ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the meaning of sport within the Nation of Islam and the role of Muhammad Ali in promoting sport and the Islamic religion during the 1960s. Despite the Nation of Islam's eagerness to embrace Ali and the promotional potential his success inspired, tensions arose as a result of their philosophy of sport, compounded by conflicts between Ali's religious and athletic identities. The chapter examines these pressures and provides insight into the various ways that sport and, in this context, the athletic achievements of Muhammad Ali were used to symbolise Black Islamic identity and retain the religious and political integrity of the Nation of Islam. Ali presented an opportunity to further the cause of the Nation, promising a healthy increase in recruits as well as a larger market for its message, as promulgated in Muhammad Speaks. Wiggins has analysed the rift that developed between Muhammad Ali and Elijah Muhammad which surfaced in the pages of Muhammad Speaks.
