created things or things that contain matter cannot be worshipped as GOD or gods. They are subjects! They are products! They have a master, producer and designer! They belong to The Creator! Their existence depends upon the Permission of The Creator to have life, purpose, design, power, etc. Yes, this includes Jesus! Jesus prayed, played, fasted, lived, ate, drank, urinated, defecated, yawned, slept, wept, walked, talked, sneezed, blinked, blew his nose, and came from the womb of a woman with an umbilical chord attached to his navel. That cord had to be severed in order for him to be free and independent. Then he sucked the breasts of his mother for nourishment; he washed, dried off, combed his hair, got dressed and undressed, studied, received guidance, etc. As a baby Mary washed and bathed him, wiped his little bottom, removing urine and poo-poo from his body, and then helped to raise him from a little boy to an independent human being. Jesus has a mother and he is known to the real World as Jesus, the son of Mary, and some add Joseph, but not the son of God. He was a carpenter, sheepherder, etc. Are these facts or are these fictitious statements? Again, step into the realm of Reality and grab ahold of the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free! This is only a small portion of Step One. More of this will be covered under Step Three: Tawheed.

Once you are confirmed and ready to tell the truth against your own soul and self for who, what and how you really are, keeping it 100, then you can move to Step Two.

Step Two…Reparations: Islaaha

Reparations! Now that you have come clean and have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God, you must now go back and repair what you have broken. You do admit that you broke something, correct? So if you break something, shouldn’t you fix it or replace it with something equal or better than what you broke? This is common sense, common decency, and it is what is required to maintain balance on Earth and within God’s Creation. You cannot take a piece out of the puzzle and leave that space blank! The puzzle makes a picture represented by the complete collection and proper connection of the puzzle pieces. You cannot see the picture if it is incomplete and not whole. GOD wants wholeness and completion, which is why you see whole tomatoes, oranges, carrots, cows, chickens, sheep, elephants, mosquitos, etc. So when you take away from the whole, it leaves a void, a blank space in the completeness; it robs or takes away from the design and intent of The Originator (GOD). Thus you are required to put the piece back in its place so that others can enjoy the puzzle in its entirety. This is sound sense, which may not be common if you come from a generation or household of selfish takers and not givers. It’s okay! GOD is now going to work with you and get you straight. This is Deen-ul-Sujanaa’!

So let’s talk about balance! This is Algebra One, Al-Mizaan. GOD has balanced the creation with equal moving parts and volume and weight and measurement. From the mustard seed to the mountain, everything has its specific design and purpose. GOD has placed everything where and how He wanted it and the Earth rejoices in His Splendor and Glory by maintaining the proper balance within the created matter that rests in and upon it. This is why the Earth recovers from the mishaps, mistakes and intentional evils of man. No matter how many oil spills and toxic waste dumps, life still goes on but man gets sick and dies as a result of his and her own doings. This is justice and balance working according to GOD’s Plan. So the scales that keep record of everything must always tilt in the favor of balance. A man with one leg will get a crutch or stick so that he can walk upright, correct? The need to be balanced is in our DNA. We learn quickly from the very first time we attempt to stand and walk as infants. We need Balance! Al-Mizaan!

You are a criminal and transgressor! Admit it! You are a person that does not mind committing infractions and breaking the law, even knowing that you will get caught. Look at prisons and jails! All people get caught, and you did too! Dumb ass! You are a robber of the balance that GOD has created in His Creation. You must admit this. So when you steal and take away something from someone else, you have to put it back! If you cannot put back what you have illegally acquired, then you will be punished and have your things, your freedom, civil liberties, and maybe even your life or body parts, taken away from you. This is why the system is called Criminal Justice. Justice seeks to maintain order through balancing the scales within the courts of law. We, the people, have agreed upon laws through societal trials and tribulations and by our right to vote. This is our court of law. However in GOD’s Court, you still have to pay for violating His Laws and Will, unless you repent and amend.

