Gangster today – prison tomorrow
The result of trying to be a gangster = you get sent down! Muslims already form 8% of the prison population. 73,000 recorded prisoners in 2003 means there are now at least 5840 Muslims in prison and it’s rising . Over 65% of these prisoners are young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty.
This huge figure does not include youngsters under the age of 18 who are in custodial care. Over 1000 of the 5840 Muslim inmates have committed crimes relating to drug use or drug pushing. So one in five of British Muslim Prisoners have been convicted for drug related offences) And these are figures of only those that have been caught!
WAKE UP PEOPLE: The world isn’t run by gangsters. The world doesn’t need gangsters. The world doesn’t need ‘ghettos’. So if the area you live in is one of these ‘ghettos’ that rappers rap about then do something positive about it to change the bad things about it.
Gangster rappers
SO take a step back for a minute and think — who’s your favourite rapper or most influential gangster? E.g. 50 Cent — who’s his idol — it’s Tu Pac — who’s his role models — Marvin Gaye, Huey Newton and Malcolm X.
Marvin weren’t a gangster. Huey was a great and courageous hero for Blacks in America and all oppressed people in the world. Malcolm was too and he was also a practising Muslim and a hero of Islam and Muslims worldwide. He encouraged positive work and intellectual development by leading the example himself. Malcolm used to be a gangster and ended up in prison for it. It was in prison where he decided to be different from the rest of the convicts and gangsters by devoting himself to learning about Islam and the meaning of his own life. Who was Malcolm X’s hero/role model — the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) himself, who leads you straight into the love, mercy and reward of Almighty Allah(swt).