UNITED STATES — Tajuddin Ashaheed, a Muslim man who sued over being ordered to shave his beard during prison intake, has reached a $245,000 settlement with the Colorado Department of Corrections, according to court records cited in local reporting. (Source – Corrections1/The Denver Post, Feb. 5, 2026)

The case stems from an intake incident in July 2016, when Ashaheed reported to the Denver Reception and Diagnostic Center to serve a short sentence for a parole violation, and said a corrections sergeant required him to shave despite his stated religious objection. (Source – Corrections1/The Denver Post, Feb. 5, 2026; Prison Legal News, Nov. 1, 2021)

According to the lawsuit and later court summaries, the sergeant—identified in court reporting as Thomas E. Currington—allegedly told Ashaheed he would face discipline and solitary confinement if he refused, prompting him to comply under threat. (Source – Corrections1/The Denver Post, Feb. 5, 2026; Prison Legal News, Nov. 1, 2021; Courthouse News Service, May 14, 2021)

The settlement agreement was reached in September and finalized in mid-January, according to the same reporting; the department did not immediately provide a public response when contacted by journalists. (Source – Corrections1/The Denver Post, Feb. 5, 2026)

What the lawsuit signaled for Muslim religious rights in U.S. prisons

Ashaheed’s legal claims drew scrutiny because, by multiple accounts, the intake facility’s policy already allowed an exemption for inmates who wear a beard as a tenet of religion—raising the question of whether the order to shave was a policy violation, discrimination, or an error. (Source – Prison Legal News, Nov. 1, 2021; MacArthur Justice Center, accessed Feb. 7, 2026)

In 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit revived the case after a lower court dismissed it on qualified-immunity grounds, with reporting and case summaries describing the appeals court as viewing the allegations as sufficient to proceed on constitutional claims at that stage. (Source – Prison Legal News, Nov. 1, 2021; Bloomberg Law, Aug. 10, 2021)

More broadly, the episode sits in a national legal landscape where the Supreme Court of the United States has unanimously held that prison systems must meet strict standards before substantially burdening sincere religious exercise—particularly under federal religious-liberty protections such as RLUIPA—rejecting generalized security claims when less restrictive alternatives are available. (Source – U.S. Department of Justice, Jan. 20, 2015; Oyez, Jan. 20, 2015)

For Muslim communities, cases like this often resonate because they combine a concrete religious practice with the realities of incarceration: power imbalances during intake, the use of discipline threats, and the difficulty of vindicating rights from inside institutions. (Source – Corrections1/The Denver Post, Feb. 5, 2026; Prison Legal News, Nov. 1, 2021)

Islamic and Ethical Context

In Islamic tradition, the beard is widely understood by many Muslims as part of religious identity and personal dignity, and coercing someone to violate a sincerely held practice—especially under threat of punitive isolation—raises clear ethical concerns about harm, humiliation, and unequal treatment.

The Quran’s emphasis on justice and the prohibition of oppression provides a moral lens for why consistent, non-discriminatory accommodation matters in state institutions, while Hadith Books and The Seerah reflect how early Muslims navigated conscience, identity, and dignity under pressure—principles that remain relevant when evaluating whether systems treat minority faiths fairly and humanely today.