In the previous chapter, we evidenced the pivotal role of chaplaincy in many of the positive rehabilitative changes in the lives of Muslim prisoners, such as the discovery of meaning and purpose in life, and that the absence of effective chaplaincy can contribute to a reduction of faith, to extremism and to nihilistic despair. We have also seen in Chapter 3 how the factor Engagement in Chaplaincy was a significant predictor of strong Attitude to Rehabilitation.

In this chapter, we describe in detail how chaplaincy and institutional aspects of Islam in prison make a difference to Muslim prisoners’ lives. We do this in order to provide some guiding principles for best chaplaincy practice in supporting the rehabilitation of Muslim prisoners.

History of prison chaplaincy

Historically, the role of religion, and especially Protestant Christianity, was central to the development of the modern prison (Ignatieff,1989). In the 18th and 19th centuries, non-conformist Protestants such as the Quakers believed that religious values should penetrate the heart of social and political life. This belief led them to be active in social and economic reforms.

One particular concern was the reform of the punishment of criminals: through reflection and hard work, reformers sought alignment between the punishment of criminals and the religious values of forgiveness and personal reform. This prison reform movement resulted in a gradual shift from corporal forms of punishment to the establishment of prison regimes that would lead to the moral reform of offenders. Thus, the locus of punishment shifted from punishment of the body, to control and reform of the mind (Foucault, 1979).

In consequence, prisons were built upon ideas of collective control and with a focus on moral education; regimes were established on discipline, hard work and an austere lifestyle (Ignatieff, 1989). In order to oversee this process of religious and moral prisoner transformation, since the 19th century prison chaplaincy has, to varying degrees and in different ways, formed an integral part of European prison regimes.

Statutory Duties, professional roles and experience

In England and Wales, the role of Anglican Christian prison chaplains is legally prescribed and is integrated into prison management. Over the last two decades, prison chaplaincy in England has also experienced significant diversification and a shift to a pluralistic multi-faith approach (Tipton and Todd, 2011).

• We researched in a variety of geographical settings, holding both sentenced and remand prisoners and covering all prison categories:

• • five English prisons

• • four Swiss prisons

• • one French prison

• Our research sample included all four security categories used in England (A, B, C, D); and to ease comparison, we used the same security categories in Switzerland and France, although we are aware that the equivalencies are not exact.

• According to the UK government (Ministry of Justice, 2021), male prisons are organised into four categories:

Category A

These are high security prisons. They house male prisoners who, if they were to escape, pose the greatest threat to the public, the police or national security.

Category B

These prisons are either local or training prisons. Local prisons house prisoners who are taken directly from court in the local area (sentenced or on remand), and training prisons hold long-term and high security prisoners.

Category C

These prisons are training and resettlement prisons; most prisoners are located in a Category C. They provide prisoners with the opportunity to develop their own skills so they can find work and resettle back into the community on release.

Category D – open prisons

These prisons have minimal security and allow eligible prisoners to spend most of their day away from the prison on licence to carry out work or education or for other resettlement purposes. Open prisons only house prisoners who have been risk assessed and deemed suitable for open conditions.

Abdurrahman

At 11am on 29 November 2019, in a prison in the south of England, a convicted murderer and once-feared gang leader, Abdurrahman, now a Muslim mosque orderly, was knocking on the doors of the prison chaplains in the multi-faith chaplaincy area of Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Cherwell (Category C Prison) asking if anyone would like a cup of tea.

As he prepared the tea, Abdurrahman reflected on the prospect of his upcoming marriage to a Muslim woman whom he had befriended on prison visits, authorised exceptionally by the managing chaplain. He ran through the short guest list of family and friends and was amazed at the quantum shift in his attitude to women since his conviction, inspired by the example of the Prophet Muhammad’s (may the peace and blessings of God be upon him) respectful marriage to Khadija (may God be pleased with her).

Although Abdurrahman knew that he and his wife would not be able to consummate their marriage for years, he wanted to ensure that they could chat at close quarters and hold hands during prison visits in a religiously permitted (halal) way. After attending to the needs of the Muslim, Anglican, Catholic, Jewish and Hindu prison chaplains, Abdurrahman moved onto the purpose-designed prison mosque to vacuum clean it for the Friday Congregational Prayer.

That afternoon, Abdurrahman was scheduled to attend a Qur’an recitation class with the Muslim prison chaplain. Abdurrahman was a designated Learning Mentor for a beginner reading The Qur’an (the Holy Book of Islam). He knew that he would need his wits about him since his young mentee was prone to lapses in concentration and was apt to lark around, distracting himself and others from the tricky task of recitation. After spending much of his life causing violence and chaos, it made Abdurrahman feel calm and grateful that he was bringing his own faith and experience of life to bear to improve someone else’s.

Usman

At 1:45pm on 29 November 2019, Usman, a convicted terrorist out on licence and with an electronic tag, sat unobtrusively in a celebration event at Fishmongers’ Hall, London Bridge.

• • UCIP brought together a multidisciplinary and diverse team, combining expertise in theology, criminology and the sociology of religion, which was integrated under one overarching theoretical umbrella.

