Some Real Islam Today: The Transformation of K Abdul Jabbar

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/20...islam.html

Quote:Unease with celebrity

I was introduced to Islam while I was a freshman at UCLA. Although I had already achieved a certain degree of national fame as a basketball player, I tried hard to keep my personal life private. Celebrity made me nervous and uncomfortable. I was still young, so I couldn’t really articulate why I felt so shy of the spotlight. Over the next few years, I started to understand it better.

Part of my restraint was the feeling that the person the public was celebrating wasn’t the real me. Not only did I have the usual teenage angst of becoming a man, but I was also playing for one of the best college basketball teams in the country and trying to maintain my studies. Add to that the weight of being black in America in 1966 and ’67, when James Meredith was ambushed while marching through Mississippi, the Black Panther Party was founded, Thurgood Marshall was appointed as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and a race riot in Detroit left 43 dead, 1,189 injured and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.

I came to realize that the Lew Alcindor everyone was cheering wasn’t really the person they imagined. They wanted me to be the clean-cut example of racial equality. The poster boy for how anybody from any background — regardless of race, religion or economic standing — could achieve the American dream. To them, I was the living proof that racism was a myth.

Remember Jabbar has a west indian ancestral connection..to Trinidad, by way of Africa :-[ :-[ :-[

Quote:I knew better. Being 7-foot-2 and athletic got me there, not a level playing field of equal opportunity. But I was also fighting a strict upbringing of trying to please those in authority. My father was a cop with a set of rules, I attended a Catholic school with priests and nuns with more rules, and I played basketball for coaches who had even more rules. Rebellion was not an option.

Still, I was discontented. Growing up in the 1960s, I wasn’t exposed to many black role models. I admired Martin Luther King Jr. for his selfless courage and Shaft for kicking ass and getting the girl. Otherwise, the white public’s consensus seemed to be that blacks weren’t much good. They were either needy downtrodden folks who required white people’s help to get the rights they were due or radical troublemakers wanting to take away white homes and jobs and daughters. The “good ones” were happy entertainers, either in show business or sports, who were expected to show gratitude for their good fortune. I knew this reality was somehow wrong — that something had to change. I just didn’t know what it meant for me.

Quote:I knew better. Being 7-foot-2 and athletic got me there, not a level playing field of equal opportunity. But I was also fighting a strict upbringing of trying to please those in authority. My father was a cop with a set of rules, I attended a Catholic school with priests and nuns with more rules, and I played basketball for coaches who had even more rules. Rebellion was not an option.

Still, I was discontented. Growing up in the 1960s, I wasn’t exposed to many black role models. I admired Martin Luther King Jr. for his selfless courage and Shaft for kicking ass and getting the girl. Otherwise, the white public’s consensus seemed to be that blacks weren’t much good. They were either needy downtrodden folks who required white people’s help to get the rights they were due or radical troublemakers wanting to take away white homes and jobs and daughters. The “good ones” were happy entertainers, either in show business or sports, who were expected to show gratitude for their good fortune. I knew this reality was somehow wrong — that something had to change. I just didn’t know what it meant for me.

Quote:And while I realize that many Christians risked their lives and families to fight slavery and that it would not have been ended without them, I found it hard to align myself with the cultural institutions that had turned a blind eye to such outrageous behavior in direct violation of their most sacred beliefs.

The adoption of a new name was an extension of my rejection of all things in my life that related to the enslavement of my family and people. Alcindor was a French planter in the West Indies who owned my ancestors. My forebears were Yoruba people, from present day Nigeria. Keeping the name of my family’s slave master seemed somehow to dishonor them. His name felt like a branded scar of shame.

My devotion to Islam was absolute. I even agreed to marry a woman whom Hammas suggested for me, despite my strong feelings for another woman. Ever the team player, I did as “Coach” Hammas recommended. I also followed his advice not to invite my parents to the wedding — a mistake that took me more than a decade to rectify. Although I had my doubts about some of Hammas’ instruction, I rationalized them away because of the great spiritual fulfillment I was experiencing.

But my independent spirit finally emerged. Not content to receive all my religious knowledge from one man, I pursued my own studies. I soon found that I disagreed with some of Hammas’ teachings about the Quran, and we parted ways. In 1973, I traveled to Libya and Saudi Arabia to learn enough Arabic to study the Quran on my own. I emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed.

LOOK AT THIS

From that year to this, I have never wavered or regretted my decision to convert to Islam. When I look back, I wish I could have done it in a more private way, without all the publicity and fuss that followed. But at the time I was adding my voice to the civil rights movement by denouncing the legacy of slavery and the religious institutions that had supported it. That made it more political than I had intended and distracted from what was, for me, a much more personal journey

SILLY ARGUMENT HAS EMERGED PITTING JABBAR AND OLAJUWON AGAINST EACH OTHER..'WHICH ONE IS BETTER'

There is no choice to be made between the 2 men...both great basketball centres and devout Muslims... and fine upstanding and achieved citizens in all areas of the social life

especially for Black people, both Jabbar and Olajuwon belong to us..to all of us. we do not have to choose between them

[quote author=mapoui link=topic=111273.msg747689#msg747689 date=1505144118]
especially for Black people, both Jabbar and Olajuwon belong to us..to all of us.
[/quote]
Zion will have 'em downgraded

Islam as I was telling ramesh : is a natural black man's religion!

So they will be an enemy of the Xtians and their Jew leaders

[quote author=mapoui link=topic=111273.msg747686#msg747686 date=1505142959]
Jabbar has a west indian ancestral connection..to Trinidad, by way of Africa
[/quote]
ramesh will soon give up his xtian folly of Chosen People:

and follow Kareem  8)

Thurgood Marshall was appointed  the first African-American Supreme Court Justice


I had a first year Uni prof whom reminded us daily!

he made us take notice of Thurgood...I am glad for that  8)

"Shaft for kicking ass and getting the girl"

likewise, brother Kareem: I was inspired to get the girls as well  :-*

"The “good ones” were happy entertainers, either in show business or sports,
who were expected to show gratitude for their good fortune "

Muslims are given the same route in [size=10pt]hindu[/size] INDIA. :-[

Fast Bowlers and Film Stars and Singers....

Zaheer Khan, Dilip Kumar, Sharrukh and Mohamed Rafi