I'm on the record for five losses or something like that, but the one guy who really whipped me was Muhammad Ali. And it taught me one big lesson. That no matter how big and strong you are, you're going to have to use your mind. You must think things out.

Muhammad Ali was a god, an idol and an icon. He was boxing. Any kid that had the opportunity to talk to Ali, to get advice from Muhammad Ali, was privileged. He's always given me time to ask questions, although I was so in awe that I didn't ask questions.

Much as my Boomer friends will hate me for saying this, Kanye West is the New Dylan. Not only do Kanye's best lyrics match Dylan's prescience, highly inventive word-play and genius for storytelling, his indefatigable cockiness eerily channels Muhammad Ali.

The Muslim world just doesn't believe that skin color is all that important. Obama may be half-black, but he's still all-Western, according to them. It doesn't matter whether you're black, white or green - if you're not a devotee of Muhammad, you don't matter.

Getting up to Zaire - getting ready to fight Muhammad Ali - I thought this will be a matter of just a little exercise. I'll probably knock him out in three rounds. Two, three - maybe three and a half rounds. That was the most confidence I had in my whole life.

Al Qaeda's leaders seek to reverse what they claim are corrupt Islamic practices bookended by the Mongol invasions in 1256 and Ataturk's ending the caliphate in 1924. Theirs is a fight to turn Islam's clock back to the time of Prophet Muhammad's original followers.

Everyone has their own methods, when Muhammad Ali was coming through I am sure people said he leaned back too far, had his chin too high and dropped his hands too low. I am not comparing myself Ali, just showing that people have different methods that work for them.

Muhammad Ali was hated, and then he was loved at the very end. Floyd Mayweather was hated, and a lot of people are really coming around on him. So, I'm just trying to stay positive and try not to offend too many people along the way and hope for the best end result.

I'm Muhammad Ali's daughter, but my father and I are very different in that area. I don't necessarily try to put on a show. That's what my father's thing was, and he was great at it. Everything I say is because I feel it, and it comes out of my mouth. It's not scripted.

For every moment of triumph, there is an unequal and opposite feeling of despair. Take that iconic photograph of Muhammad Ali standing triumphantly over the prostrate, semiconscious wreckage of Sonny Liston. Great photo. Now think of Liston. Do the pleasure/pain calculus.

I remember when Muhammad Ali got beaten the first time. I remember when Lennox Lewis got beaten the first time, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson. All of those were legendary fighters, and they came back, and that's what made them different - what they did after they got beat.

My sense of religion is Einstein's sense of relativity. I don't believe in God. I believe that energy never dies. So the possibility exists that you might be breathing in some other form of Moses or Buddha or Muhammad or Bobby Kennedy or Roosevelt or Martin Luther King or Jesus.

I was making a film on Muhammad Ali in 1964, and I went to Miami to film everything around the fight for the world championship with Sonny Liston. I had the good luck of flying down to Miami, and there was one empty seat, and the guy sitting next to this empty seat was Malcolm X.

I would say that while most Muslims take offense at the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons, they would never resort to violence. It is a minority of extremist Muslims who take such actions, and they do it for political and tactical reasons far beyond just being offended.

It seems like whenever you write about Muslims, people assume that you're writing about the Quran, you are writing about the Prophet Muhammad. There's no sense that Muslims are capable of individualism, that they're capable of making mistakes that are somehow not connected to Islam.

In 1996, Muhammad Ali and I co-authored a short book about bigotry and prejudice that was keyed to religious and racial divisions. To spread the message, we visited schools in a half dozen cities across the country, talking with students about the need for tolerance and understanding.

There was no music at all during my childhood. The first time we heard music was when my eldest brother bought a tape recorder. Even then, only he was allowed to touch it. But in our house, we listened to legends such as Muhammad Rafi, Mehdi Hasan, Noor Jehan, Attaullah Khan Esakhelvi.

Muhammad Ali was my idol, and I always say, if Muhammad Ali had told me the exact same thing my mother, the principal, the security guard, my brothers... you know, the same thing they were telling me that I didn't listen to, I would have listened, just because it came from Muhammad Ali.

Normally, if someone's legacy will outlast their life, it's apparent when they die. On the day when Alexander the Great, or Caesar Augustus, or Napoleon, or Socrates, or Muhammad died, their reputations were immense. When Jesus died, his tiny, failed movement appeared clearly at an end.

It's not that we have two different kinds of Islam. I acknowledge the fact that we have two kinds of people. There are moderate Muslims and non-moderate Muslims. But there is really only one Islam, and this is the Islam of the life of Muhammad, of the Quran, of the Hadiths, of the Sunnah.

I dedicate some of my power to Mike Tyson. I watched a lot of film on Mike Tyson. Then we started taking notes on Muhammad Ali. We took notes on Sugar Ray Leonard. What was that fighter known for? Why was he so difficult to beat in his time, in his era and, you know, why was he at the top?

