After a Series of Meetings and Lessons,

Clay secretly joined “The Nation of Islam”

Cassius : I did not like to let people know my joining of

“Elijah Muhammad’s Community” for fear of losing the

opportunity of preserving my World Boxing Championship

Before joining "The Nation of Islam" organization, Cassius Clay believed that no one joined "The Nation of Islam" foolishly or for fun. This is why he did not rush in announcing his affiliation with the organization. On the contrary, he feigned not giving attention to the study of its principles and teachings till he was completely convinced that it was time to join it. Consequently, Clay continued attending the meetings of Elijah Muhammad’s community in Mississippi for a period of time, listening to its speakers regularly and attending its lessons before committing himself to joining it. All this in preparation of learning Islamic principles and teachings with a view to embracing Islam out of conviction and faith, for Islam appeared to him, since the beginning, as a religion of freedom and peace. After tasting the sweetness of faith and saying the Shahadatain, as well as learning the teachings of Islam in terms of religious observances and transactions, he admitted that Islam is a religion that covers all aspects of life.

Elijah Muhammad’s teachings were based on the fact that Allah defended the blacks and would grant them victory over the whites, as the former were victims while the latter were transgressors : “And soon will the unjust know what vicissitudes their affairs will take !” (Surat Ash-Shu`araa, Verse 227). These teachings instilled into the blacks a spirit of eminent salvation and hope in the future. If they turned to Allah, believing in Him and in the Message of Islam, He would not forsake them, rather they would find Him when they needed Him. This is why Clay set out to learn these principles, study these teachings and think about their meanings during his faith journey which led him to embracing Islam.

Cassius Clay knew that joining Elijah Muhammad’s community meant a complete respect of its teachings and a regular attendance of its lessons. So, he did not want to make such commitments before thinking about them, studying them in depth and being subsequently convinced of the fact that being committed to the "Nation of Islam" required fulfilling obligatory duties. This is why he feigned not being interested in joining it before Allah threw the light of faith into his heart.

At that period, the star of Clay started to rise constantly in boxing, which made him the focus of attention of the various American media. The American journalist Huston Horn said in this respect : “Clay thought that joining “the Nation of Islam” organization was not easy or for fun. This is why he tried to hide his intention from the various media in the beginning. He thus had recourse to disguising his true feelings toward “The Nations of Islam”.

Horn continued : “I remember that I met Clay in 1961 when I went to Louisville to spend some days with him and his family so as to make a media report about him. The second time I met him, he was on his way to Miami to get some training in preparation for a boxing match. We met in New Orleans airport and there was enough time before our flight was due so we went together to a bar to have some beer ; I remember that the beer was served to me in a glass while it was served to him in a paper glass. When serving him, the waiter said ‘This is for the boy’, meaning Clay. I was embarrassed and angered by this treatment, but he was not affected by this at all – at least, he did not show me his irritation by this treatment. He said that he was accustomed to such kind of treatment.”

Horn went on to say : “When we arrived in Miami, Clay checked the hotel where his coach Angelo Dundy had booked a room for him. He found out that it was in the city quarters reserved for Blacks. It was a bad hotel that did not rise to the level of a sports star like Clay. As to me, I found that a room had been booked for me in a hotel at Miami Beach. Thus, I was embarrassed, for the second time during this trip, by the treatment reserved for Clay in Miami. I tried to be courteous to him by going with him to his hotel, but the latter was no more than a hostel which was not good. This is why I could not stay with Clay in his hotel so I decided to move to my hotel at Miami Beach. Whenever I remember this incident I feel ashamed of myself, but this is what I did. In spite of this incident and other similar incidents, when I heard that Clay joined the Black Muslims, I had a feeling of disappointment and betrayal because of his affiliation with "The Nation of Islam". In fact, you see a white Christian in a negative way when you are a black person. But I sympathize with the blacks from the point of view of Martin Luther King and not from that of Elijah Muhammad, whom I considered as an evil man.”

Abdurrahman, whom Elijah Muhammad had sent to Miami to help “The Nation of Islam” community there, said : “I started to teach Cassius the tricks of the white man and how we, as blacks, became slaves and were skilfully deceived by the white man in this country. I started to talk to him about the African empires and how these great empires were in their heyday when the whites were still living in caves. I talked to him about them directly as if they were real, in the same way I would teach any other person. The only difference between him and the other brothers came from the nature of his job: being a professional boxer. He was not assigned the same duties within the mosque; otherwise, he was treated like everybody else.”

