Speaker 1: It's Monday, the day after Resurrection Day, April third, nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty eight. I'm changed. I know I'm changed, But how
Speaker 1: have I changed? I have to write about this experience
Speaker 1: with Mohammad that much I know he's not less than
Speaker 1: who he had been before, and he carries himself with
Speaker 1: such dignity and stateliness, and he's not bowing to his Parkinson's.
Speaker 1: I have to write this. The little thin stories in
Speaker 1: the various newspapers and magazines are always about how he's crippled,
Speaker 1: he's compromised. It's sad, it's awful. That's just not true.
Speaker 1: This man I've been hanging with, maybe he's more, not less.
Speaker 1: In each moment his life feels genuinely mythological. I subscribe
Speaker 1: to Esquire magazine first thing Monday morning. I reach over
Speaker 1: and pull this month's issue from the nightstand. I go
Speaker 1: immediately to the masthead and I scan down the list
Speaker 1: of editors until I come across a name that just
Speaker 1: hits me. I like it. Guy's name is David Hershey.
Speaker 1: I think about chocolate bars, and I decide, Hey, man,
Speaker 1: that's the guy I'm going to pitch this story too.
Speaker 1: I pick up the phone and call New York.
Speaker 2: It's the goodness that God put in people that connected
Speaker 2: Ali to them, and vice versa. The goodness that Allah,
Speaker 2: Almighty God put in Ali ru people to him.
Speaker 1: That's a mom, said Shakir, close spiritual guide and confidante
Speaker 1: to Muhammad.
Speaker 2: Well that's a great, great blessing to see the good
Speaker 2: in people. It doesn't diminish the bad that might be there.
Speaker 2: But some people are blessed not to see it, and
Speaker 2: if they see the bad, not to dwell on it.
Speaker 1: And Mom. Shakir was a chief executive member of the
Speaker 1: team Ali assembled to carefully fulfill his final wishes. Cold
Speaker 1: calling throughout the nineteen eighties. Man, that's a lost art.
Speaker 1: I thought I was tormented by a pager on my him.
Speaker 1: Look at the world today, how do we find our
Speaker 1: dal our way, the right natural path? And the age
Speaker 1: of digital distraction? Guess what? We do it the same
Speaker 1: way we did back in the day. Episode four, Paradise
Speaker 1: regained Dave it Hershey, well how did I get this man?
Speaker 1: His assistant must be at lunch. This just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: It's the golden age of magazines nineteen eighty eight. They're
Speaker 1: bigger than they've ever been. This is the most prestigious
Speaker 1: men's magazine in America. You can't get hold of these guys,
Speaker 1: but I've got him. How in the world did this happen?
Speaker 1: It's more Ali magic, another way that he saved my life.
Speaker 1: I say. I went to college and creative writing. Many
Speaker 1: years ago. I wrote a story for Sports Illustrated about
Speaker 1: sparring with Muhammad Ali. I live in Louisville now, and
Speaker 1: I just coincidentally ran into Alien and got it invited
Speaker 1: to dinner at his mom's house, and we're becoming friends.
Speaker 1: And I see some things in him that nobody's ever written,
Speaker 1: some very remarkable things. David and I talked for I
Speaker 1: don't know, fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. David says, let's do this.
Speaker 1: I can pay you twenty five hundred bucks. I need
Speaker 1: the story in two months. I'll send you a contract.
Speaker 1: He buys the idea over the phone. I know now
Speaker 1: these years later that that just doesn't happen. I get
Speaker 1: off of the phone. I'm happy, and I go tell
Speaker 1: then she's excited. She says, when will we get the money?
Speaker 1: I have to admit I don't know. She shakes her head.
Speaker 1: She's worried and she says, but when it doesn't work out,
Speaker 1: go get a job. Inspired. I go down to the
Speaker 1: basement and I start pouring through box after box of
Speaker 1: old newspapers and magazines Muhammed Ali's stories. I call missus
Speaker 1: Clay's house in Rockman answers to the phone, and I
Speaker 1: ask if it's okay if I come over for a while.
