User:Soham321/Ali

Friends and Teachers

Friendship with Malcolm X

Ali and Malcolm X first met in a luncheonette in Detroit. After lunch they went to hear a lecture by Elijah Muhammad. Ali soon started attending Malcolm X's rallies regularly, and the two became friends.

In an interview with George Plimpton, given shortly before the first Ali-Liston bout, Malcolm X shared his analysis of Ali's personality:

I am interested in [Ali] as a human being. Not many people know the quality of the mind he's got in there. He fools them. One forgets that though a clown never imitates a wise man, the wise man can imitate the clown. He is sensitive, very humble, yet shrewd--with as much untapped mental energy as he has physical power. He should be a diplomat. He has that instinct of seeing a tricky situation shaping up--my own presence in Miami, for example--and resolving how to sidestep it. He knows how to handle people, to get them functioning. He gains strength from being around people.

Three days before the first Ali-Liston bout, the fight promoter Bill MacDonald contemplated cancelling the event on hearing reports that Ali had converted to the Nation of Islam. As MacDonald explained to Ali's publicist Harold Conrad:

You don't realize that Miami is the Deep South and is just as segregated as any town in Mississippi. How can I promote a fight down here with a guy who thinks we're white devils?...It's that Malcolm X. He's responsible for all this trouble and he's practically running the kid's fight camp.

Conrad and MacDonald then reached an agreement: Malcolm X would be told to leave Miami, with the understanding that he could return on the night of the fight, and the match would continue. Malcolm immediately agreed to go out of town on being appraised of the situation, and as per mutual agreement, he returned on the night of the fight where he was given a seat near Ali's corner.

After Ali's victory in his first fight with Liston, the subsequent "victory party" was held in Malcolm X's motel room. Subsequently, Ali and Malcolm went to New York together and visited the United Nations where they met several African delegates. Ali went on to rent a suite in Hotel Theresa in Harlem where Malcolm had an office.

According to Ferdie Pacheco:

Malcolm X and Ali were like very close brothers. It was almost like they were in love with each other. Malcolm thought Ali was the greatest guy he'd ever met and Ali thought this was the smartest black man on the face of the earth, because everything he said made sense. Malcolm X was bright as hell, convincing, charismatic in the way that great leaders and martyrs are. It certainly rubbed off on Ali.

Indoctrination by Malcolm X

Malcolm X played a critical role in the evolution of Ali's religious views by steering him towards the Nation of Islam. According to Malcolm, Ali was receptive to his advise, and would solicit it. From a boxing perspective, Malcolm may have contributed to enhancing the probability of Liston losing the first Ali-Liston fight by instilling into Ali the idea that he was invincible, and that it was destined that he would win the bout. At the weigh-in before the first Ali-Liston fight, Ali had shouted: "It is prophesied that I should win! I cannot be beaten!" According to Dennis and Atyeo:

Malcolm X firmly implanted in Ali's mind the belief that he was invincible which must have been of enormous psychological advantage to a young fighter facing the awesome Sonny Liston. Ali became a fanatic and fanaticism greatly increased his resolve. By the time he learned that he was not invincible, Ali had matured enough to take the lesson in his stride. Conversely, the thought of having to face a dreaded "Black Muslim" must have been at the very least a slightly daunting proposition for many of Ali's opponents, especially the ones he christened "Uncle Toms."

Ali and Elijah Muhammad

Prior to the first Ali-Liston fight, Elijah Muhammad had kept his distance from Ali thinking he would lose to Liston, and any affiliation of the Nation of Islam with Ali would only result in embarrassment to the organization. However, soon after he won the first Ali-Liston bout, Ali was offered full membership in the Nation which he accepted. He was publicly welcomed into the organization by Elijah Muhammad, and named "Cassius X", which was his "waiting name", and eventually "Muhammad Ali."Ali's biographer Remnick noted that giving a "completed" Islamic name to Ali was unusual; most members of the Nation used X as their last name. Elijah Muhammad typically gave "completed" Islamic holy names, as a mark of honor, only to to longstanding members of the Nation who had been with the organization for decades.According to Remnick, Elijah viewed Ali as a cash cow, a star recruiter, and also as an asset in his feud with Malcolm X which had begun by now.

