[1] Black Nationalist Muslim organizations, such as The Nation of Islam and Moorish Science Temple of America, formally began prison outreach efforts in 1942.
[3] New research brought to light an African immigrant inmate at San Quentin State Prison named Lucius Lehman, who was proclaiming himself to be a Muslim religious leader while calling for Black nationalism during his incarceration from 1910–1924.
[5] These inmates reached out to a local New York Muslim community called Darul Islam for assistance, which eventually led to an active Muslim-based prison ministry and educational program forming in the state.
[5] Muslim prison outreach efforts during this era sought to instill values of honesty, hard work, individual responsibility, and mechanisms for dealing with rehabilitation as well as coping with drug and alcohol abuse.
[2] Despite the growth of conversions to Islam within prisons, states such as California,[2] New York[5] and Texas[7] still had not yet recognized or accommodated the religious activity of Muslim inmates by the start of the 1960s.
As the number of incarcerated Muslims began to reach a critical mass, prisoners petitioned courts to advance their religious rights.
[2] "Guys are able to utilize the Islamic teachings to deal with some of their personal issues at a higher level, such as post-traumatic stress...emotions or with some of the traumas they have from their childhood."
[15] Presently, several Muslim-based organizations such as Link Outside[18] and Tayba Foundation[19] have emerged that specifically focus on providing both in-prison and reentry services.
[25] The article states that in a 2004 report, the Justice Department faulted the prison system for failing to protect against "infiltration by religious extremists."