Speaker 1: I take all those boxes and give them to him,
Speaker 1: saying I want these to be with somebody who'll take
Speaker 1: care of them. He says, Man, I've never seen a
Speaker 1: collection this big. Look. I'm going to go see Mohammed
Speaker 1: up at his home in Michigan. You want to come
Speaker 1: with me? So cool? I've been invited to Muhammed Ali's
Speaker 1: own house, his inner synctum, the place he goes to
Speaker 1: get some quiet and dig deep inside his faith. Rock
Speaker 1: Mont and I drive five hundred miles or so. As
Speaker 1: soon as we park the car and close the door,
Speaker 1: a woman opens the back door climbs down the steps,
Speaker 1: wearing a dashiki light skin. She looks a lot like
Speaker 1: Mohammad's mother. She introduces herself as lanai Ahwe, Mohammad's wife,
Speaker 1: and tells us that Mohammad's upstairs saying his prayers, but
Speaker 1: that he'll want to see me. We step into the
Speaker 1: living room and take seats on the sofa. Here I
Speaker 1: am in this quiet place in Michigan, this former horse farm,
Speaker 1: white picket fences, green pastures, isolated for people. In his
Speaker 1: tiny village, Mohammad could choose to live anywhere in the world.
Speaker 1: He had houses in La Chicago. A Saudi prince gave
Speaker 1: him a palace that he never stepped foot inside, and
Speaker 1: gave away Barry in Springs, Michigan. This is the place
Speaker 1: he goes to regroup. This is the place he goes
Speaker 1: for solitude. I knew that Mohammad was serious about his prayers.
Speaker 1: He would say them five times a day. Now I'm
Speaker 1: seeing this happen. This will be one of many many
Speaker 1: times when I'm visiting Ali that I'm waiting on him
Speaker 1: to say his prayers. Ali comes downstairs barefoot and greets us.
Speaker 1: My man, Ali says, why have you followed me for
Speaker 1: all these years? I tell him, it's because you're the
Speaker 1: single largest person I've ever known, the largest person I
Speaker 1: can imagine. He nods, I've traveled the whole world, he says,
Speaker 1: learn something from people everywhere. There ain't no differences between us.
Speaker 1: There's truth in all religions, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism.
Speaker 1: The only religion that really matters is the one real religion, love.
Speaker 1: And this moment I get confirmation. This is what I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing. I'm supposed to be a writer.
Speaker 1: Two days, with Mohammed and Rothman hanging into the farm,
Speaker 1: I've still got to go home and deal with my
Speaker 1: wife and to lack of money. Coming In the afternoon,
Speaker 1: I get back to Louisville. My dad calls, says, son,
Speaker 1: I've sent you a check. This is the last of
Speaker 1: your mother's insurance money from when she died. It's a
Speaker 1: little over eleven hundred dollars. Pay your mortgage, do the
Speaker 1: right thing with it, and go get a job. So
Speaker 1: that's what I try to do. I'm thoroughly excited by
Speaker 1: this assignment from Esquire, but twenty five hundred bucks ain't
Speaker 1: going to go. But so far, looking in the classified ads,
Speaker 1: I see a pharmaceutical company offering a sales rep position.
Speaker 1: I apply and I'm offered the job. Then I tell
Speaker 1: the district manager that I've just sold a story to Esquire.
Speaker 1: About my budding friendship with Muhammad Ali. He says, you
Speaker 1: can't do that. You're not allowed to write, and if
Speaker 1: you publish anything, you have to give us the money
Speaker 1: you kind of be getting. I don't have to be
Speaker 1: who you want me to be, ah, he said, And
Speaker 1: I'd heard him. I'd felt that was true of me too,
Speaker 1: And it's certainly true. Now I found my path at
Speaker 1: thirty seven years old. It's time to prove who I am.
Speaker 1: I pulled my watch from my arm and without looking
Speaker 1: at it, fling it out across the water, deep into
Speaker 1: the Ohio. I yanked the beeper from my hip, and
Speaker 1: before it has the chance to ever call me again,
Speaker 1: I throw it as far as I can, and it
Speaker 1: sinks into the mud of the old Old River, right
Speaker 1: beside Cassius Clay's nineteen sixty Olympic gold medal. There's no
Speaker 1: way I'd take that job, even though they're offering me
Speaker 1: a company car, more money than i'd ever made, more
Speaker 1: than double what I was making in the video stores,
Speaker 1: and all kinds of perks. No way, I know. Now
Speaker 1: I'm a writer.
Speaker 3: Davis, that gold medal story is a good story, but
Speaker 3: come on, you know he didn't throw his gold medal
Speaker 3: in the Ohio River, don't you.
