https://www.si.com/nba/2021/09/10/muslims-in-sports-after-9-11-daily-cover Hakeem Olajuwon wasn’t always a devout Muslim. Back in Lagos, where he was raised, Islam was Olajuwon’s culture more than it was his religion. He’d listen to an Imam call worshipers to prayer on the radio, fast on the holy month of Ramadan and attend the mosque on Fridays with his father. But within a few years of arriving Stateside, in 1980, he wasn’t actively participating anymore. Eventually, in Houston, he was so removed from his faith that when someone asked him whether he was headed to the mosque he was shocked to hear there was one nearby. He’d never looked. Olajuwon was skeptical at first—he didn’t know what to expect until a familiar sound swallowed the silence. “It was the first time I heard the call to prayer in about two years,” Olajuwon says. “And I couldn't stop crying.” Thereafter, if the Rockets, say, played in Phoenix, he’d ask the bellman at the team hotel to book him a ride to the closest mosque. Wherever Houston traveled, the same thing. At first, it was just a way for Olajuwon to connect with his God. Soon, it gave him a family. In time, members of the communities he visited started to recognize him each time he came back through town. Local leaders introduced themselves. Others invited him over for dinner, or offered to drive him to and from the airport. Across the country, Muslims knew: If the Rockets are in town tomorrow, you can expect to see Hakeem at the Isha prayer tonight. “When we travel, you don’t know anybody,” Olajuwon says. “Then all of a sudden … the community [knew me]. So, life on the road, for a Muslim—I've never felt like I'm on the road. I'm always at home.” As Olajuwon became more comfortable expressing his faith, he practiced it more openly. Early in his career, he fasted during Ramadan, with the exception of game days. Muslims, according to Islam’s teachings, can skip fasting during the holy month if they have good reason, such as illness or old age or pregnancy. But the texts don’t cite “backing down David Robinson” as a reason to break fast, and so when Ramadan fell in February in 1995, Olajuwon concluded that he ought to fast, even on game days. Some of his teammates and coaches expressed concern—Think of the energy expended by even the most static of NBA big men!—but Olajuwon quickly mollified their fears. Fueled by the spare dates and the few sips of water that he consumed at halftime, after the sun had set, Olajuwon would come out of the locker room roaring in the second half. In his first game fasting, he scored 41 points on Karl Malone; he outdueled Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Robinson in the coming days. Fasting, he says, made him sharper, lighter and more disciplined. Halftime dates were his own version of Michael’s Secret Stuff. The dried fruits—the same as the Prophet Muhammad ate to break fast centuries earlier—propelled him. He ended that February as the league’s Player of the Month. He’d fully reclaimed his faith. He was home. Fast forward six years, to 2001, when he was traded to the Raptors, and Olajuwon was in unfamiliar territory, outside of Houston for the first time in more than 20 years. Then, a month after he arrived, the towers fell. Suddenly, Olajuwon was forced to play defense off the court. “Islam had been looked at from a positive light all my career, until 9/11,” says Olajuwon, who’s now 58. “Then all this negativity started, which is totally the opposite of what Islam teaches.” The burden fell on Olajuwon and his fellow Muslims, the former NBA MVP says, to explain to those who might wish them harm: Your vision of Islam is a distortion of reality. And while Olajuwon admits that Islam is too big for any one person to represent, he acknowledges the role he’s had to play in defending his faith. “You feel like you have to convince the people, That's not Islam,” Olajuwon says. “You have to justify your position as a Muslim, being, all of a sudden, the enemy.” Pushing back is a role he’s embraced. “I’ll take the opportunity,” he says, “to shape the perception of what Islam really is.”
Wish they did more reporting on what Hakeem did, post-9/11. The main point of the article, as it relates to Hakeem, was basically only one singular paragraph. Strange.
I don't care if it's your faith or family or even you career, Commitment is the biggest sign or potential greatness.
I'm fortunate that I was in middle school at the time of 9/11 and had super diverse classmates. Having some guys I knew and played basketball with that were Muslim forced me to wrestle with more nuanced opinions than I would have had naturally. But I will say this: SI seems like a woefully inadequate platform to attempt this type of social commentary on a millenia old religion with a millenia old track record. But it does remind us to always think of the people we interact with as humans first, worthy of a first chance. Something we still constantly forget as a society.
