By Lawrence Kulak
This past week, we lost a giant of a man, who, aside from the shows he put on in the ring, demonstrated to the world the power of one man and his convictions. In 1964, soon after he won the heavyweight crown, 23-year-old Cassius Clay was told that he had to go to Vietnam to fight in a war that he did not consider his own. Despite his fearsome pugilistic abilities in the ring, the soon-to-be Muhammad Ali openly announced to the world his preference for jail than to be forced to kill people in a far-off land that had never done anything to harm him or his family. The fact that he was able to cling to these convictions—even after the army would offer him special treatment and the ability to perform boxing exhibitions—and insist on being carted off to jail is nothing less than astonishing coming from such a young man from an underprivileged background who was currently enjoying a rise to fame.
Soon after getting out of jail, the former Clay embraced the peaceful teaching of Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. During Ali’s entire tenure as a Muslim, he maintained a low-key and humble existence and only infrequently spoke out or became involved in political causes. If ever there was somebody of the Muslim faith who chose to impact people by living an exemplary life over overt activism it was Ali. Muhammad Ali extolled the peaceful teachings of the Koran to such an extent that as an amateur magician he always insisted on giving away the secret to his magic tricks because of the Koran’s prohibition against fooling people. This demeanor that he later adopted throughout his life as a Muslim was in strong contrast to the outspoken and brazen showmanship he exhibited as a boxer. Muhammad Ali would come to teach us all the distinction between “real life” and those things that were merely ornamental. After losing his heavyweight crown to Leon Spinks, Ali famous remarked that it was not like losing one’s job or part of, G-d forbid, one’s family.
The ebullient love which Muhammad Ali had for the world was made evident by the fact that even under the physical burden of debilitating illness, he insisted on spending hours each day answering every bit of his fan mail personally with an authentic signature. He also reportedly once denounced Louis Farrakhan, who referred to Judaism as a “gutter religion,” claiming that Farrakhan did not speak for all Muslims. Ali had many Jewish friends, including his loyal trainer and corner man Drew Bundini Brown, a black man who had converted to Judaism, and would maintain his loyalty to all of them. Furthermore, when one of Ali’s grandsons embraced Judaism and was bar mitzvah in the oldest Ashkenazi Synagogue in Philadelphia, Ali was present, showing his utmost respect and carefully inspecting the teachings of the Holy Torah. Despite being true to his own religion, it can never be said that Muhammad Ali was not a true friend of the Jews.
The tragedy of Muhammad Ali’s life, if it was tragic at all, had to have been that he loved people so much that he did not know when it was time to stop entertaining them. In 1980, despite having already shown signs of neurological impairment, the Nevada Boxing Commission nevertheless permitted him to fight for the heavyweight championship after a two-year layoff and at the age of 38. The beating he subsequently was forced to take at the hands of then-heavyweight champion Larry Holmes may have been a significant factor in accelerating some form of brain syndrome from which Ali was already suffering. In that fight, Ali was hardly able to throw any punches even in self-defense, but his overshadowing physical presence in the ring and the fearlessness he showed toward what would be his final opponent in the ring was but a mere indication of what he could have done to this man even at 38 had he been healthy.
I tip my hat to the greatest boxer of all time, and a noble warrior and crusader for peace and the love of all mankind.