Speaker 1: Of course, I know, correct, And he told me so
Speaker 1: himself that I mean, I believed it when I threw
Speaker 1: the beeper and my watch in the river. Right after
Speaker 1: I sold them my Dinner with Ali's story and they
Speaker 1: were going to run it. I call up Muhammed. I
Speaker 1: told him I'd sold the story and he said, you
Speaker 1: ain't no writer. I said, man, I've wanted to be
Speaker 1: a writer forever. I went to school, studied creative writing.
Speaker 1: I think I write as well as anybody, maybe better
Speaker 1: than most. You were my hero. You were the person
Speaker 1: who inspired me to write. And I just did exactly
Speaker 1: what you did. Took my watch off my arm and
Speaker 1: my beeper out of my that I had for the
Speaker 1: video stores, and I went and I pitched them straight
Speaker 1: into the Ohio And he said, never did that. And
Speaker 1: I said, what what do you mean, never did that?
Speaker 1: He said, never did that, Never threw my medal in
Speaker 1: no Ohio. He said, just lost it. That's all. I
Speaker 1: know what it takes to tell a story, and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's how I found out that Muhammad did not throw
Speaker 1: his gold medal into the Ohio River. I always knew
Speaker 1: I could write, and Muhammad Cascid he gave me the
Speaker 1: power to do that. Craig, you still have that transcript
Speaker 1: from your documentary that you did with Ali way back
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety three. What did Ali himself have to
Speaker 1: say when you asked him about his condition?
Speaker 3: He said, a wise man once said people that God
Speaker 3: loves they're not perfect. He wants to send you to
Speaker 3: paradise after you've suffered in this world. So when you die,
Speaker 3: you've paid all your dues and you go right to heaven.
Speaker 3: And I hope that's my case. He said. I'm not
Speaker 3: an evil person, but I'm not no saint. I never
Speaker 3: forget the way he said that I'm working with God.
Speaker 3: So if I've done something wrong, then I'll suffer now,
Speaker 3: and I hope it's my punishment for the indecent things
Speaker 3: I've done in this life. So when I die, my
Speaker 3: slate's clean and I go right to eternity. He knew
Speaker 3: he made mistakes in his life. He was cruel to
Speaker 3: some people. He could be misogynistic with women, and he
Speaker 3: cheated on some of his wives. He felt remorse for that.
Speaker 3: I'm sure that's what he was talking about when he
Speaker 3: said that to me. He was truly repentant. He was
Speaker 3: thinking of the afterlife. Maybe this is my punishment, and
Speaker 3: if I make a good penance on this, I get
Speaker 3: to be with Allah God in eternity.
Speaker 1: MOhm It felt bad about the ways he treated Joe Frasier,
Speaker 1: and he made a point of trying to work past that.
Speaker 1: But Joe, in turn had greater difficulty in getting past
Speaker 1: the guerrilla stuff and that bucket full of other malicious,
Speaker 1: terrible taunts.
Speaker 3: Joe couldn't let it go. I was tasked by the
Speaker 3: editors at ESPN to go to Mohammad and ask him
Speaker 3: about that. So I called and Lonnie answered. I asked her,
Speaker 3: is this true? She said, why don't you talk to Muhammad.
Speaker 3: He'll tell you. She put him on the phone and
Speaker 3: I told him what I was working on. I said, Mohammed,
Speaker 3: did you apologize to Joe? Are you good with Joe? Now?
Speaker 3: I love Joe Fraser. I wouldn't be who I am
Speaker 3: without Joe Fraser. I love Joe Fraser. So you said
Speaker 3: you were sorry? He goes yes, and he repeated, I
Speaker 3: love Joe Fraser. When Joe died, Mohammad tearfully went to
Speaker 3: Joe's funeral.
Speaker 1: The way he stood up and clapped in tribute to Joe.
Speaker 1: By that time, Mohammad was not standing the easily either.
Speaker 1: Was he doing that as penance?
Speaker 3: That time in La, when that guy's ready to jump
Speaker 3: off a building, Ali sees that tries to keep him
Speaker 3: from doing it.
Speaker 4: From a ledge nine floors above Wilship Boulevard, the hooded
Speaker 4: man shouted, I'm no good, I'm going to jump. Police,
Speaker 4: a psychologist and a minister had all but given up.
Speaker 3: He got up there, stuck his head out the window.
Speaker 2: Don't do it, don't do it.
Speaker 4: The former heavyweight champion went to a window and reportedly yelled,
Speaker 4: I'm your brother. I want to help you.
Speaker 2: Saved the guy's life.
