It's been interesting to observe the fanfare surrounding the late boxer Mohammed Ali; it's a landscape of near universal praise and adulation but as so often in life things are not always entirely as they appear to be. Not only did Ali convert to Islam after he fell out with US authorities over the Vietnam daft, but he converted to a totally wacky branch of the religion called the Nation of Islam. Invented in the USA it's a sect that seems to follow some kind of weird mash up of Scientology, Islam-lite and the prophetic (unsurprisingly it's current leader is supposedly a prophet) with smatterings of Antisemitism alongside UFOs for good measure.
The sect also claim that white people were "created" by a black man called Yakub 6,600 years ago from some form of selective breeding programme to be a "race of devils". As is convention with weird religious sects the NOI claim that their teachings are "confirmed by modern science", this claim is laughable of course, either they know less than nothing about actual science or as is the case with most religions of this kind they hold their followers in utter contempt and are quite happy to push good will and credulity to the maximum whilst no doubt fleecing them of resources in the here and now as they go. Ali himself held (at least in his early life) some very suspect ideas on race (which he seemed to conflate with skin colour) and Women who he felt were the property of men (a common bronze-age idea)
The man was evidently a superb athlete and a skilled practitioner of his sport, ironically it was this (and not the white-devils) that got him in the end, shame he didn't get out while he still had a reasonably healthy brain. What with his charisma, fake religion and anti-scientific beliefs, I'm sure he could of had a great career in US politics.
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