Let’s omit man’s laws for a minute and focus on what is happening in the Heavenly Hierarchy of laws, justice, balances and criminal punishments. What do you think GOD and His Angels are doing whilst you commit these crimes and believe you are getting or have gotten away with wrongdoing? Fool! GOD SEES and KNOWS ALL. If you know about it, you can be certain that GOD knows about it! Thus the crime is recorded and you will have to pay in the Eternal Justice System. You get away with nothing in GOD’s World! Believe it! If man caught you, how much easier is it for GOD to catch you? Think about it! You cannot escape The Very One responsible for your life, your brain, all of your functions, your memory, etc. How can you escape a recording device that is on 24/7 and with you everywhere you go, even in dark and private places? Thinking you can escape GOD is like thinking you can leave your heart and brain out of your body, go and commit a crime, and then come back and pick up your heart and brain later. That is foolish! So you have to believe that your heart and brain are GOD’s and that He is with you everywhere you exist. Even while the rest of you is asleep, the heart is still pumping away and the brain is still functioning with dreams or nightmares. Al-Mizaan! God is Great! You will be judged.

So you now have to be prepared to put back what you have taken. How do you do it once you are incarcerated? You first follow Step One and admit that you have taken whatever it is, big or small. Next you have to seek to put whatever was stolen, taken, broken or destroyed back into its proper place or form. Contact the victims! Write a letter to each and every one of your victims! Ask your attorney to deliver your letters to the victims and beg the victims for their forgiveness. Act as if they hold the key to your life and death in their hands. You have nowhere else to go or be and nothing else to do, so at least do some internal housekeeping. Restore Al-Mizaan, the balance! Get all of those stolen goods and criminal activities off your record by putting back the stolen things in their proper places.

If you cannot reach the victims of your crimes then you must still get rid of the guilt by turning toward GOD and asking Him to take your spiritual letters to the victims of your crimes and deliver your admission of guilt and expression of remorse and sorrow to their hearts, minds and souls. GOD can do this for you if you are truly sincere. That’s right! It is confession and absolution time! GOD hears, sees and knows all things! He knows if you are sincere in your request, and whether or not you feel proud of the crimes you have committed. Change your mind and heart to ones of contrition, sorrow and shame! This will teach and model for you humility and remorse so that when you go before the judge or the parole board, you will have true contrite on your face, in your soul and heart, upon your psyche, and in your aura that all can see, hear and feel. You will be believable because you will be truthful and your balance in life will have been reestablished; you will be whole again by the Grace and Mercy of GOD. Al-Mizaan! Islaaha!

Let’s talk about how important this balance is! In the creation of man, GOD took clay and water from the Earth to form and fashion man. To get the clay, He commissioned Angels to go to Earth and collect the matter He needed in order to fashion and form His Masterpiece called ‘man’. When the Angels came, the Earth sought refuge in GOD from whatever they were doing or attempting to do. If they took something away from Earth, they would upset and offset the perfect balance that GOD had established in it. So the Angels returned without clay and the materials needed to make man. They told GOD how the Earth sought refuge in Him from their taking anything from the Earth. Then GOD sent the Angel Michael to go and get the job done. Upon arriving at Earth, Earth did the same thing to him by seeking refuge in GOD from any extraction of matter. Michael was not going to go back to GOD empty-handed, so he wisely promised Earth that whatever he took in order to fulfill GOD’s Order, it would be given back so that the balance in Earth would be restored. Upon this promise, the Earth complied and allowed the clay and water to be removed in order to create man. This is why we say upon the burial of a human being, Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, whatever was taken, return it we must.

Therefore you, as a criminal, must return whatever you have taken so that you can complete the circle of life and reconnect things where they belong. You are the violator. You took the money, jewelry, merchandise, candy or car. Even though you ate the candy, wrecked the car, pawned the merchandise, or fenced the jewelry, you now have to return what you have stolen, if you want to restore balance in your life. This is Step Two.

So, how then can you make reparations without the merchandise? The answer is simple: Repent! Turn to GOD and repent! It was your soul, mind and psyche that did the crime and took the property. The property did not disappear; it’s still on Earth! It was simply relocated. What is missing, what was lost or stolen was actually al-mizaan in the righteousness of your mind, soul and psyche. Your being in compliance with GOD and goodness, and to you, are what is missing. These imperfections you must change. You have to go back to the scene of each crime and place things and people back the way you found them, item-by-item and person-by-person. When you reach an item or person, turn toward GOD and ask for His Forgiveness and Mercy for your violation and disturbance of that item or person. Do this with each person and every item! See them vividly and then put them back where they belong. Everything is in GOD’s World! Do this and it will count on His Scorecard! You may not be able to get out of jail or prison and do this; you may not be able to find the victim or the victim’s family; you may not be able to write letters and make amends; but you can put that stuff you stole back in its proper place. This is Step Two, Islaaha, Reparations! Al-Mizaan, The Balance!