Speaker 1: Muhammad took that guy home with him, found him counseling,
Speaker 1: got him back on his feet. I saw him personally
Speaker 1: in hospitals with kids, very sick kids who had communicable diseases.
Speaker 1: He'd just go up to those kids and picked them
Speaker 1: up and hugged them to his chest and treat them
Speaker 1: as if they were his own children.
Speaker 3: Well, you could make the argument that there's something very
Speaker 3: spiritual about that, and indeed there is. You know, I
Speaker 3: could relate to what Davis went through when he was
Speaker 3: searching for what to do next and not taking that
Speaker 3: pharmaceutical job to do something that didn't inspire him. I
Speaker 3: got laid off after thirty years of working at ESPN
Speaker 3: on June twelfth, twenty thirteen, which the date otherwise wouldn't
Speaker 3: be meaningful, but it was my thirtieth anniversary in the company.
Speaker 3: The day that I thought i'd be celebrating, I lost
Speaker 3: my job. I had a nine year old son and
Speaker 3: a seven year old daughter, and suddenly I wasn't working anymore.
Speaker 3: And I did not see it coming at all. I'm
Speaker 3: not ashamed to say that there was panic as to
Speaker 3: what to do next, and it debilitated me at first.
Speaker 3: What now? Where do I fit? It was a test
Speaker 3: of my faith in many ways. This brought me to
Speaker 3: my knees and for years prayed, please Lord, just bring
Speaker 3: me to where I'm supposed to be. I don't know
Speaker 3: where that is, but I do know. Muhammad was a
Speaker 3: man of faith and often relied upon it, and I
Speaker 3: am too, and that's something he and I talked about, religion, faith,
Speaker 3: what you believe in all that. It took a lot
Speaker 3: of determination to figure out what's next?
Speaker 1: You know. I had those kind of conversations with Mohammed io.
Speaker 1: I asked him why did he connect so deeply to people?
Speaker 1: What was it in him that people connected with? And
Speaker 1: he said, is the God in people that connects them
Speaker 1: to me. Shortly before Muhammad passed, I mentioned that to
Speaker 1: Lani and she said, it's also in reverse. He was
Speaker 1: looking for the God and people he understood, whether it
Speaker 1: was partly because of his fame, whether it was partly
Speaker 1: because of his beauty, whether it was partly for other reasons.
Speaker 1: The God and people they would always remember and carry
Speaker 1: with them those moments that he had with people, with everybody.
Speaker 3: I'm in Miami. We spent a couple of days together
Speaker 3: or just hanging in the hotel room and invariably out
Speaker 3: comes his suitcase and I'll come the Bible in his
Speaker 3: tattered list of Bible contradictions. And my cameraman, Bruce Taylor
Speaker 3: is sitting there listening, and he's like, jeez, Mohammed, Mama,
Speaker 3: this is really impressive. You should share this with a priest.
Speaker 3: He looks at Bruce and disgusted us. Priest man, I know.
Speaker 5: The pope, Priest, I know the Pope.
Speaker 3: We are now joined by Imam Zaid Shakir, an American
Speaker 3: Muslim scholar and co founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California,
Speaker 3: where he is a professor emeritus and a bored observer.
Speaker 3: Imam Shakira converted to Islam in nineteen seventy seven. He
Speaker 3: is one of the signatories of a Common Word Between
Speaker 3: Us and You, an open letter by Islamic scholars to
Speaker 3: Christian leaders that calls for peace and mutual understanding.
Speaker 1: You.
Speaker 3: Mom was with Muhammad Ali at the time of his
Speaker 3: death and was the principal celebrant at Ali's funeral in
Speaker 3: memorial service. Along with doctor Timothy Gianati, Imam Shakir helped
Speaker 3: the Ali family ensure that the services reflected the tradition
Speaker 3: of Mohammad's Muslim faith. I'm Liakam.
Speaker 2: Why are nakam as Slam?
Speaker 3: What were the circumstances that first brought you to Muhammad Ali?
Speaker 2: You just mentioned doctor tim Jiannati at the time he
Speaker 2: was at the University of Virginia and the team that
Speaker 2: was coordinating how the last stage of Muhammad Adi's life
Speaker 2: would unfold and his wishes to have a service that
Speaker 2: would reach out and bring people together from various walks
Speaker 2: of life, various faiths, and to ensure that everything was
Speaker 2: to proceed according to the mandates and instructions dictated by Islam.
Speaker 2: Doctor Giannati reached out to me and that's really how
Speaker 2: I got involved with the the family and with the goat.
Speaker 2: This was about five or six years before he passed away,
Speaker 2: but it was a long term plan to ensure that
Speaker 2: there wouldn't be a last minute scramble and chaos. It
Speaker 2: was the global stature, the universal appeal of Muhammad Adi.
Speaker 2: Things could get very confusing and very chaotic, so the
Speaker 2: long term plan was to ensure that that was minimized
Speaker 2: as much as possible. He was intricately involved. His wishes
Speaker 2: were his wishes. His wishes dictated what would happen. He
Speaker 2: made the law, and then the executive team made sure
Speaker 2: that everything he wished to happen happened.
Speaker 3: What was striking to me having attended the memorial service
Speaker 3: was the great diversity of not only faiths, but races
Speaker 3: and gender represented at that servis was that part of
Speaker 3: his plan as well?
Speaker 2: That was absolutely part of his plan. Because Muhammad Ali
Speaker 2: he went through the spectrum of activism, advocacy, for Islam,
Speaker 2: for humanity at large. When Muhammad Ali started out in
Speaker 2: the early into the mid sixties and the latter's nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: we know the kind of turmoil that was gripping the country.
Speaker 2: It was a time of extreme racially inspired tension. We
Speaker 2: had race riots, we had cities of flame, and we
Speaker 2: had a people who are really escaping the last vestiges
Speaker 2: of slavery. And so the time demanded a voice like
Speaker 2: Muhammad Ali's.
Speaker 1: You won't stand up for me from our religious police,
Speaker 1: and you want me to go somewhere and fight, but
Speaker 1: you won't.
Speaker 2: Stand up for me.
Speaker 6: You're at home.
Speaker 2: It demanded the kind of courage that Ali was able
Speaker 2: to muster. It demanded a voice and a leader who
Speaker 2: was willing to risk everything for his people. But as
Speaker 2: his life progressed and as the times changed, the problems
Speaker 2: afflicting us became more universal. They won't confined to anyone
Speaker 2: race or ethnicity. The universal challenges created a situation where
Speaker 2: Ali would have universal appeal, and I think that universal
Speaker 2: appeal was reflected in the memorial service. As you noted,
Speaker 2: it was his wish that I want a rabbi, I
Speaker 2: want a preacher, I want females. So he was able
Speaker 2: to really bring together that array of personalities, that array
Speaker 2: of human hearts, and it was a very powerful gathering.
Speaker 3: The majority of the speakers that day, yourself included, were
Speaker 3: quite charismatic.
Speaker 2: Don't give a teenager a telephone, and don't give a
Speaker 2: preacher a.
Speaker 3: Microphone, especially the rabbi and the minister. The Native American
Speaker 3: speakers as well, because they so often get forgotten in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 1: Nah done.
Speaker 3: There's all kinds of tribalism at home that's divided us,
Speaker 3: Wars raging in the Middle East. If we were blessed
Speaker 3: to still have Mohammed, now, I wonder what he'd be
Speaker 3: doing to bring peace.
Speaker 2: He'd be in Ghazil with medicine and food and he
Speaker 2: would find a way or God would open away. His
Speaker 2: heart wasn't such that he was content to sign a
Speaker 2: letter or attend the protest rally. Now he would fill
Speaker 2: up a plane with goods and he would fly to Egypt,
Speaker 2: loading on the trucks, and he would talk to people
Speaker 2: on both sides and God would open their heart. Were
Speaker 2: of a famine somewhere, charter a plane, loaded up and
Speaker 2: fly there. No news coverage, no cameras, no microphones and
Speaker 2: just go. He was a man of action. He was
Speaker 2: a man of the people. He loved people, and I
Speaker 2: think his love for people wouldn't allow him to just
Speaker 2: sit back and watch them suffer in silence. And an
Speaker 2: example of that is when he went to Jamaica, he
Speaker 2: insisted to go straight from the airport to the local mosque.
Speaker 2: And the only mosque he knew of was deep in
Speaker 2: the hood, a very modest, poor Muslim community, and they
Speaker 2: didn't want to take Ali. Are you sure you want
Speaker 2: to go there. Let's go to the hotel first. The no,
Speaker 2: we have to go to the mosque. But Ali is
Speaker 2: getting dark. It's not a very nice neighborhood. Got to
Speaker 2: go to the mosque. So he went there and he prayed.
