Ali Muhammad - Muhammad Ali : his life and times

For Howard Bingham, theres no one like him.

In October 1988, I met with Muhammad Ali and his wife, Lonnie, at their request to explore the possibility of writing this book. People dont know the real Muhammad, Lonnie told me at our first session. All they see is the man the media has exposed them to, but there are so many more sides to Muhammad. He has deep personal convictions, and lives up to those convictions every day. Hes gentle and caring with a heart purer than any Ive ever known. I want people to understand who Muhammad is, what he stands for, and what hes accomplished throughout his life.

Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times is an attempt to achieve that goal. There have been more words written about, more photographs taken of, and more attention lavished upon Ali than any athlete ever. Yet for all his years in the spotlight, the true Ali is largely unknown. Stories about him have been embellished and retold to the point where they assume biblical proportions. People worldwide recognize his face. Yet, even as the Ali chronicles grow, new generations are born, and to them Ali is more legend than reality, part of Americas distant past. Indeed, for millions of young men and women today, the name Cassius Marcellus Clay is unknownand thats a shame, because to understand Ali, one must understand where he came from.

This book is not an attempt to mythologize Ali. Its an effort to show him as he was and is: a superb human being with good qualities and flaws. In his twenties, he was arguably the greatest fighter of all time. But more importantly, he reflected and shaped the social and political currents of the age in which he reigned. Ali in the 1960s stood for the proposition that principles mattered, that equality among people was just and proper, that the war in Vietnam was wrong. Inevitably, the sixties passed. Ali evolved from a feared warrior to a benevolent monarch and ultimately to a benign venerated figure. He is today a deeply religious man, who evokes feelings of respect and love wherever he travels throughout the world.

In preparing this book, Ive had a very special opportunity and also a special obligation. Ive spent thousands of hours with Ali, the members of his family, his associates, and his friends. I believe Muhammad has been completely honest with me, and to the extent that people have related stories that might be critical of him for use in this book, its not a case of telling tales out of school. Rather, Muhammad has personally asked each contributor to this project to be fully candid and open. Like most authors, I relied on a wide range of sources. Space does not allow me to list all the archival material and publications reviewed. However, Im particularly indebted to the many individuals listed in the who granted interviews for this project.

Throughout the manuscript, a variety of opinions are expressed. I would like to remind readers of the distinction between opinion and fact, and note that I dont necessarily agree with every statement quoted. Rather, Ive sought to incorporate as many divergent views as possible. Whenever a quotation appears in the manuscript, Ive indicated its source in the Notes at the end of the book unless it comes from an interview conducted specifically for the book. I have often joined separate quotations from the same speaker and excerpted statements to facilitate reporting on a particular thought or event. This editing has been necessary to accommodate the hundreds of speakers whose voices are heard and who cover the full scope of Alis life. Im confident that in so doing Ive done nothing to distort what was said or otherwise compromise the fairness of the book. In reporting on the early years of Alis life, Ive employed the name Cassius Clay, not as a sign of disrespect but because its the name Ali himself used and was known by then. To avoid confusion, Ive tried to remain constant in the use of other names throughout the book. For example, Belinda Ali has changed her name to Khalilah Ali and Herbert Muhammad is now known as Jabir Muhammad. But most people I interviewed referred to them by their original names, and I have used those names for reasons of clarity. Again, no disrespect is intended.

Let me also add a word about Muhammads health. That subject is dealt with extensively in the later pages of the book, but it was a threshold issue for me before becoming involved. Like millions of people, Id seen Muhammad on television in recent years. Sometimes he looked well. Other times, his face was frozen; he moved slowly; the life seemed all but gone from his eyes. I didnt want to involve myself in this project unless Muhammad wanted it and was capable of making a significant contribution to the recounting of his life. And toward that end, before making a commitment, I spent five days with Muhammad and Lonnie Ali at their home in Michigan. It was the first of many times we spent together, and I was enormously relieved by what I found. Muhammads speech is not what it once was, but his thought processes are still clear. His memory is good; his mind is sharp. And despite his physical difficulties, Muhammad is healthier, happier, more alert, and more content than most people realize. He enjoys his life; he believes hes doing Gods work, and hes as satisfied with each day as anybody I know.

Thomas Hauser

New York, N.Y.

Each day at 5:00 A.M., a forty-nine-year-old man rises from bed on a small farm in Berrien Springs, Michigan. Quietly, as mandated by the Quran, he washes himself with clear running water. Then he puts on clean clothes, faces Makkah with his hands at his sides, and says to himself, I intend to perform the morning prayer as ordered by Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. Outside, it is dark. The only sounds are the wind in winter and the blending of birds and insects when the weather is warm. The man changes position. Allahu Akbar. Pure and glorified are You, O Allah. Blessed is Your Name and exalted is Your Majesty, and there is nothing worthy of worship except You. I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed.

The man is Muhammad Ali, the most recognizable person on earth. For half a century, he has walked among us, his face as familiar as that of a close friend. Somewhere in time, he captured a blend of mayhem and magic that carried him deep into the collective psyche of us all. The world didnt just see or hear Ali; it felt him. And if he hasnt always been part of the landscape, it somehow seems that way now.

One of lifes lessons is that dreams and fantasies arent bound by the same rules as reality, but time and again Ali made them coincide. In the ring, he was the most beautiful fighting machine ever assembled. One mark of a great champion is the ability to win his title at a young age and hold on to it until hes old. When Ali made his professional debut, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States, and several countries in which he later fought didnt exist at all. Ali fought through the terms of seven presidents, holding center stage for twenty years. In all of boxing history, only two men won the heavyweight championship at a younger age. And only one prevailed in a heavyweight title bout when he was older than Ali, who at thirty-six years eight months toppled Leon Spinks to recapture his crown. All told, Ali challenged for the heavyweight championship five times and successfully defended it on nineteen occasions. And in the process, he altered the consciousness of people the world over. Ali was black and proud of it at a time when many black Americans were running from their color. He was, to some, the greatest hero to come out of the Vietnam War. With the exception of Martin Luther King, no black man in America had more influence than Ali during the years when Ali was in his prime.