I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter.

My dad was a prize fighter in his youth. My boxing skills are very limited. I did train for most of my youth but couldn't really see the point of getting punched in the head. I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I do enjoy the sport in its purest form. As a child, my heroes were my dad and Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali was unquestionably one of the greatest boxers of the 20th century and a sincere advocate for his religious beliefs. In his life, he defeated the best professional boxers of his era, some of them more than once, which meant he was easily forgiven the excesses of his ringside braggadocio.

Muhammad Ali inside the ring and Muhammad Ali outside the ring were totally different men; his abrasive, magnetic daring and infectious self-love outside the ring galvanized the world and distracted many from his sniper's precision. He was a heavyweight with the fluttering gracefulness of a middleweight.

I used to bodyguard for Muhammad Ali, Leon Spinks, Sugar Ray Leonard. I used to bodyguard a lot of diamond merchants; I would travel with a suitcase full of diamonds and take them from point A to point B. My reputation grew because I was a professional. I did my job, and I was courteous - a no-nonsense guy.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad taught us to eat fish during the month of Ramadan. He is breaking us away from meats. That was a wonderful way to do it and use the month of Ramadan for fish. I did that too during one of my Ramadan's. We would just eat fish.Breaking away from land animals is a right thing to do.

I brought Muhammad Ali to North Korea in 1995. I tried that once. It didn't work out quite that well for me as it did for Dennis Rodman, but I brought Muhammad Ali to Pyongyang, North Korea, as part of a big wrestling event called the World Peace Festival. It was a two-day event that drew over 350,000 people.

I was like, 'Prince, prince. Prince Ali. People know that from 'Aladdin.' I'm a big fan of Muhammad Ali. I can't be Muhammad Ali. I'm looking up royal - Mustafa. Mustafa's a royal name. Prince Mustafa, OK fine.' Prince Mustafa Ali came from that, and it's an easier name for people to remember, too: Prince Ali.

The name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world - Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon - there are more Muhammads than anything else. When I joined the Nation of Islam and became a Muslim, they gave me the most famous name because I was the champ.

While no Muslim worthy of his name would lose his respect for God, the Prophet Muhammad, and other symbols of Islam, he might well refrain from using legal prosecution or violent reaction to those who do not show the same respect. My basis for this claim is nothing other than the holiest source of Islam, the Quran.

Many of the greatest Cuban boxing champions since the revolution triumphed on the island resisted the temptation to leave Cuba and, in some cases, defied any suggestion they were tempted in the first place. Most famously, Teofilo Stevenson rejected multi-million dollar offers to leave his island to fight Muhammad Ali.

My dream is to leave this business on my own terms, and if it were my terms, I would love to do the Royal Rumble. I would love to do Wrestle Mania in New Orleans, because I had so many matches there over the years working for Mid-South. I was in the ring with Muhammad Ali in the Superdome. To close it there would be great.

I've been many times to Dubai and the U.A.E., and I have friends that live there. It would be exciting to stage world heavyweight championship fights in the Arab world. It's something Muhammad Ali achieved when he fought in Zaire or the Philippines. It's absolutely exciting to fight in countries where you have never fought.

There's no question that O.J. Simpson had been a substitute white man in America. He had gained honorary white status. He was not viewed by many white Americans as black. He was not seen as the African American athlete who was rebellious: Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali, Hank Aaron... He was accepted in golf clubs that were very tony.

I have the Midas touch, in the way that when I hook up with a project, I feel, not speaking cocky or conceited, but there's a confidence I have. I learned that from Muhammad Ali; I used to bodyguard him. He taught me about confidence. So when it comes to any job I work, I'm gonna do it good; I'm going to bring it over the top.

We fought in 1974 - that was a long time ago. After 1981, we became the best of friends. By 1984, we loved each other. I am not closer to anyone else in this life than I am to Muhammad Ali. Why? We were forged by that first fight in Zaire, and our lives are indelibly linked by memories and photographs, as young men and old men.

Had Elijah Muhammad tried to introduce an orthodox form of Arab-oriented Islam, I doubt if he would have attracted 500 people, but he introduced a form of Islam that would communicate with the people he had to deal with. He was the king to those who had no king, and he was the messiah to those some people thought unworthy of a messiah.

I want to be remembered as the man who changed the pay scale for featherweights, who put the sparkle back in boxing after Muhammad Ali left, the man who took risks with his ring entrance, the man who, before the fight, would do a front flip into the ring without even thinking about turning an ankle, and then knocking his man out. I mean out.

Muhammad Ali struck us in the middle of America's darkest night, in the heart of its most threatening gathering storm. His power toppled the mightiest of foes, and his intense light shined on America, and we were able to see clearly injustice, inequality, poverty, pride, self realization, courage, laughter, love, joy and religious freedom for all.

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