Ali and Malcolm: Developing The Victorious Muslim Mindset

1) Confidence is being Muslim

“Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.” ― Muhammad Ali

Both Ali and Malcolm X were bold, courageous, and outspoken Muslims who never missed the opportunity to show others that they were Muslim. It’s quite unfortunate that, due to the immense amount of Islamophobia, many Muslims are walking around with their heads hung low and always on the defensive and apologetic about being Muslim, acting down with low self-esteem in their faith. I’ve heard shocking stories about young Muslims telling their parents that they no longer wanted to be Muslims simply because of the bullying they experienced at school. This was not the way of Ali.

In a televised debate, Ali told the journalist he was debating, “Your knowledge is nothing to a Muslim,” demonstrating immense pride in his Islamic faith as a civilization that pioneered and made numerous advancements in the distribution of knowledge.In order to be confident Muslims, we must know our history and be proud of it: It was the Islamic scholar Ibn Haytham who was the pioneer of the scientific method and whose work Isaac newton studied. It was Ibn Khaldun who was the pioneer of sociology. It was the great Islamic scholar Muhammad Ibn musa Al-Khwarzmi who is considered the father of algebra and trigonometry, and who introduced the decimal positional system to the European world. If we aren’t’ confident in being Muslim and are always on the defensive, we can never be develop a victorious Muslim mindset.