Muhammad Ali’s model of Islam

While I was writing this, thousands gathered in Louisville, Kentucky paying their last respects to Muhammad Ali, one of the four most influential American Muslims of contemporary and present-day America. The first obviously is the man referred to as the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, founder of the Nation of Islam whose rather convoluted vision of the faith attracted the persecuted black race. Next in rank and influence was the late Malcolm X, later gunned down after broadening his knowledge of his new faith and falling out of line and favour with Mr. Mohammed. In this league is Louis Farrakhan, NOI’s last surviving legend and perhaps the most-influential black person in America today.
Muhammad Ali is in this league. While the others are historically influential, it was Ali who became the first influential poster boy of NOI’s brand of Islam in America. As an accomplished boxer, his conscientious objection to America’s provocative wars in the 60s and 70s stood him out among the others.
Not many Muslims share the old reverse rhetoric of the old NOI and it would seem that that brand has reformed itself, attracting several converts. Apart from the initial internal politics that divided it and stunted its growth and influence, NOI’s brand of Islam continues to draw crowd, mostly thanks to Farrakhan. People of no faith or other faith listen to his sermon on television and sometimes drop by to hear him speak truth to power. This is an enviable and practical way of telling the world that Islam truly means – peace.
It is therefore understandable why Muhammad Ali could not be buried before sunset, as some have argued. However, it has not stopped some from questioning his faith and his lifestyle, especially his many amorous dalliances leading to his liaison with his last surviving wife. Some of Ali’s critics say he is not ‘a real Muslim’ or that ‘he did not practice the faith’. What they mean, of course is that he is not an outward beaded bogey who fires hatred and sponsors terror to propagate his faith. Obviously, if there is a reward for proselytizing in heaven, Ali would get more than the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks on his country who hoped to make a sad statement rather than live by example.
Ali’s open funeral presents a different Islam to the one that the Taliban propagates in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His non-violent agitation and campaigns are likely to attract pacifists than the crude beheadings and suicide bombings of Daesh. If Parkinsons had not wracked him for the later part of his life, people would have listened more to him, reasoned more with his viewpoints and quoted him more than. Sure Ali’s brand of Islam lends itself to understanding than a million Osama bin Ladin, Al-Baghdadi or Abubakar Shekau.
At the home front, Ali’s brand of Islam would convert more than the crudeness exhibited by the zealots who murdered 74-year Bridget Agbahime in cold blood in Kano. It would lend itself to understanding than the brand that led the Afghan woman to kill her own daughter in the name of honour. Ali’s model of Islam talked truth to power, highlighted the inequalities between the oppressor and the oppressed and touched hearts and minds without drawing blood. It is a model of Islam that is needed in a world that is ravaged by extremism of the most barbaric and bizarre kind, now threatening global peace everywhere from Kentucky to Kano, Istanbul to Gaza.
Ali deserves a heroic burial that highlights his peaceful viewpoint and his lifeless corpse is perhaps the last rallying point for a world wondering what happened to the Islam of peace, love and inclusion. His life, his logic and rhetoric touched so many who in spite of not meeting him feel a personal connection with him. In a world where extremism is giving Islam a bad rap, this death and the funeral it attracted should be a welcome beacon of hope for those seeking explanation for what vain men have made the religion of the Prophet (SAW). It may be that the eulogies, the funeral orations and the sermons distinguishing his life may become a reference point that people could be persuaded but not on point of a drawn dagger or the pain of lapidation or beheading.
So, while the zealots debate his place in Jannah, their brand of Islam was walking the streets of Kaduna hoping to violently impose fasting on those who do not share their faith. These zealots from hell and their social media supporters should not be allowed to turn Kaduna or anywhere else in any corner of the globe into a river of blood. As argued on this forum, a deity is belittled when it needs the hands of men to carry out its retribution. The world would rather have one conscientious Muhammad Ali than a million terrorists. Absolutely, the future of Islam or any other religion lies in Ali’s style than those of suicide bombers. It is not what you preach that converts as much as the life you live, that’s the lesson of Ali’s brand of Islam.