Although Ali went on to disagree with Elijah's views on ontology and racial separatism, he commended Elijah in his 1991 biography for instilling self-confidence in many black people. According to Ali:

Elijah Muhammad was trying to lift us up and get our people out of the gutter. He made people dress properly, so they weren't on the street looking like prostitutes and pimps. He taught good eating habits, and was against alcohol and drugs. I think he was wrong when he talked about white devils, but part of what he did was make people feel good to be black.

In an interview for Ali's 1998 biography by Remnick, Ferdie Pacheco opined that Ali had developed a fixation for Elijah Muhammad ever since meeting him. According to Pacheco, Elijah conquered Ali's mind and was "about the only one [Ali] felt he really had to listen to."

When Elijah Muhammad died, in 1975, he bequeathed a financial empire estimated at around $70 million, and speculated to be much more. Seven thousand mourners attended Elijah's funeral; these included representatives of President Ford and Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley. Elijah's well attended funeral sent a signal that from a destitute and fringe religion, the Nation of Islam had become more mainstream. Much of the credit for this development has been given to Ali who had gone on to become the Nation's star publicist.

The ontological teachings of Elijah Muhammad

In an interview with George Plimpton, given shortly before his rematch with Liston, Ali expounded on the ontological teachings of Elijah Muhammad and Elijah's instructor Wallace Fard Muhammad. According to these teachings, which Ali said he believed in, there exists a space platform operated by "men who never smile" which orbits the earth at the speed of 18,000 miles per hour. The platform contains bombs which would be dropped at Armageddon which would begin after a threshold in the earth's collective guilt had been breached. Ali claimed he had seen the platform on several occasions. A member of Ali's entourage, Cody Jones, who was also present during this interview, corroborated what Ali said and claimed he had seen the platform together with Ali at five A.M. one morning when the two were out jogging. Jones described the platform as "a bright light darting in the sky."

On being probed further by Plimpton, Ali explained that according to this belief system the first inhabitants of the earth were blacks. Among them was an "evil genius", Yakub, the "devil" of this religion. After six hundred years of working in a laboratory, Yakub invented the white man. Yakub was eventually ejected from paradise, together with 59,999 of his inventions,, who went on to eventually subjugate the blacks.

In interviews for his 1991 biography Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, and his 1998 biography King of the World, Ali clarified that he no longer believed in the existence of the space platform or in Yakub anymore. According to Ali, "hearts and souls have no color", and it was wrong of Elijah Muhammad to have talked of "white devils". Ali's biographer David Remnick noted that everything "threatening or obscure" about the Nation of Islam's teachings, including the space platform, Yakub, and racial separatism, had long been forgotten by Ali.

Choosing Elijah Muhammad over Malcolm X

By early 1964 Malcolm X had become disillusioned with Elijah Muhammad. Malcolm's disenchantment sprung from the fact that Elijah would preach moral rectitude even as he carried out extramarital affairs. Additionally, Malcolm was repelled by what he saw as financial corruption in the Nation; he also started doubting the divinity of Wallace Fard.

In the aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination, Malcolm gave an inflammatory speech following which he was ordered to remain silent for 90 days by Elijah Muhammad. After this rebuke, Malcolm called the Chicago headquarters of the Nation of Islam and offered to deliver Ali as a recruit, immediately after the first Ali-Liston fight, in return for his own reinstatement. The offer was rejected partly because the Nation believed Liston would be the winner of the bout, and they did not wish to be associated with the loser.

Less than two weeks after Ali formally joined the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and twelve other dissidents, left the Nation of Islam to form their own Islamic organization--Muslim Mosque, Inc.. This was after Malcolm realized that his 90-day suspension had been extended indefinitely by Elijah.

In May 1964 Ali had gone for a month long visit to Africa in the course of which he ran into Malcolm X in a hotel in Ghana. Malcolm was pleased to meet Ali, but was snubbed by the boxer with the words: "You left the Honorable Elijah Muhammad. That was the wrong thing to do, Brother Malcolm."