Abdurrahman continued : “We ate together in a well-known restaurant in Miami. When I sat with Clay for the first time, I noticed that nobody had taught him not to eat pork; it was not difficult to make him abstain from that. He did not use to drink wine, smoke cigarettes or take drugs, which made it easy for me to deal with him. He did not find it difficult to change the food he ate in accordance with Islamic teachings. He used to sit there listening in order to learn. Clay was an attractive young man ; all that he wanted was the blacks’ acquisition of their rights. Clay seemed to be resolved to learn more about the teachings of Elijah Muhammad’s community and about Islamic principles.”

Jeremiah Shabazz said : “After spending a whole month with "The Nation of Islam" group he was sent to convert his brother Rudolf (Ramadan), who changed his name to Ramadan after becoming a Muslim. Ramadan was more enthusiastic than Cassius because the latter was cautious in the beginning. Yet after faith had entered his heart, he became a full member of the community. In the beginning, he was sceptical and very inquisitive about the teachings and the lessons he listened to, for he wanted to understand what he listened to and ponder over it so as to reach a decision by looking at it from different angles, while Ramadan was easily convinced from the start. The moment he listened to these sermons, Ramadan yielded to them and deemed their content to be true. Though Cassius was the first to be interested in "The Nation of Islam", Ramadan was more active and committed with regard to the group. Furthermore, Ramadan actually joined the community before Cassius. When Cassius joined "the Nation of Islam", we chose to celebrate this occasion, because we felt that Cassius would be a boxing champion in the near future and because he had become a celebrity in the United States. Every member of the group was very happy about this, especially those who lived in the South of The United States of America, since the majority of the brothers (The Nation of Islam) in the North of U.S. had no knowledge about him, except a smaller number of those who follow the news of boxing. At that time Elijah Muhammad was the most hated person among the Whites and also among those known then as the black leadership. We knew that if Cassius were to announce his membership of "The Nation of Islam" publicly through the media, he would not be allowed to take part in the World Heavyweight Championship fight. This is why we decided that he should keep his feeling and faith to himself, which was the safest way to allow him to continue his boxing activities. Actually, Elijah Muhammad himself did not give any importance to Cassius’s membership in "The Nation of Islam" in the beginning. For when I phoned John Ali, the Secretary of the Organization to let him know that the boxer Cassius attended our meetings, I was scolded at first for giving importance to a boxer. Elijah Muhammad told me : ‘I sent you to the South to make people embrace Islam and not to have fun with boxers.’”

Cassius said : “For three years and till my fight with Sonny Liston, I had been attending the meetings of the "Nation of Islam" community from the back door. I did not want to let people know about my presence there ; I feared that if they knew, I would lose the chance of fighting for championship. I was filled with the fear of losing the opportunity of holding the world championship title. After that I learnt how to defend my beliefs. Since then, my beliefs changed, among which is the fact that hearts and souls have no colour, namely that blacks and whites are the same, and there is no difference between them.” This was in complete contradiction with the teachings of Elijah Muhammad, who focused on instilling hatred for the whites in the hearts of the blacks. Clay said : “I knew this, but Elijah Muhammad was a good man though he was not a messenger (as his followers claimed) and as we used to believe. If you look at how our people (the blacks) were before the coming of Elijah Muhammad, most of us did not have self esteem ; we had neither banks nor shops ; and we possessed nothing after having settled in America for hundreds of years. Elijah Muhammad tried to raise our people from the lowest level by making them wear decent clothes, by teaching them good manners in terms of eating habits and by explaining to them the bad effects of wine and drugs. But I think that he was wrong when he said that the Whites were devils. Yet, one of the things he did was to make people feel that it is good to be black. I don’t apologize for what I believed. Today, I have become wiser as a result of my age and experience ; it is the same with many of my black brothers.”

In 1961, Captain Sam Saxon (Abdurrahman) became close to Clay and started to travel with him outside of Miami. In early 1962, Shabazz started to give Islamic food for the boxer Clay so as to make sure that the latter ate his food in accordance with the food system of "The Nation of Islam". In the same year, Clay went from Miami to Detroit to listen to the speech of Elijah Muhammad which he delivered before a large number of people in Detroit for the first time. The trip was the more important, since Clay met Malcolm X in Detroit for the first time.