Page:1965 FBI monograph on Nation of Islam.djvu/110

 because, according to Elijah's rules, there should not be enough light to distinguish between a black thread and a white thread.

In a study of 38 Muslims who were first permitted to hold religious services in District of Columbia penal institutions, authorities noted that each of the Muslim inmates violated prison rules sufficiently to warrant disciplinary action during his period of incarceration, whereas considerably less than half of an average group of prisoners ever committed violations that came to the attention of prison authorities. At the time of admission of these 38 inmates, 16 indicated Protestant religious preference; 10, Roman Catholic; nine, Muslim; while three indicated no religious preference. Thus, 75 per cent of these NOI members were recruited and trained during their confinement in jail.

While the legal proceedings concerning Muslim prisoners in District of Columbia penal institutions have not been ruled upon by the United States Supreme Court, that Court has been involved in a suit brought by a prisoner at the Illinois State Penitentiary who charged that he had been denied his constitutional right to practice his religion. The prisoner, sentenced in 1953 to two consecutive 100-year terms for two Chicago holdup murders, brought suit in July, 1962, in the Federal district court in Chicago alleging that prison officials prohibited him from buying and reading the Koran and Arabic language books and from seeing other inmates of his faith. Prison officials claimed that the prisoner was a troublemaker, who was isolated for several years for disciplinary purposes.