Vale, Muhammad Ali

At least he thought about where he was going

Michael Cook | Jun 6 2016 | comment

Boxing is a brutal sport and Muhammad Ali appears to have paid the price. The “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” arrogant young boxer became a shuffling, slurring, gentle giant in his last years.

Like many people with rich personalities, who he was in his private life is a bit of a mystery. But no one can deny that he had personality. His quips are priceless:

"It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up."
“If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread, they can sure make something out of you.”
"I should be a postage stamp. That's the only way I'll ever get licked."
“If you even dream of beating me you'd better wake up and apologize.”

But he was more than the Louisville Lip, more than a philandering ex-boxer who had four wives and fathered nine children. He seemed to grow as a man with time and suffering.

One aspect of that was his religious faith. After defeating Sonny Liston in 1964 for the world heavyweight title, he announced that he had become a Muslim, or rather, a member of the Nation of Islam, an American sect of Islam. Later he drifted into mainstream Sunni Islam and then into the more mystical, peaceful Sufi version of Islam.

In this video he gives an amazingly frank explanation of what he believes about the importance of the afterlife.

Vale, Muhammad Ali. As he once said,

“Live everyday as if it were your last because someday you're going to be right.”

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Muhammad Ali died on Friday at the age of 74. He was an amazing fighter and the internet lit up with articles and videos of his best fights and his most memorable quips. But they all highlighted the public man. There was another side to him as well, his religious faith. Sure, he had a colourful personal life, but his convictions were sincere. Check out the video in which he talks about the afterlife:

"God is watching me. God don't praise me because I beat Joe Frazier. God don't give nothing about Joe Frazier. God don't care nothing about England or America as far as we aware of. He wants to know how do we treat each other, how do we help each other. So I'm going to dedicate my life to using my name and popularity to helping charities, helping people, uniting people…..we need somebody in the world to help us all make peace. So when I die, if there's a heaven, I want to see it."