By Muhammad Omar

My Story: Greetings to my fellow…

Greetings to my fellow Muslim Brothers and Sisters, I am here today writing this article to discuss my personal experiences with the Criminal Justice System. This article will focus mainly on my experience and the potential solutions, not on any injustices that we Muslims experience on a day-to-day basis. The mission for this article is to reduce crime and criminality; furthermore, it is to lessen its burden on our society.

I will share what caused me to commit the crimes I committed, and how our younger generations can avoid the same mistakes. I am of Somalian descent, born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1993. My family fled the civil war in Somalia, in search of a better life. I am the only son in my family, so I experienced many issues on my own. This led to me spending a lot of my days outside, and that came with a high amount of risk. My father, focused mainly on furthering his education, and my wonderful mother was raising the family, and working full-time as well. My father eventually moved back to Africa in 2004 to help Somalia become a better place. We did not have many things, but it did not matter. Times were still great for us as a family, and for that I am forever grateful. I was a high-energy child; some could even say too high energy. This led to my diagnosis of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder). With that, I received a prescription of a medication named Ritalin to take, daily. I was not a fan of the medication, as it had side effects: I was not eating as much as I used to, it made my mouth dry, and I felt like a zombie. My teacher would inform me to go to the school’s office to ingest the medication and I would do so. However, before getting back to my classroom, I would spit the tablet out in the water-fountain. This caused me to go back to my disruptive, impatient ways. Eventually I completely stopped taking the medication when my family and I moved to Edmonton, Alberta, in 2006. I was not taking school seriously and decided to become the class-clown instead. Punishment was normally the solution for my poor choices. The main issue was that I would not think things through before doing them. I would react very quickly; and the suspensions came along with constant visits to the principal’s office. This pattern followed me all throughout high school. It eventually led to my expulsion in the 10th grade. I also made countless errors in my teenage years. The first one was drinking alcohol. We as Muslims, know to stay away from any substance that alters your state of mind in a negative way. Alcohol and drugs do exactly that.

Before leaving to Africa in 2004, My father told me “You are now the man of the house”. This did not really make sense to me until I became a young adult. After my partying days from 2006 to 2009, drinking and smoking regularly, my poor mother could not handle it anymore. She made the executive decision to send me to Africa to be with my father. My mother had to lie to me and tell me I was only going there for the summer, but that was not the plan. My father told me, as I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya that I would finish my schooling in Africa, before I could return to Canada. I was livid. I felt bamboozled. At that point in my life, the only thing that I cared about was being the life of the party.

I saw a doctor in Nairobi, and he also told me I had ADHD, so I was prescribed medication once again, this time a different brand. While I was taking medication, my grades improved and I experienced less issues. However, I was once again going through the side effects that I did not enjoy. About 6 months later, I returned to Edmonton and enrolled in high school for the 11th grade. I made the decision to stop taking my medication and the exact same problems occurred. By March 2010, the administration expelled me from school, indefinitely. This led me back to old habits, drinking, smoking weed, and doing other drugs. At the end of high school, I did not receive a diploma. Eventually, I started selling cars, and found other full-time jobs, but it always led to the same thing, me losing my job, and having to find another. I was tired of this revolving door so I decided to sell drugs from a living. At first it was a hard gig, then I found consistency in it. Eventually I started selling fentanyl. I thought this was a good way to make money, which it was, but it was also a good way to create jealousy, envy and greed. The money started coming in at rates I had never seen in my life. I am ashamed to even think that I was once a death dealer, but that’s exactly what I was. My morals and ethics took a nose-dive, and with that I was constantly facing countless charges and spending months in jail until I was granted bail. I would have to start over from nothing every single time, but when the Edmonton Police Service found out about these poor choices of mine, they decided to act on it.

This led to multiple raids; and other unusual police activity. I was now what they called “a career criminal”. Towards the end of 2020, I was arrested and charged with; proceeds of crime (illegal cash), drugs and firearm offences. The Edmonton Police Service, brought me and my two co-accused to the holding cells at the Edmonton Police Service’s HQ in downtown Edmonton. By the grace of Allah (SWT), I managed to make bail. In hindsight, making the executive decision to continue to sell drugs while being on cash bail was the worst choice for me; especially because I was more than likely going to jail for the poor choices, I made prior to getting bail. While still on bail, during the afternoon of April 16th 2022, I was a victim of a severe gunshot wound to the forehead. I was shot while driving my vehicle on the freeway. This led to being sent to hospital for an extensive recovery process. In order for the surgeons to conduct the operation they were forced to put me in a medically induced coma. I had no recollection whatsoever as to what happened to me. I was bed-ridden on a stretcher, all by myself, and never got the full story until my mother came to visit me. My friends also gave me a brief run-down of what happened, as far as the shooting and what I was doing before that. Now I needed to learn how to walk and function like I used to; this was a super long recovery, and by the grace of Allah (SWT) I managed to survive and slowly have all of my motor/cognitive skills return. My dear mother, had a few of my aunts and my cousin come visit me at the hospital and read Qur’an over my body. My sweet mother never left my side throughout my whole hospital stay; her employer even allowed her to work from home throughout my recovery. After staying at the U of A hospital, I was then transferred to the Glenrose Rehabilitation Clinic for more rehab. I did not like being there and have always struggled with patience. By the 27th of May, I forced them to let me leave, which they did.

I then went to my mother’s house, where I was living for my recovery and to get my life back on track. However, a month or so later I went back to my old ways of selling narcotics. It was almost like I was the one addicted, which I believe I was. I was addicted to the easy money I was making, money I thought I could never make legitimately. At this point, I knew I was going to jail so I was meeting anyone that had money, whether it was $100 or $1000. If you had money, I was coming to see you. My morals and ethics took a nose dive for the worst. I did not care how you got the money, as long as you had it. While I was trying to collect as much money as I could before going to prison, the police on the other hand, had their own digging around to do. They were aware that I was still on bail from my charges stemming from 2020, and had access to my car, clothing and phones. They used their technology to get into my phones. Their goal was to track down whoever shot me. As they extrapolated my mobile electronical data, they found out I was still trafficking narcotics. They got multiple warrants; one was to ping the location on my cellphone, another was to GPS track my car, and the third was to search my residence. As they were conducting surveillance on me, they realized I was still living an illegal life. Early April 2024, they arrested me and charged me once again, with proceeds of crime and drug offences, as well as breach of probation.

Now I am serving a total of 7 years in a federal institution due to my terrible choices, and actions. I am doing the time, for my many crimes. I write all this to say, do not sell or do anything illegal, whether it’s to fit in, look cool, or to put money on the table. There’s more to life than petty drug dealing or anything else that’s not halal. On top of ruining people’s lives, you are not a tax paying citizen, the friends you once had are not going to talk to you anymore, and significant others won’t want to be with you because of the risky illegal lifestyle. Luckily for me, I see all of this in retrospect due to the time I’ve spent in my cell, reflecting on how my life played out.

At the same time, it’s never over, so now I plan to help change as many lives as I can, while I can. There are always two side to a coin, so time to flip it the right way! Once I gain my freedom, I will be speaking to the younger Muslim generation and explaining to them that being a drug dealer or doing anything else illegal is not the right way to live life. We should be extremely grateful to be Canadian; the opportunities for us to make halal money are endless, and we shouldn’t let that go to waste. JazakAllah to all of my fellow Brothers and Sisters, let’s make this happen the Halal Way!

Muhammad Omar (pseudo name)