Muhammad Ali: Our Name Our Religion

On being Muslim and Black in the America of Muhammad Ali.

- Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib

ALI’S DEVOTION His faith was central to his identity.

The account of the Prophet Muhammad, as it was most frequently told to me, is the story of how the Quran was revealed to him. In Mecca, during a yearly retreat to a mountain called Hira, the prophet was visited by the angel Gabriel in his sleep, carrying a book and commanding him to read. He recited the verses in his sleep, woke with them etched in his soul, heavy on his tongue. He came down from the mountain and heard Gabriel shouting from above:

“O Muhammad! You are the messenger of Allah!”

Ramadan, the holy month that commemorates that first revelation of the holy book, comes as a beloved Muhammad is laid to rest. The world that loves him speaks loudly of his fight but too quietly of his faith, as if the two aren’t eternally in concert. Especially now, I still find value in the observation of Ramadan, even as the rest of my roots in Islam have faded as I have aged. I share a name with Muhammad Ali, mine the middle, less prominent name. But the meaning of Muhammad is the same: “Most Praised One.”