No man in the history of the game has achieved the stats and/or status of Kareem Abdul Jabar. He is the one and only, the incomparable team player whose achievements are a testimony to what one can achieve when you are not in the game alone. He is a good American. His religion of choice and practice is Islam. He's been a devout Muslim decades. "I don’t think I would have been able to be as successful as I was as an athlete if it were not for Islam. It gave me a moral anchor, it enabled me to not be materialistic, it enabled me to see more what was important in the world."
Despite America having close allies that are primarily Muslim nations, and Muslims serving with pride in our armed services, and as elected representatives in our American government, there is still anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from talk show hosts in the land of the free.
American Muslims outnumber Christian Scientists, Unitarians, Seventh-day Adventists, Quakers, Mennonites, and Jehovah’s Witnesses combined. The American Muslim population is also larger than that of the Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, and the Mormons. Now that Islam has replaced Judaism as the "minority religion to hate" in America, we can see that the level of prejudice in the good ol' US of A is just as repellent as ever. Even the flood in New Orleans was used as an excuse to insult and defame fellow American citizens on the basis of religious affiliation. The latest smear campaign is the nonsense that no Muslim has given a donation to help the victims of the New Orleans tragedy. I was not aware that donations to relief organizations required reporting of ones religious affiliation, and that an accounting was made based on your method of worship. Strange thing is, of course, that the same people who rant and rage against those who embrace the Faith of Islam are also big fans of basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar.