The legend

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion.

But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is right here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality…

If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. But I either have to obey the laws of the land or the laws of Allah. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail. We’ve been in jail for four hundred years.” – Muhammad Ali

Innallahi wa innallahi rajiun – surely to Allah we belong and to him we return. I pray Allah grants you abundant space in the highest of heavens. Ameen.

What a man. What a legend. Thank you for teaching us to unapologetic in our faith, against oppressions and to be unafraid of the state. You taught us love and strength.

The final step

Me trying to instill passion into the prospective students, perhaps being mistaken for desperation.

I still remember coming home after my final day of primary school, sitting on the floor of my room and crying. I was going to miss my friends and my teachers, I didn’t want to grow up and I had an empty pit in my stomach. And I remember the final days of secondary school. That same pit there every time someone signed my leavers book or uniform, reminding me of how once again I’m leaving behind all that I am accustomed to, all the familiarity.

I moved on to college and then university. At each step I’d make new friends and, bar a few, leave my old ones behind. At each step there would be people who got me better than my previous friends and I was welcomed into a new place that allowed me to be more myself than before. Because at each step I knew more about what ‘being me’ is. 

Graduating from university was such an emotional time. I had done it. This was the final one. The final step I had before I reached the landing of options, full of doors I could enter. Some would be locked, others slightly jammed but accessible with a hard push. But it would be up to me which door I tried to open and which I walked into.