{"id":50560,"date":"2016-06-04T22:59:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T22:59:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50560"},"modified":"2016-06-04T22:59:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T22:59:38","slug":"the-champ-knockouts-protests-sufism-and-the-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=50560","title":{"rendered":"The Champ: knockouts, protests, sufism and the man"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; Muhammad Ali ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The knockout:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Obviously, the champ was a knockout &#8212; and this photo is almost certainly the loveliest photo of a sporting event I have ever seen &#8212; victory and defeat in perfect symmetry:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ali-mandala-of-victory-1.jpeg\" alt=\"Ali mandala of victory\" width=\"599\" height=\"606\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50568\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ali-mandala-of-victory-1.jpeg 599w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Ali-mandala-of-victory-1-297x300.jpeg 297w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, 599px\" \/><br \/>Neil Leifer\/Sports Illustrated\/Getty Images via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/gallery\/2014\/oct\/30\/muhammad-ali-25-best-photographs-cassius-clay-legendary-boxer\">The Guardian<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>The protestor<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/quote-there-is-one-hell-of-a-difference-between-fighting-in-the-ring-and-going-to-war-in-vietnam-muhammad-ali.jpg\" alt=\"quote-there-is-one-hell-of-a-difference-between-fighting-in-the-ring-and-going-to-war-in-vietnam-muhammad-ali\" width=\"600\" height=\"280\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50566\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/quote-there-is-one-hell-of-a-difference-between-fighting-in-the-ring-and-going-to-war-in-vietnam-muhammad-ali.jpg 600w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/quote-there-is-one-hell-of-a-difference-between-fighting-in-the-ring-and-going-to-war-in-vietnam-muhammad-ali-300x140.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>The sufi:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/faiths\/islam\/2005\/02\/muhammad-alis-new-spiritual-quest.aspx\">How did your dad come to embrace Sufi Islam, and what attracts him to it?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>My father has a collection of books by a man named <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s?ie=UTF8&#038;page=1&#038;rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3AHazrat%20Inayat%20Khan\">Hazrat Inayat Khan<\/a>. They&#8217;re Sufi teachings. He read them front to cover. They&#8217;re old and yellow and the pages are torn. They&#8217;re amazing. He always says they&#8217;re the best books in the world.<\/p>\n<p>My father is very spiritual &#8212; more spiritual now than he is religious. It was important for him to be very religious and take the stands he did in earlier years. It was a different time. He still tries to convert people to Islam, but it&#8217;s not the same. His health and his spirituality have changed, and it&#8217;s not so much about being religious, but about going out and making people happy, doing charity, and supporting people and causes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p><strong>The man:<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/How-Ali-wld-like-to-be-remembered.jpg\" alt=\"How Ali wld like to be remembered\" width=\"500\" height=\"428\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-50582\" srcset=\"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/How-Ali-wld-like-to-be-remembered.jpg 500w, https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/How-Ali-wld-like-to-be-remembered-300x257.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>May he cross the bridge and attain the lake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; Muhammad Ali ] . The knockout: Obviously, the champ was a knockout &#8212; and this photo is almost certainly the loveliest photo of a sporting event I have ever seen &#8212; victory and defeat in perfect symmetry: Neil Leifer\/Sports Illustrated\/Getty Images via The Guardian ** The protestor ** The sufi: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,1364,753,164,719,714,1,227,229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-civil-rights","category-islam","category-obit","category-sports","category-sufi","category-uncategorized","category-vietnam","category-vietnam-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50560"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50585,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50560\/revisions\/50585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}