• • To accomplish this integration, the overarching theoretical framework for UCIP was drawn from an academic philosophy called critical realism and, in particular, from the contribution made by the Principal Investigator through the development of the philosophy and social theory of Islamic critical realism (Wilkinson 2015a; 2018) and its application by our Coinvestigator (Quraishi, 2020).

• • This critical realist framework provided a lens to make sense of the lives of Muslim prisoners in multiple, related ‘knock-on’ dimensions. For example, the dimensions of biology, sex-gender, the peer-group, education, employment and culture (Bhaskar, 2008; Irfan and Wilkinson, 2020) and, critically, included an evaluation of the religious Worldviews, religious practices and experiences of prison life.

• • We provide a full technical account of our use of critical realist theory in other publications (Quraishi et al, 2021; Wilkinson et al, 2021).

We have seen in the previous two chapters how the large majority – 76 per cent – of our characteristic sample of Muslim prisoners held a Worldview of Mainstream Islam characterised by Unity-in-Diversity and an aspiration to fulfil Mainstream Islamic practices and values which often fed productively into their commitment to rehabilitation.

In this chapter, we document the experiences of the other 23 per cent of Muslim prisoners who held Islamist – 19 per cent – and Islamist Extremist – 4 per cent – Worldviews and show how these Worldviews were enacted and affected prison life.

The Islamist prisoners in our sample of Muslim prisoners

Nineteen per cent of our characteristic sample of Muslim prisoners held this exaggerated ‘Us’/ Muslim versus ‘Them’/ Infidel/ kafir Islamist Worldview and we have observed in Chapters 3 and 4 how Converts and Intensifiers were significantly prominent in holding this Worldview. In interviews and through observations Islamist Muslim prisoners accentuated various aspects of it.

‘Us’/ Muslim versus ‘Them’/ Infidel/ kafir: separation and exaggerated difference

In order to prop-up the idea of ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’, Islamists often propagate a conspiratorial Worldview that the unbelievers (kuffar) – especially ‘Infidel’ subgroups like ‘world Jewry’ – are out to trick and subjugate Muslims.

In this respect, Abbas (male, 31, British Asian Pakistani, Born-Muslim, HMP Cherwell, Category C Prison) described to us how he had been discouraged from participating in our research by an Islamist prisoner on his wing on the conspiratorial basis that we were working for a “government agency”, although we had explained on multiple occasions that we were completely independent academic researchers:

Islamist justification of crime

The exaggerated ‘Us’/ Muslims versus ‘Them’/ Infidels/ kafir Islamist Worldview also provided some prisoners with grounds for the spurious ‘religious’ justification of crimes, such as sex offences.

Bashir (male, 67, British Asian Pakistani, Born-Muslim, HMP Forth, Category A Prison) said that because “white girls” were content to “hang around with Pakistanis and Muslims” he could not have been guilty of rape because

This notion of the availability and licentiousness of white, kafir women was used by several sex offenders in our sample to justify their crimes.

We have seen in the previous chapter how Engagement with Chaplaincy was a key factor in a positive Attitude to Rehabilitation among Muslim Prisoners.

Our questionnaire results also showed that the factor Prison Environment, which included Treatment by prison officers, was strongly and significantly positively associated with Engagement with Chaplaincy. We interpreted this to mean that if Muslim prisoners felt that prison staff, and especially prison officers, treated them fairly and respectfully and that they were safe in prison, they were then more likely to engage with the prison chaplaincy and more likely to increase their commitment to work and education. In other words, the perception that prison staff were fair and respectful – or not – significantly impacted on the religiosity of Muslim prisoners.

In light of this influence of prison culture and staff interaction on religious outcomes in prison, this chapter presents our findings about how prison officers and prison governors interacted with Muslim prisoners. By highlighting examples of good practice and when things went wrong, we suggest some practical Principles for Engagement with Muslim prisoners, mindful of the fact that we are outsiders to the challenging role of being a prison officer. These Principles for Engagement identify flashpoints and describe three types of possible response from prison staff:

• • a naïve response;

• • a suspicious response;

• • a balanced response that charts an informed and fair Middle Way between naivety and suspicion.

The views of prison staff about Islam and Muslims in prison

The prison officers whom we interviewed universally expressed an aspiration to deal with Muslim prisoners fairly and professionally.

Some prison officers, for example an officer at HMP Cherwell who was a former British serviceman who had served in the Middle East, were informed and sensitive to the religious and cultural practices of Muslims, including the wishes of prisoners to perform their Obligatory Daily Prayers and their desire to express their Muslim-ness by, for example, wearing Islamic-style clothing to the Friday Congregational Prayer.

Prison staff often expressed a mature attitude to religious faith and religious conversion generally. For example, a nurse (female, British White, HMP Cherwell, Category C Prison) described a typically frank discussion with some opportunistic Converts to Islam:

Also, prison staff acknowledged the difficulty that they faced in making judgements about a prisoner’s religious faith.

