The world lost a giant — not only the realm of boxing and sports — but the world in general lost one of its true heroes in Muhammad Ali. Not only was Ali one of, if not the greatest boxer of all time, but he was one of the few people that was almost universally revered. So in a year where we’ve lost greats like David Bowie, Prince and now Ali, it’s difficult not to think of our own mortality while so many influential people have passed on.
In this classic interview from the UK a child asks Muhammad Ali exactly what he was going to do once he retired from professional boxing, to which he replies by pretending to be sleeping. But no, that wasn’t Ali being rude, instead it was a segue for Ali to discuss how we spend our limited time on this Earth, breaking it all down into numbers and showing how most of our lives are spent on things that aren’t actually bettering ourselves.
Ali goes on to talk about how the rest of his life would be spent preparing to meet with God. Ali’s faith was quite famous, with him joining the Nation of Islam in 1964 after changing his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali. This made him one of the most prominent and outspoken Muslim celebrities in all of history, with him dedicating most of his life to the religion and spreading its word.
“So what I’m saying is that I believe that we’re all gonna be judged. Should a man like Hitler kill all of the Jews and get away with it? Somebody should punish him. Maybe if he don’t get it now, he get it when he dies in Hell for eternity. So what I’m gonna do when I get out of boxing is get myself ready to meet God, ’cause my plane might blow up — don’t planes blow up in this country sometimes and crash? Don’t people die everyday? Okay, it’s a scary thing to think that I’m going to Hell to burn in eternity forever. So what am I going to do? … When I get out of boxing, or when I’m through, I’m going to do all that I can to help people.”
So while Ali’s proof of God in this interview includes a lot of things that can be scientifically explained (how clothes, glass, the Earth and the Moon were created, for example), the impetus for his beliefs and application of them are indeed quite inspiring.