Speaker 2: And when he prayed, they said, okay, you prayed, we
Speaker 2: called greeting the mosque. You prayed two ycles of the
Speaker 2: prayer to greet the mosque, and he greeted the moscle. Ali,
Speaker 2: you greeted the mosc Let's go. Now, I'm not going Ali.
Speaker 2: You know, his dark knus not a good neighborhood and
Speaker 2: I'm not going. Why because Islam isn't recognized as a
Speaker 2: religion here. So I'm not leaving until there's a promise
Speaker 2: made that Islam will be recognized as an official religion
Speaker 2: in Jamaica like the other religions. So he secured that promise,
Speaker 2: and then we left the mosque and went to the hotel.
Speaker 3: Beyond advising and ensuring that Islamic laws and traditions would
Speaker 3: be carried out on Muhammad's behalf, did you prepare him
Speaker 3: at all for the end of life?
Speaker 2: He was well prepared. He didn't need any advice. He
Speaker 2: could have advised others in terms of how to be
Speaker 2: prepared to exit this world and to enter into another
Speaker 2: realm of existence. So we don't believe our existence stops
Speaker 2: when we leave this world, just as it didn't begin
Speaker 2: when we entered this world. You know, we were in
Speaker 2: the womb. Before we were in the womb, we were
Speaker 2: in the chromozonal material of our ancestors and their genetic material,
Speaker 2: which is physical stuff that's being passed down generation after generation.
Speaker 2: So we believe our existence didn't start when we came
Speaker 2: into this world, and it doesn't stop when we exit
Speaker 2: this world. We're just going on to another stage of life,
Speaker 2: and Ali was well prepared for that stage. The priority
Speaker 2: was to make sure that his memorial service would be
Speaker 2: meaningful and convey a strong message that was reflective of
Speaker 2: who he was and what he represented.
Speaker 7: And join with them in mourning the loss and celebrating
Speaker 7: the life of Muhammad Ali, a great fighter for justice
Speaker 7: and peace. Peace be upon him, Peace be upon the
Speaker 7: up in Mohammed all of humanity, and peace on all
Speaker 7: of us.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Speaker 2: Muhammad Ali was a beautiful man, so he practiced his
Speaker 2: faith in a beautiful fashion, especially after he was slowed
Speaker 2: down by Parkinson, but not exclusively. He was religious, if
Speaker 2: you will, even before Parkinson's I think he just had
Speaker 2: some stuff to get out of his system, as they said, yes,
Speaker 2: But in any case, he practiced in a very deep
Speaker 2: personal way. He would read from the and the translation
Speaker 2: every day diligently. He would faithfully complete his prayers. Those
Speaker 2: were inward directed actions, but he had also outward directed actions.
Speaker 2: He would sign two or three hundred pamphlets every day.
Speaker 2: What does this lamb who is Mohammed? Peace be upon them,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And he would sign them. And he said
Speaker 2: that if if he gave someone an autograph, even if
Speaker 2: they didn't read it, even if they didn't agree with
Speaker 2: the message. They would keep it forever because Muhammad Ali's
Speaker 2: autograph is on it, and perhaps someone after them would
Speaker 2: come along who would read it. And so he would
Speaker 2: sign those and then when he went out into the public,
Speaker 2: he would distuff them in his briefcase and just give
Speaker 2: them to people. It wasn't easy for him to write,
Speaker 2: but he would do that, and that's the testimony to
Speaker 2: the depth of his faith and his desire to extend
Speaker 2: the peace that he enjoyed to others. Ali was anointed
Speaker 2: the people's champ by the people. He wasn't perfect, but
Speaker 2: he was able to move systematically and steadily to hire
Speaker 2: and hire degrees of perfection.
Speaker 3: In one of your writings, you described Mohammad as a
Speaker 3: humble mountain. If you're a boxing fan, I think humility
Speaker 3: is not a word you easily associate with Mohammed.
Speaker 2: He talked more trash than a radio. It was part
Speaker 2: of his purpose. It was by design. It was due
Speaker 2: to his understanding of marketing and public relations in a
Speaker 2: way that very few athletes, with the possible exception of
Speaker 2: Gorgeous George, who influenced Ali tremendously in that regard. But
Speaker 2: when the lights went out and when the cameras were
Speaker 2: turned off. Even in those early times, you saw a
Speaker 2: humble individual who was known to play with children and
Speaker 2: wrestle with children on the floor do his magic. And
Speaker 2: so I think the greatest example of that humble mountain
Speaker 2: was after the Foreman fight. This is probably the crowning
Speaker 2: moment of his career. The unbeatable George Foreman goes down
Speaker 2: and in the interview after Ali let it go, he
Speaker 2: let it fly, with the expecatives, everything like you didn't
Speaker 2: know this, and you should know that I'm the greatest.
