Salaam aleikum all
Muhammad Ali is called the greatest of all time not because of his achievements as an athlete (as great as they were). Any boxing fan will tell you: Sugar Ray Robinson is the consensus greatest pound for pound fighter. Even among his contemporaries, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were very very close in terms of boxing ability. The reason why Ali is so beloved is because of his principled stance on political and social issues; namely his opposition to the Vietnam war.
But I think sometimes we even overlook how much his influence really was. We understand him in terms of the circumstances of the black man in America under Jim Crow, or perhaps even in terms of his popularity in African countries and the Islamic world.
And those are important and each has its own element. But really his impact is so much greater. He really impacted the entire world. One example of this which I read recently (although it's from a couple years ago) is can be found in the words of Oleksandr Usyk. If you don't watch boxing: Usyk is the former undisputed cruiserweight world champion and has recently moved up to heavyweight. As you may tell by his name, he's Ukrainian.
Usyk has said that he prefers that people pray for him than to chant drunken slogans and make noises, and in doing so he quoted none other than Muhammad Ali Clay:
"This is the main thing when people pray for you. Not when they are thumping for you and yelling some incomprehensible slogans or swearing. But when they pray for you. This is the power. We need to develop spiritually. ...
“Once upon a time, Mohammed Ali was told: 'You are already an old, decrepit person. You have nothing but faith. ' He replied: 'Fool, I do not need anything else.' The faith leads me forward. It helps when I run out of physical strength. Then I hold the cross in my hand, read the Lord's prayer and go to the end. It is a fire that constantly heats me up when I'm cold, when it's hard for me, when I do not see children for a long time."
Usyk didn't live under Jim Crow, nor did he live during the Vietnam war, nor is he from an African country, nor is he Muslim for that matter. But after all, Muhammad Ali Clay's principled political stance was rooted in his strong faith. And this strong faith is something which millions of people admired, including Usyk.
Every time I learn something about this man I become more in awe. He was not formally educated. He was "just an athlete." He embraced Islam but it's not like he did so through academic means. It was really his pure intentions and his moral disposition that helped him tread this path. But how many people can we say influenced the world (for good) more than he did? It's amazing. And it's something we need to learn from. Reading books and expanding on our knowledge is great but strong faith and pure intentions will take us so far.
Sorry for the rant. Thought you all may find this interesting.
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