Philly Muslim Freedom Fund meets the unique needs of incarcerated Muslims — and it is one of the only such bail funds in the nation

Abdul Maalik was in the middle of helping a friend with a flat tire when the cop lights started flashing.

Maalik thought the officers were coming to help him with the flat. But when they walked up to the car he was working on, they started asking him questions. Maalik informed them that he was formerly incarcerated and on parole. The officers put him in their cruiser and searched the car. When they found a firearm, they arrested Maalik on the spot and transported him to jail, where he was held without bail.

According to Maalik, the firearm wasn’t his. It had only been a few years since he finished serving a 15-year sentence for armed robbery that wasted away his 20s and 30s, he said. He had a full-time job, a fiancée, and a daughter, and he had found a new faith in Islam. He was on the right path, he said, and he needed a lawyer to prove his innocence.

“I just wanted to show them that this was really a police violating a citizen type of a situation,” Maalik added.

That’s when a friend told Maalik about the Philly Muslim Freedom Fund (PMFF). Founded in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, PMFF raises funds to support Muslims who are incarcerated, which can be used for legal fees, bail and bond, or reentry. After the recent shuttering of the Philadelphia Bail Fund, PMFF is one of few community bail funds left in the city, and one of a handful of Muslim bail funds in the country.

“There were at least two primary bail funds here in Philadelphia doing the work, bringing people home, moving a lot of money,” said Imrul Mazid, one of the cofounders of PMFF. “But we needed a bail fund that caters specifically to the unique needs of Muslims in our communities.”

“Mass incarceration impacts a lot of marginalized communities, especially Muslims,” said Abbas Naqvi, the other cofounder of PMFF. “And Philadelphia is a very Muslim-centric city.”

The Muslim population is overrepresented in Pennsylvania jails. While Muslims make up about 1% of the state’s population, they constituted roughly 20% of the state’s incarcerated population in 2017, according to the D.C.-based organization Muslim Advocates. And because Black people are more likely to be stopped by officers, Muslims in Philadelphia — which has one of the largest Black Muslim populations in the country — are at risk of being racially profiled.

“If my figurative family is in bondage and chains, I’m not free until that person is free.”

Those were the numbers that were glaring to Naqvi and Mazid, and why they saw a clear need for a Muslim-centric bail fund. Abolitionism is a core value of Islam to the duo, and they went on to structure PMFF around the Islamic values of compassion, mercy, and justice.

In its first year, PMFF raised over $15,000 through fundraisers that sold art prints, T-shirts, and posters in collaboration with Muslim artists. Since its soft launch in spring of 2021, PMFF has contributed toward bail for Muslims in immigration detention, bail and care packages for incarcerated Black mothers, stipends for solitary confinement survivors, and legal fees and reentry costs for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people. And after learning that Qurans were three times more expensive than Bibles in Pennsylvania jails’ commissaries, PMFF launched a Quran distribution program to donate 50 Qurans to incarcerated Muslims.

“We approach it not through charity… but from a place of solidarity,” Mazid said. “If my figurative family is in bondage and chains, I’m not free until that person is free.”

All of the charges against Maalik were dropped.

Susan Lin, his lawyer, who he paid for through PMFF funds, reviewed officer body cam footage and found that the police had illegally searched the car Maalik was in with no warrant. Maalik was released in June 2021 — roughly seven months after his arrest.

But he came home to unpaid rent and utilities bills, and after months of unemployment, Maalik had to find a way to pay off his expenses. Once again, PMFF stepped in to make sure Maalik would stay on his feet. All-in-all, Maalik received $3,300 from PMFF for his legal fees and living expenses.

“If a person can come home from being in that situation, and he or she changed their life around, it gives other people hope that they can make it,” Maalik said. “Communities can be built up to a better situation.”

“Communities can be built up to a better situation.”

Now, Maalik works with PMFF to connect reentering citizens with the company he works for, the Philadelphia-based solar installation company, Solar States, which hires formerly incarcerated people.

What’s important about PMFF, he stresses, isn’t just that they provide financial assistance to people in need — it’s that they build relationships with community members and believe in them. While access to PMFF’s funds is not contingent on someone’s innocence, showing that you believe in someone and are willing to support them, Maalik said, is what can make someone rethink how they’re living their life.

“As long as people are willing to say, ‘I will support you in any way I can if you just get your mind right,’” Maalik said. “I believe that PMFF, they believe that you have people out here that can make a difference if we can just support and be there for each other.”