Speaker 4: Everybody stopped talking.
Speaker 3: Now, attention all of my critics. I told you all
Speaker 3: that I was the greatest of all times. I'm still
Speaker 3: the greatest of all times.
Speaker 1: Never again say that I'm going to be defeated.
Speaker 3: Never again make me.
Speaker 4: Und the dog until I'm about fifty years old. Then
Speaker 4: you might get me.
Speaker 2: But once they took the camera away, took the microphone away,
Speaker 2: quietly rode out to the camp he was staying at
Speaker 2: and she was delged by a group of children and
Speaker 2: just down quietly. He's exhausted. He's battered ropodope with George Foreman.
Speaker 2: That's like someone with a baseball bat beating on your body.
Speaker 2: So he's exhausted, he's battered, These bruised kidneys are out
Speaker 2: of whack, urinating blood. But he takes time to sit
Speaker 2: down and entertain these children with his magic tricks. He
Speaker 2: was definitely cocky, confident, bragadaceous boxer, but even during those
Speaker 2: times that humility would shine through. And then in the
Speaker 2: latter phase of his life, it was just pure humility,
Speaker 2: humbling himself and accepting the test and the challenge that
Speaker 2: God presented to him with grace. If he were inherently arrogant,
Speaker 2: he wouldn't have accepted that with grace. An arrogant heart
Speaker 2: doesn't have that ability. There's a saying from the prophet Muhammed,
Speaker 2: Peace be upon them. No one humbles themselves for the
Speaker 2: sake of God, except that God elevates him. And I
Speaker 2: think during that latter phase Muhammad Adi was elevated to
Speaker 2: a stature he didn't enjoy during the times he was
Speaker 2: in full health and the Louisville lipp was in full form.
Speaker 2: He was elevated to heights that only God can bring
Speaker 2: a person to. The Arabic word for sankhthood is we Lijah,
Speaker 2: we die, we lae we like us we we lid yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah we lad yeah we.
Speaker 2: Yeah we la yah. So that welaja. It combines three qualities.
Speaker 2: The first is love from Habba, so love for God
Speaker 2: and love from God. Second is nearness closeness to God.
Speaker 2: And the third is divine aid on lusra being assisted
Speaker 2: directly from God. And so those three qualities of love, nearness,
Speaker 2: and divine aid or assistance, those are the qualities of
Speaker 2: the saint. And so I firmly believed that Muhammad Ali
Speaker 2: had all of those. He had the love. He was
Speaker 2: a man who loved God and God loved him. He
Speaker 2: was a man who was close to God. He was
Speaker 2: constantly thinking about God. And he was a man who
Speaker 2: was being assisted by God because the things that happened
Speaker 2: in his life they couldn't have happened without divine aid.
Speaker 2: It's the goodness that God put in people that connected
Speaker 2: Ali to them, and vice versa, the goodness that Allah
Speaker 2: Almighty God put in Ali that drew people to him.
Speaker 2: And to the extent that he was good. I think
Speaker 2: it's only not for us he'd be looking for that
Speaker 2: good and other well, that's a great, great blessing to
Speaker 2: see the good in people. It doesn't diminish the bad
Speaker 2: that might be there, But some people are blessed not
Speaker 2: to see it, and if they see the bad, not
Speaker 2: to dwell on it. There's a story that circulates amongst
Speaker 2: the Muslims. Jesus was walking with a group of his
Speaker 2: disciples one day and they saw a sheep carcass thrown
Speaker 2: to the side of the road. So one of them said,
Speaker 2: the smell is stinches really putrid. They decay and once said,
Speaker 2: and look at the maggots. It's really disgusted. And then
Speaker 2: Jesus said, well, look how white his teeth are. I've
Speaker 2: conditioned my eyes to only see the good. Ali was
Speaker 2: one of those people that God blessed to have the
Speaker 2: bad eclipsed by the moon of the good.
Speaker 3: You were by Mohammed's side in the last moments of
Speaker 3: his life. Explain to us how that all went.
Speaker 2: I just prayed my heart out and just prayed for
Speaker 2: Muhammad Ali to pass successfully to the next life and
Speaker 2: to meet Almighty God, to meet a law in a
Speaker 2: good state. And it was very powerful those a few hours.
