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Tarik Shah, who played with jazz greats in his youth, spent years behind bars after pleading guilty to plotting to teach martial arts to Qaeda fighters. Now he is out and working on a comeback.
May 23, 2025, 11:58 a.m. ET
When Tarik Shah left prison in 2018, he had not played the double bass in 13 years and his fingers were racked with arthritis.
“I never even considered quitting,” said Mr. Shah, 62, who four decades before was a go-to bassist in the New York jazz scene. He rented an instrument and relearned his art, studying with a classical teacher and practicing methodically to protect his fingers.
Making a living as a jazz musician is no easy task. Rebuilding a career after 13 years behind bars on terrorism charges might make it near impossible. Arrested in 2005, Mr. Shah pleaded guilty in 2007 to plotting to teach martial arts to would-be Qaeda fighters.
Prosecutors said he had told undercover F.B.I. agents that life as a musician was his “greatest cover” for jihad, and the evidence against him included recordings of him pledging loyalty to Al Qaeda.
“It was really good investigative work,” said David Raskin, who was co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit at the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan when Mr. Shah pleaded guilty. “It was not only good for the community — it was good for him.”
But Mr. Shah remains unconvinced and unapologetic. He says the federal agents lured him into the crime and that he pleaded guilty only out of hopelessness after spending more than two and a half years in solitary confinement while awaiting trial.