After Malcolm X returned to America from his travels in the Middle East and Africa, he had become more moderate and universalist in his views as a direct result of meeting many light-skinned Muslims. Upon his return, Malcolm wrote a letter to The New York Times denouncing Elijah Muhammad's teachings, which he described as "narrow-minded" and "pseudo-religious." This was followed by another denunciation in which Malcolm called Elijah a "religious faker". Soon attack pieces against Malcolm, some of them predicting or indicating his death, started appearing in Muhammad Speaks. To his closest friends, Malcolm confided that "I'm a dead man."

Six days after Malcolm X's assassination, on February 21, 1965, Elijah Muhammad gave a speech in which he denied responsibility for Malcolm's death. According to Elijah, it was Malcolm's "foolishness", "ignorance", and "preaching" that resulted in his death. "He preached violence, and violence has taken him away," claimed Elijah. It was noted that Ali, who was present during this speech, would shout phrases like "Yes Sir!" and "Sweet words, Apostle!" during Elijah's speech.

A decade later, before a British audience, Ali observed:

Malcolm X had to be punished. In this punishment he came to my house in Florida and told me he couldn't stand it, couldn't wait, he had to start another movement, he wasn't going to be put out like this, he's not going to leave Elijah but he was going to fight from another angle. But he got worse and worse...outright tried to overthrow him, tried to take over his following. When you talk against a man so loved, the man himself don't have to put the word out to get you, the people themselves are going to get you. The love for that man will get you killed.

Remembering Malcolm X

Reflecting on Malcolm X's transformation from a proponent of racial separatism to someone promulgating racial equality, Ali commented in an interview for his 1991 biography by Hauser: "[W]hat Malcolm saw was right, and after he left us, we went his way anyway. Color didn't make a man a devil. It's the heart, soul, and mind that counts." Ali's biographer Remnick wrote that in one of their first meetings Ali had shown him a photograph of Malcolm X and himself, taken before the first Ali-Liston fight by Howard Bingham, and commented: "That was Malcolm, a great, great man." According to Remnick, Ali followed Malcolm in becoming more inclusive and more religious. The one thing that Ali regretted, wrote Remnick, was the way he rejected Malcolm.

Wallace D. Muhammad posthumously rehabilitated Malcolm X by renaming the New York mosque of the Nation after Malcolm.

Wallace Muhammad and Sufism

After Elijah Muhammad's death, in 1975, his son Wallace D. Muhammad (later Warith Deen Mohammed) assumed leadership of the organization, following which the fundamental doctrines of the Nation of Islam underwent a change to bring them closer to Sunni Islam. The divinity of Elijah, and that of the Nation of Islam's founder Wallace Fard Muhammad, was denied by Wallace D., and a nonracial view of religion was promulgated in which white people were no longer called "devils".Eventually, a schism emerged amongst the followers of Elijah, between a faction loyal to Wallace, and another loyal to Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan continued advocating the "racial separatism" of Elijah Muhammad, and reportedly considered Wallace "a soft minded heretic."

Ali decided to follow the teachings of Wallace Muhammad. In an interview for his 1991 biography Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times, Ali commented:

[Wallace] learnt from his studies that his father wasn't teaching true Islam, and Wallace taught us the true meaning of the Quran. He showed that color don't matter. He taught that we're responsible for our own lives and it's no good to blame our problems on other people. And that sounded right to me so I followed Wallace, but not everyone in the Nation felt that way. Some of the ministers didn't like what he was teaching. Jeremiah Shabazz didn't like it. Louis Farrakhan didn't like it either. They believed Elijah was a prophet, and they've kept the exact ways Elijah taught them. But I've changed what I believe, and what I believe in now is true Islam.

In his 2004 autobiography, The Soul of a Butterfly, Ali revealed that he had developed an interest in Sufism.Around 2005, Ali converted to Sufi Islam, and announced that out of all Islamic sects, he felt most strongly inclined towards Sufism.

According to Ali's daughter, Hana Yasmeen Ali, who co-authored The Soul of a Butterfly with him, Ali was attracted to Sufism after reading the books of Inayat Khan which contain Sufi teachings. According to Ali's biographer and friend Davis Miller:

Sufis believe that to purposely harm any person is to harm all of humanity, to harm each of us and to damage the world. It is the perfect fit for Ali, who had been living in the ways that Sufis do for decades before he'd heard of the religion. Few people have heard about the profound ways Ali's faith has evolved over the years. He has been a world soul for many decades; he has grown from separatist to universalist.