Speaker 2: I prayed from Kuran and the prophetic Kdith and some
Speaker 2: of the litanies of the Muslim saints. I just pray
Speaker 2: that I was able to be a source of comfort
Speaker 2: for both Ali and for his family.
Speaker 3: How do you feel he faced the inevitability of his
Speaker 3: own death.
Speaker 2: I think he faced it like he faced the fearsome
Speaker 2: Sunny Listening. He faced it like he faced it the
Speaker 2: unbeatable George Foreman. He faced it with courage. He faced
Speaker 2: it with reliance on God, trusting that God had good
Speaker 2: ordained for him, that he was ordained to be Sunny Listening,
Speaker 2: he was ordained to be George Foreman, and he was
Speaker 2: ordained by God to move on from this world. So
Speaker 2: he faced it with courage, with dignity, with no complaints,
Speaker 2: and gracefully exited. Here was that total peace. Here was
Speaker 2: that total peace. And the light on his face indicated
Speaker 2: that as Muslims, we believe that the light that it's
Speaker 2: in the heart, it comes through the face. And so
Speaker 2: that light that was in his heart, and that light
Speaker 2: that was refined over the years of dealing with a
Speaker 2: very debilitating disease, that light grew stronger and stronger as
Speaker 2: heart therefore radiated ever stronger on his face. So at
Speaker 2: the time of his passing, that light was overwhelming. And
Speaker 2: it's the light that you see with your heart, with
Speaker 2: the inner vision of the heart, not with the external
Speaker 2: vision of the eyes. One of the reasons Ali was
Speaker 2: so powerful in the latter part of his life. We
Speaker 2: believe that speech is really in the heart. There's a
Speaker 2: poem couple that says speech resides in the heart, and
Speaker 2: the tongue really serves as an interpreter for what's in
Speaker 2: the heart. And so when the tongue is not able
Speaker 2: to interpret, then the heart becomes stronger because now it
Speaker 2: has to speak directly. And so when his words could
Speaker 2: no longer be heard, his heart had to grow stronger
Speaker 2: so that the energy that was behind the words could
Speaker 2: be perceived by other hearts. Because the speech of the
Speaker 2: tongue settles in the ear, where the speech of the
Speaker 2: heart settles in the hearts of others. Ali was in
Speaker 2: that state where his heart had to do the talking,
Speaker 2: and in that state it was powerful, and those words
Speaker 2: reach hearts that maybe his speech where he still the
Speaker 2: Louisville lived, his speech would not be able to reach.
Speaker 3: He didn't have to say anything, but you understood, and
Speaker 3: that's a universal language that can speak to anyone.
Speaker 2: How many hearts were affected by Muhammaddi countless. I'm meeting
Speaker 2: people from various parts of the world, Bangladesh, Columbia. Ali
Speaker 2: just touched so many people, and that isn't something that
Speaker 2: happens every day. The fact that he was so powerful
Speaker 2: and his ability to win hearts is an indication of
Speaker 2: divine grace like God.
Speaker 1: Was with him.
Speaker 2: You know, he's still touching hearts. No, he's still touching
Speaker 2: hearts now and the hearts that he's touched are touching hearts.
Speaker 2: This exponential and just keeps going and growing and growing.
Speaker 2: We really we need that today. Peace.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of The Down of Muhammad Ali,
Speaker 1: my hero teaches me how to fly. Also, we spend
Speaker 1: some time with doctor Holli shil, the director of the
Speaker 1: Muhammad Ali Parkinson Center in Phoenix, whose career path, like mine,
Speaker 1: was shaped and enlarged by Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 6: He always used to folks at Parkinson's as my people.
Speaker 6: Anytime he was talking with us about what he wanted
Speaker 6: us to do. Make sure you take care of my
Speaker 6: peace peoples. I don't want any man left behind.
Speaker 1: The Dao of Muhammad Ali is produced by Imagine Audio
Speaker 1: for iHeart Podcast and hosted by me Davis Miller, my
Speaker 1: co host is Craig Mortally, Karl Welker, Mark Beouch, Nathan Kloke,
Speaker 1: Derek Jennings and Little Old Me. Davis Miller are executive producers,
Speaker 1: produced by Craig Mortali, sound design and mixing by Juan Borda,
Speaker 1: music by Djsparr and introducing a very good pal of
Speaker 1: mine Isaac Miller, and also Luminescence track Nuage. Visit Luminescent
Speaker 1: music dot com to check out more from the band.