U.S. Muslims Look to Athletes as Faith Ambassadors

c. 2007 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Farrukh Saleem acknowledges he has a problem. “I’m beyond a sports fanatic. I need help,” said Saleem, who will hunker down in his Potomac, Md., home this Super Bowl Sunday with his six-year-old son and root for his beloved Chicago Bears. Saleem, 36, attributes at least some of his […]

c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Farrukh Saleem acknowledges he has a problem.

“I’m beyond a sports fanatic. I need help,” said Saleem, who will hunker down in his Potomac, Md., home this Super Bowl Sunday with his six-year-old son and root for his beloved Chicago Bears.


Saleem, 36, attributes at least some of his sports fever to a youth spent watching Muslim superstars like Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who became heroes to countless Muslim-American children.

“It can be a struggle growing up Muslim in America,” said Saleem, whose family emigrated from Pakistan shortly before he was born. “So when you see other Muslims doing and succeeding at the sports you love, that can’t help but give you a lift.”

In their primes, Ali and Abdul-Jabbar gave the small population of Muslim Americans, comprising mostly immigrants and their children, figures who validated their identities and proved Muslims could succeed in America.

Today, there are more Muslims in U.S. sports than ever. But despite calls for better understanding between the Islamic and Western worlds, few Muslim athletes have emerged as ambassadors of the faith like Ali and Abdul-Jabbar. That leaves Saleem wondering about his children: “Who are going to be the role models for them?”

Ali began an improbable comeback in 1970, five years after Congress passed the Immigration Act of 1965, which opened the nation’s doors to an unprecedented number of Muslim immigrants.

Three years earlier, Ali had been stripped of his heavyweight boxing title for declining to serve in Vietnam. The stand garnered Ali, who in 1975 left the Nation of Islam for mainstream Sunni Islam, admiration and criticism. To many Muslim Americans, Ali was a source of pride and hope.

Congress honored Ali with a resolution on Jan. 17, his 65th birthday, noting his athletic and humanitarian accomplishments as well as his faith. “Ali is a devout Sunni Muslim and travels the world over, working for hunger and poverty relief, supporting education efforts of all kinds, promoting adoption, and encouraging people to respect and better understand one another,” read one “Whereas.”

After Ali fought his last fight in 1981, basketball legends Abdul-Jabbar and Hakeem Olajuwon succeeded him as Muslim-American sports heroes. Abdul-Jabbar, who converted to Islam in 1972, retired in 1989 as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. Olajuwon led the Houston Rockets to two championships and won admiration for fasting during Ramadan, when the NBA season and the Muslim holy month coincided. He retired in 2002.


“We don’t have the superstars now,” said Saleem, explaining that the likes of an Ali or Abdul-Jabbar come around once in a lifetime.

But a few Muslim-American athletes today are willing to act as bridge-builders between Muslims and non-Muslims.

“I feel I have to portray my religion as well as I can because a lot of times I am the first contact that people have with a Muslim,” said Hamza Abdullah, who plays in the National Football League for the Denver Broncos.

When the team travels to games, Abdullah dons a dress suit and a kufi, or Muslim prayer cap, hoping the image of a poised NFL pro will counter television shows like “24,” in which Muslims are depicted as terrorists.

While teammates have asked him about being Muslim, no schools, churches or other institutions have invited him to talk about Islam.

“People feel like it’s a sensitive topic,” Abdullah said. “I think they think I’m going to get upset. But it’s the total opposite. I want people to ask me.”


Still, other Muslim-American athletes shy from public discussions about faith. For example, the NBA’s Nazr Muhammad and the NFL’s Gibran Hamdan declined to be interviewed for this story.

“As with other people of faith, Muslim athletes don’t have to wear their religion on their sleeve,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington, D.C. “These athletes will tell you their first objective is to win games, not hearts and minds.”

But other Muslim Americans want to see more Muslim athletes playing public roles.

“If we can use sports as a vehicle to be an example, then that’s what we should do,” said Muzammil Mohamed Stevens, president of Muslim Athletes United International Inc., a small organization in Maplewood, N.J., that supports and recognizes Muslim athletes.

“We should try and be an example to our youth at all times. When you think about the society we live in nowadays, youth are very impressionable,” Stevens said.

DSB/LF END SACIRBEY

Editors: To obtain photos of Hamza Abdullah, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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