Muhammad Ali is remembered as a boxing legend, an Olympian, a civil rights warrior, a humanitarian, and a trailblazer for Parkinson’s disease awareness.
But one central part of his identity is missing from the official Ali Instagram and Twitter feeds: the proud, unapologetic Muslim.
Islam is conspicuously absent from the Ali brand, which is owned and managed by a New York–based licensing company ABG.
Sherman Jackson, a Muslim professor at the University of Southern California who’s written extensively about Islam and black America, said Ali’s religion is an inconvenient fact for companies looking to profit by putting his image on T-shirts, hats, and posters. Jackson, who delivered a eulogy at Ali’s funeral in Kentucky, said the duty now falls to American Muslims to ensure that a central part of his legacy isn’t lost to revisionism and commercialization.
“It’s up to Muslims to really understand his legacy, to really preserve it, and to put it where it ought to be in terms of the pantheon,” Jackson said.
Ali’s family has emphasized six core principles as key to his legacy: confidence, conviction, dedication, giving, respect, and spirituality. In public aspects of the Ali legacy, all those values are reflected except spirituality.
Sources
https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahallam/forgetting-muhammad-ali-the-muslim?utm_term=.ymBvJRx4M#.gm3v8ZrOW
