Muhammad Ali - Some Tributes

Abu Juwairiya

Junior Member
As Muslims we need to be careful not to overpraise or even denigrate anyone harshly just because we love or despise them. It is also wrong to exaggerate, blow up or magnify a man or woman for the same reason. In Islam only Allah is the greatest; there is no room for another.

In the same way Muslims neither need nor want anyone to show Islam is dignified, honourable and exalted; Allah has done that for us. It is not important to try and equate Islam as being compatible with anything or anyone else. Islam existed before Western Civilisation and will remain even when the latter may not.

We should be careful at not affixing the privileged identity given to us by the Prophet as 'Muslims' with other national designations. Our first loyalty is to Islam and we measure all other identities with compatibility to Allah and His Messenger. Our duty is to please Allah and His Messenger and not anyone or anything else.

Muhammad Ali was many things both in and out of the ring, but he was also not the greatest human being of the modern era. Neither was he the best Muslim of the twentieth century or made the greatest contributions to the Ummah. He should be recognised for his achievements and not for anything he didn't do or was not responsible for.

He was a champion, a leader, a source of inspiration, a charismatic and popular figure worldwide; Muslims and Non Muslims and even among and within both differences exist on his importance, relevance and significance. Each community who admires and loves the man known to millions only as 'Ali' will always cherish and remember him the way they interpret his life and career.
 

Abu Juwairiya

Junior Member
Perhaps the greatest singular achievement of Muhammad Ali (at least for me) was not performed in the ring, but outside of it-he embraced Islam.

As a teenager in 1959 he had become interested in the Nation of Islam, attended their rallies, listened attentively to their speeches and spoken publicly with their speakers. He later joined the movement in 1964 as an official member, was awarded to Minister and member of the Fruit of Islam [guards] and remained so until 1975.

His departure from the Nation of Islam was not due to foresight, philosophical or doctrinal differences, but allegiance alone; Warith Deen Mohammad, the successor to Elijah Muhammad, steered the movement away from its racist principles and adopted a direction of convergence with Islam itself. Muhammad Ali along with tens of thousands of members accepted his call and renounced their former beliefs.

While Warith Deen Mohammad did not completely break off from the Nation of Islam's creed and ideas, he did enough to warrant an almost overnight collapse of the forty year old movement. Muhammad Ali may or may not have privately retained some of Warith Deen's beliefs to the end, but what is true is that he had a higher and better understanding of Islam than he had when he first encountered the word 'Islam' itself at the age of eighteen over sixty years ago.
 

a_stranger

Junior Member
Our Lord! You have not created (all) this without purpose, glory to You! (Exalted be You above all that they associate with You as partners). Give us salvation from the torment of the Fire.

192. "Our Lord! Verily, whom You admit to the Fire, indeed, You have disgraced him, and never will the Zalimun (polytheists and wrong-doers) find any helpers.

193. "Our Lord! Verily, we have heard the call of one (Muhammad
saws.gif
) calling to Faith: 'Believe in your Lord,' and we have believed. Our Lord! Forgive us our sins and remit from us our evil deeds, and make us die in the state of righteousness along with Al-Abrar (those who are obedient to Allah and follow strictly His Orders).

194. "Our Lord! Grant us what You promised unto us through Your Messengers and disgrace us not on the Day of Resurrection, for You never break (Your) Promise."

Al Imran
 

Abu Juwairiya

Junior Member
It is not a person that makes Islam great, but Islam that makes someone great. We should not think that such and such has made Islam more appealing, more modern, easier to understand but that Allah has guided certain people to it through a particular way.

Islam is neither medieval nor old fashioned and no matter how many so called great people arise to make Islam look good, it is Allah we should be praising and be thankful for. After all, no Muslim no matter how good or pious they are can take to you to Paradise, only Allah will.
 

Abu Juwairiya

Junior Member
If anyone has become famous, renowned for one thing or another, accomplished great things. We should first think Allah has awarded them those things and they themselves should be grateful. All good comes from Allah and whatever comes from Him is both a trial as well as a good thing.

A trial to see how much we appreciate it and how thankful we are and a good thing since it is something we can use to become better Muslims both in this world and the hereafter.

It is a bad thing if we use the gifts we receive for other than the worship and remembrance of Allah and for anything that will not make us closer to Allah in the long term.
 

Abu Juwairiya

Junior Member
Cassius Clay, the white slaveowner of Muhammad Ali's family and whom he was named after, had a promising career himself.

"Two of his slaves, named Jonathan and Sallie, who took the name Clay, were the great-grandparents of the man who would become the heavyweight champion of the world.

The [white] emancipationist Cassius Clay had set up an anti-slavery newspaper in Louisville and endured the
horror of his son being killed by an angry mob. He withstood attempts on his own life. Two of his
daughters were persistent champions of women's rights, and in 1855 he provided land and symbolic
support for Berea College, which was specifically designed for the purpose of providing both white and
black students with a chance to be educated. Its motto is still ‘God Has Made Of One Blood All Peoples
Of The Earth’.

Cassius Clay fought and survived being captured in the Mexican War of the 1840s, was Abraham Lincoln's ambassador to Moscow and was involved in the negotiations to bring Alaska into the United States of America....

At the age of ninety-three, he killed two burglars, shooting one and knifing the other. He died in his bed of old age."

(Source: Ali and Liston, the boy who would be king and the ugly bear by Bob Mee, P 16, 2011)
 
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