Islam is heavily inscribed with the ‘presence of the past’ (Bhaskar, 2008; Wilkinson, 2019). In other words, forms of Islam that are dominant today have long-standing historical precedents. Also, a wide variety of criminals of different types, both Muslim and non-Muslim, abuse Islam’s past to justify their contemporary attitudes and illegitimate activities. Therefore, so that the reader can place Islam and Muslims in prison fairly in historical context, we begin by telling Islam’s story in brief, including showing why Muslims come to be found in European prisons today.

Muhammad, son of Abdullah, Prophet of God

The Muslim Declaration of Faith (the Shahada) – ‘There is no god but God and Muhammad is the Prophet of God’ – was first heard in the trading oasis of Mecca in the Arabian Peninsula in 610 CE. It was uttered by one Muhammad, the son of Abdullah, a 40-year-old orphaned minor nobleman from the ruling Meccan tribe of Quraysh. The Arab tribe of Quraysh and Muhammad’s own Hashim clan were responsible for the upkeep of the worship that took place in Mecca at an ancient cuboid structure draped in a black cloth, called The Cube (Ka’aba) (see Image 1.1). The Ka’aba was believed to be the site dedicated by the Prophet Abraham to the worship of God (Allah), which had since accrued the worship of myriad religious idols.

The First Revelation

Muhammad was a respected and prosperous merchant known in Mecca as ‘The Trustworthy’ (‘Al-Amin’). However, according to Muslim tradition, he did not feel satisfied by the affairs of this world and for years had gone on an annual retreat away from the city of Mecca to reflect on life’s meaning. The place to which he retreated was a small cave at the back of a mountain overlooking Mecca called Mount Hira (see Images 1.2 and 1.3).

One night in Ramadan 610 CE as Muhammad sat in this small cave, Muslims believe that the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him and said, Muhammad was illiterate and formally uneducated and he replied in astonishment,

Twice more the same command to ‘Read’ was issued. Twice more Muhammad made the same reply until the Archangel Gabriel, holding Muhammad in a fierce embrace, recited:

These were the first phrases of what became the Book of Islam, The Qur’an, meaning ‘The Recitation’.

• • Religious change among Muslims in prison exhibits not only individual depth, emotion and intensity, but also national and international patterns and breadth.

• • This combination of breadth and depth called for a mixed-methods approach:

• • we used quantitative questionnaires to capture significant, broad patterns of belief, attitudes and behaviour across Muslims in different prisons and jurisdictions;

• • we used the qualitative research tools of face-to-face interviews and observations of Islamic Studies classes and Friday Prayer to plumb the depths of the experience of the individual Muslims and to explore the reasons behind the patterns that we had identified through our quantitative questionnaires.

• • We applied our research methods in the following sequence:

  • 1. pilot semi-structured interviews to test our theoretical framework and identify suitable quantitative variables;

  • 2. quantitative attitudinal questionnaires;

  • 3. full semi-structured interviews coupled with

  • 4. observations of Friday Prayer and Islamic Studies classes.

• We conducted:

• • 279 attitudinal questionnaires with prisoners;

• • 158 interviews with prisoners, average length circa 45 minutes;

• • 19 interviews with Muslim prison chaplains, average length circa 60 minutes;

• • 41 interviews with prison officers, average length circa 40 minutes;

• • 15 interviews with prison governors, average length circa 40 minutes.

• In doing so, we looked at Islam in prison through the lenses of multiple methods and the perspectives of multiple types of people living and working in prison.

Our calculation of prisoners’ Worldviews was driven both by the theoretical categories and substantiated by the testimony of prisoners themselves.

First, we conducted 15 pilot interviews to check that our Worldview categories mapped onto Worldviews of Muslim prisoners, which broadly speaking they did.

Then, out of the interviews we constructed variables as part of our Attitudinal Questionnaires to test for and measure the categories. The following statements individually tested attitudes towards key traits associated with the different Worldviews:

• • It is part of Islam to treat Muslims more fairly than non-Muslims. This was a test for a commitment to a Qur’anic belief in basic human equality as a core component of Mainstream Islam.

• • I avoid prisoners who are not Muslim. This was a test for sympathy with Islamist Extremist Doctrines of Loyalty & Disavowal (see Chapter 6).

• • Islam teaches that wisdom can be found in many religions. This was a test for religious pluralism and inclusivity as mandated in The Qur’an.

• • Islam teaches that I must follow the law of this country. This was a test for an Islamic commitment to lawfulness.

• • Islam teaches that the laws of this country should be replaced by Sharia Law. This was a test for Islamism and the desire to replace existing legal structures with Sharia Law.

• • Islam teaches me that human life is sacred. This was a test for commitment to the sanctity of life as a core component of Mainstream Islam. Either to ‘mainly disagree’ or ‘strongly disagree’ with this variable was one indicator of extremism.

From answers to these questions, we combined the scores and calculated the mean response in order to develop a Worldview scale from 1 = Violent Islamist Extremism to 5 = Mainstream Islam.

No variable was used singularly to represent a Worldview, except

• • It is part of Islam to change things that are unfair in society.

This was used as a test for Activist Islam.

The questions contained both negative and positive statements in order to avoid acquiescence bias.