STEP TWO-Reparations: it is the act of repairing and mending; it is the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. This is what every prisoner or convicted criminal must do. If you are even falsely convicted, make amends with your Lord and God for all of the wrong things you have done, intentionally and unintentionally, but were never caught doing them except by your own self. GOD sees all! Nothing escapes His Knowledge and Awareness or His Record. If you did it, thought it, felt it, wanted it, planned it, lusted after it, coveted it, or did anything that was improper toward any part of GOD’s Creation, including your own body, mind, soul and spirit, then GOD has a complete and detailed record of all of it and He can play it back to you exactly as it happened and occurred, and He can make you sit and bear witness against your own soul and self. So go to this same GOD and Lord that has this capability and ask Him to forgive you, have mercy upon you, blot out from you your iniquities, erase from you and your record your sins and crimes, and turn toward you with His Protection and Love so that you can heal, lay down your burdens, remove your yokes and shackles, and proceed into the good life that will eventually turn eternal. We all sin and have sinned and we all need to admit our sins so that we can heal. STEP TWO is all about getting the burdens off and leveling the playing field. Islaaha!

Don’t be stupid and start confessing your crimes and sins to man unless you are already convicted and found guilty in a court of law. Man seeks to increase punishment and does not seek to apply or extend mercy. Man is not forgiving and merciful like GOD, nor is man capable of knowing your intent or any hidden facts that may sway the judgment and jury in the direction of acquitting you or commuting your sentence. Tell your sins unto The Lord, Thy God, and He will listen to them and examine the sincerity of your confession or guilt. He already knows that you are guilty and knows the reason why you did whatever it is that you did. This is why He is Most Merciful and Oft Forgiving! He knows how you were raised and if the deck was stacked against you from birth. This is why, despite all of your crimes, He has extended your life and allowed you the opportunity to escape punishment while experiencing a break from the horrible life that got you incarcerated in the first place.

You are in time-out! You are in the penalty box. You are removed from the playing field, the court, the ring and the rink. It’s time that you sit this one out! Until you get your head together and your actions under control, you cannot be let back into the game, onto the court, onto the field, into the ring or rink, or back into society. The world and the society, and someone or some persons have screamed, FOUL. You are the offender! You are being penalized for having been accused or found guilty of foul play; you are guilty of invading someone’s personal and private space or property and violating their rights and yours and GOD’s too. So sit this one out and get close to GOD during this brief stay in the incarceration, jail, prison or detention facility. Clean up your mind, spirit and soul! Repair what you have broken! Even if it is your own self that was broken, fix it! Make it whole! Make it sound! Make your self and your life pleasing and acceptable in the Presence of GOD! This is your prescribed and only duty now. Get things right! You’ve got all the time in the world. Make good use of it before you die!

STEP TWO requires a record, either written or oral. You must make an open testimony before GOD that this thing or these things you have done are wrong. You must acknowledge that you and they were wrong. This is the balance, again. Both sides of the equation must offset each other so that every thing goes back to zero. Even if the other side refuses to accept your apology and offer you forgiveness or the opportunity to make amends and repair things, it doesn’t matter because the True Balance is in and on the Scales of GOD. As long as GOD knows that you have carried out His Plan and have done His Will, you are credited with success and then you can leave it up to Him to give the victims what they need in order to heal. So don’t fret yourself if the victims or the victims’ families and survivors do not accept your offering; as long as you are sincere and have turned yourself and your burdens over to GOD, He will make the Scales tilt in your favor because you have done the maximum of what you are capable of doing. So relax in the Lord and celebrate His Praises and Glory from the days of contrition and admission to the days ahead of you. Your debt has now been paid. It is all about the offering that’s in the sacrifice; it’s not about the blood! GOD says that it is not the blood of the sacrifice that reaches Him but it is the regard and reverence of the obedient servant that follows The Commandments of GOD that reaches Him. Repent! Repair! Amend! Restore the Balance! This is Step Two.

If you are able to work while in prison, set aside some money for repaying your debts, for purchasing the item(s) you stole and giving it or them back or giving a donation to the victim’s family. They may not want to see or talk to you or receive anything from you, so you can send it anonymously, if needed. But make a plan to repair and replace and GOD will make a plan for you to fulfill your good plan, and GOD is The Best of Planners. This is Step Two.

Once you have mad it through Steps One and Two, you must now re-establish your self on the Right Path of and to GOD. Your car just got repaired and is ready to leave the shop, what do you do with your car now? Will you crash it