Piecework

Now he has embraced Islam. In a vague way, he’d known about Islam for years; you could not grow up in the era of Muhammad Ali and know nothing about it. “But I was avoiding it because people would press it on me. I always avoided what people pressed on me. They wanted me to do the right thing — and Islam, I believe, is the right thing — but all these people wanted me to do the right thing for the wrong reason.”

In prison, through his teacher, Muhammad Siddeeq, Tyson started more slowly, reading on his own about the religion, asking questions. He insists that Siddeeq is not a newer version of Cus D’Amato. “He’s just a good man,” he says, “and a good teacher.” Nor does Tyson sound like a man who is making a convenient choice as a means of surviving in jail. He admits that “there are guys who become Muslims in jail to feel safe — and give it up the day they hit the streets again.” Tyson might do the same. But in repeated conversations, he sounded as if he’d found in Islam another means of filling some of those holes.

“I believe in Islam,” he told me one night. “That’s true. It’s given me a great deal of understanding. And the Koran gives me insight into the world, and the belief of a man who believes that God has given him the right to speak his word, the prophet Muhammad, peace be unto him. I look at Islam from different perspectives, just as I look at everything else. I find it so beautiful because in Islam you have to tolerate every religion, you know what I mean? ‘Cause everyone has different beliefs. Most so-called religious leaders are bullshit. Voltaire knew that, knew organized religion was a scam. Their object is power. They want power.”

Tyson’s skepticism about organized religion includes some of the sects and factions within Islam. He pledges his allegiance to none of them.

“One guy says, ’I believe in Islam, I live out of the Koran.’ Well, I believe in that but other than that, please.…They got a sect here and a sect there. Unbelievable. I just don’t understand that. How can / be a Muslim and you be a Muslim, but we have two different beliefs?”

Tyson thinks of Islam as not simply a religion but a kind of discipline. He says he prays five times a day. The Koran is a daily part of his reading (but obviously not the only reading he does). “And you know, I got a sailor’s mouth,” he laughed. “But I’ve cut down my cursing at least 50 percent.” He clearly needs to believe in something larger than himself, but his choice of Islam is entwined with a revulsion against certain aspects of Christianity.

“If you’re a Christian,” he says, “and somebody’s a Christian longer than you, they can dictate to you about your life. You know, this is what you should do, and if you don’t do this, you’re excommunicated. I just found that bizarre … in conflict with human qualities, you know what I mean? I couldn’t understand why a person couldn’t be a human and have problems and just be dealt with and helped. In Islam there’s nobody who can put you in your place. They can let you know this is wrong, you need help on this. But the only one that can judge you is Allah.”

I asked Tyson how he could reconcile his embrace of Islam with the fact that many of the slave traders were Muslims. The horrors of the Middle Passage often began with men who said they accepted Allah. Tyson answered in a cool way.

“Look, everyone in Arabia was a slave, know what I mean? They had white slaves, black slaves, Arab slaves, Muslim slaves. Everybody there was a slave. But the slave traders were contradicting Islam and the beliefs of Islam. The prophet Muhammad, he wasn’t a slave trader or a slave. As a matter of fact, the Arabs were trying to kill him, to enslave him. People were people. But Europeans took slavery to a totally different level. Brutalized, submissive, abhorrent. But you can’t condemn all the Jews or all the Romans because they crucified Christ, can you?”

Tyson emphasizes one thing: He’s a neophyte in his understanding of Islam and has much to learn.

“Being a Muslim,” Tyson says, “is probably not going to make me an angel in heaven, but it’s going to make me a better person. In Islam we’re not supposed to compete. Muslims only compete for righteousness. I know I’m probably at the back of the line. But I know I’ll be a better person when I get out than I was when I came in.”