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MUHAMMAD ALI, RIP; Carl Davidson; Facebook; June 4, 2016.
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”
On his Facebook page, Carl Davidson (KD) of Beaver County Reds (BCR) wrote, “MUHAMMAD ALI, RIP, not only a great athlete, but also a brother who paid his dues in the struggle to end the war in Vietnam.” Accompanying KD’s comment is a link to a speech Muhammad Ali (MA) presented.
It’s an unrelated topic, but MA supported President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 reelection, as did Joe Frazier and Floyd Patterson.
Initially, MA had nothing to worry about because he flunked the Army’s IQ test, twice. Unfortunately for MA, however, Democrat LBJ’s continuing escalation of the Vietnam War made it necessary for the Army to lower the minimum acceptable test score in order to meet its manpower needs. As a result, MA’s previous flunk became a pass, making him eligible for service.
You’ll note KD didn’t say why MA refused to serve. Here are a couple of excerpts from the Supreme Court ruling in “Cassius Marsellus CLAY, Jr. also known as Muhammad Ali, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES.”
“He [MA] testified that he was ‘sincere in every bit of what the Holy Qur’an and the teachings of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad tell us and it is that we are not to participate in wars on the side of nobody who—on the side of non believers, and this is a Christian country and this is not a Muslim country, and the Government and the history and the facts shows that every more toward the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is made to distort and is made to ridicule him and is made to condemn him and the Government has admitted that the police of Los Angeles were wrong about attacking and killing our brothers and sisters and they were wrong in Newark, New Jersey, and they were wrong in Louisiana, and the outright, every day oppressors and enemies are the people as a whole, the whites of this nation. So, we are not, according to the Holy Qur’an, to even as much as aid in passing a cup of water to the—even a wounded. I mean, this is in the Holy Qur’an, and as I said earlier, this is not me talking to get the draft board—or to dodge nothing. This is there before I was borned and it will be there when I’m dead but we believe in not only that part of it, but all of it.’”
The Elijah Muhammad (EM) MA spoke of was the head of the Nation of Islam (NOI). When MA switched from Christianity (Baptist) to Islam in the early 1960s, he joined the NOI, identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. According to the SPLC, “Since its founding in 1930, the Nation of Islam (NOI) has grown into one of the wealthiest and best-known organizations in black America, offering numerous programs and events designed to uplift African Americans. Nonetheless, its bizarre theology of innate black superiority over whites — a belief system vehemently and consistently rejected by mainstream Muslims — and the deeply racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay rhetoric of its leaders, including top minister Louis Farrakhan, have earned the NOI a prominent position in the ranks of organized hate.”
“At another point he [MA] testified: ‘(T)he Holy Qur’an do teach us that we do not take part of—in any part of war unless declared by Allah himself, or unless it’s an Islamic World War, or a Holy War, and it goes as far—the Holy Qur’an is talking still, and saying we are not to even as much as aid the infidels or the nonbelievers in Islam, even to as much as handing them a cup of water during battle.’
“‘So, this is the teachings of the Holy Qur’an before I was born, and the Qur’an, we follow not only that part of it, but every part.’ The Koran defines jihad as an injunction to the believers to war against non-believers.”
Twice MA mentioned circumstances under which the Koran and the NOI prohibited Muslims from participating in war.
First, MA testified, “we are not to participate in wars on the side of nobody who—on the side of non believers, and this is a Christian country and this is not a Muslim country.”
Second, MA testified the Koran forbids Muslims from taking any part in any war “unless declared by Allah himself, or unless it’s an Islamic World War, or a Holy War.” To drive the point home, MA testified the Koran wouldn’t even allow him to give water to wounded “infidels or the nonbelievers in Islam.”
Translation: MA testified he could not fight for the U.S. under any circumstances as long as it is not a “Muslim country.” Further, if MA participated in a war “declared by Allah himself, … an Islamic World War, or a Holy War,” the Koran would forbid him to care for non-Muslim prisoners of war and non-Muslim wounded, whether combatants or not.
All of this leads to the following question. Would MA have refused to serve in the Vietnam War if the U.S. were a “Muslim country?” What about the Civil War?
This raises an important issue for today. If, as it appears MA testified, Islam prohibits Muslims from military service in any non-Muslim country, how can Muslims serve in the U.S. military? Was MA wrong about this aspect of Islam, or do the different branches of Islam have different policies on this issue?
MA switched from the NOI to Sunni Islam in 1975. I don’t know how the teachings of Sunni Islam differ from those of the NOI.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
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