how religious is jahar now?
The short answer is that nobody can know for sure what is truly inside his heart except Allah. However as Muslims we are taught to look at a person's outward actions to understand their character. While speculating that he has become "good Muslim" because he is in a maximum security prison where he cannot easily commit outward sins, his actual behavior tells a more complicated story.
When we look at his actions through an Islamic lens, specifically regarding the money he has kept in prison, it raises some serious red flags.
To understand why his behavior is confusing, you’d first have to look at how forgiveness works in Islam. Sins are generally split into two categories:
Sins against Allah (Huquq Allah): This includes missing prayers or neglecting fasts. If you sincerely feel remorse, ask Allah for forgiveness, and promise not to do it again, Allah is the Most Merciful and can erase those sins completely.
Sins against people (Huquq al-Ibad): This includes murder, physical harm, theft, and injustice. For these sins, Allah does not automatically forgive the perpetrator until the victims themselves are compensated or choose to forgive them.
This is why financial injustice and failing to return the rights of others is so dangerous. It can actually block a person's repentance from being accepted. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) warned us strictly about this in a Hadith: "The soul of the believer is held hostage by his debt until it is paid off." (Sunan al-Tirmidhi)
Another Hadith mentions that a person who oppresses others will come on the Day of Judgment with mountains of prayers and fasting, but because they harmed, slandered, or stole from others, their good deeds will be taken away and handed over to their victims until they are left bankrupt.
In shariah, this is why we have concepts like Diya (blood money). If someone commits a crime, they are legally and religiously obligated to do everything in their power to financially compensate the victims or their surviving families.
Even though he is imprisoned in America under a non-Muslim legal framework, a Muslim who truly understands Islam and fears the Day of Judgment would willingly use any money they get to pay back their victims. They would want to clear their debts to mankind before they meet Allah.
However federal court records show that he has consistently resisted doing this. At his sentencing, a federal judge ordered him to pay $101,126,627 in criminal restitution to the survivors and the families of those killed.
Over the years he received more than $21,000 in his inmate trust account from private donors and a legal defense organization. Instead of volunteering even a single dollar of this to his victims, he spent it on items for himself in the prison canteen and sent about $2,000 to his siblings as "gifts" and "support."
In June 2021, he automatically received a $1,400 COVID-19 stimulus check from the U.S. government. Again instead of offering it to the people he harmed he kept the cash sitting in his account.
In January 2022, federal prosecutors had to physically step in and sue to strip him of those funds. A U.S. District Court judge had to rule against him forcing the Bureau of Prisons to seize the stimulus check and his remaining inmate funds so they could be redirected to the victims.
When you look at the math only a tiny fraction roughly $2,200 of that multi million dollar judgment has ever been recovered. And most importantly it wasn't given out of personal charity or Islamic remorse. It was forcefully extracted through mandatory court orders.
In conclusion if he spent his free time in prison truly studying Islam correctly, he would know that hiding behind prison walls while hoarding donor money away from the hundreds of people he maimed, traumatized, and bereaved is a major failure in Islam. True Tawbah requires a person to humble themselves and clear their debts to humanity.
Hope this answers your question.
-We lose nothing by praying for guidance. May Allah keep his heart firm upon the truth and accept his repentance, steady his heart, and clear his mind of all misguided or radical thoughts. Ameen.