Muhammad Ali is still the indisputable heavyweight boxing champion and favorite of the whole world, the king of the ring, and the greatest boxer of all times. Today at age 59, Ali can still toss punches with the same strength and effect as he did when I first met him at age 25.

He recently delivered a stunning punch that knocked down his opponents flat over the twisted rubble of what was prior to the tragic day of Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center.

When Ali went to pray for the thousands who lost their lives or were injured�white, yellow, red and Black�at the site of the collapsed twin towers in the aftermath of the jetliner assault by presumably Muslim terrorists, Christian and Jewish reporters asked how he felt about the suspects sharing his Islamic faith. "How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?" the champ responded, in astounding speed, with a heavy blow that left his opponents dazzled and unconscious.

Ali was kind, gentle and pleasant as always! He chose to stop the fight after one sentence in the first round in respect to the many innocents who have perished as a result of U.S. policy that is cruel and damaging to weaker and less fortunate nations.

Ali is not a Harvard graduate!  As a matter of fact he has no college education. But when he speaks, professors of all universities do listen!  As a student of his leader, the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the founder of the Nation of Islam, no one can lecture Ali about religion, history and politics.  Ali knows Christianity very well.  He was born into Christianity, grew up in Christianity, and has first hand experience of Christianity as practiced in the West.  In the name of Christianity, Blacks were led in chains to cultivate the land, construct the roads, build the cities, and make life more comfortable and enjoyable for white folks in America�a land stolen after virtually exterminating its indigenous inhabitants. One hundred million young Africans have been murdered by white Christians and Jews in the hunt for slaves.  Ten Blacks were slain for every man or woman that was captured alive.

Ali represented the United States in the Olympic games and came back from Italy with a gold medal that he won for America. When he returned home and sat at the counter of a stinky five-and-dime restaurant in Louisville, Ky., to order a soda and burger, Ali was ordered to leave at once. The waitress, not impressed by the golden trophy dangling from his neck, looked at Ali: "Sorry, we don�t serve coloreds," she shouted in his face.  He went to a bridge and tossed the medal into the river. That gold medal didn�t mean a thing to me if my Black brothers and sisters were treated wrong in a country I was supposed to represent, Ali insisted.

Later, after he discovered his true identity and true religion, which gave him peace, tranquility and dignity, Ali tossed away the cross of racism and arrogance.  He returned to Islam, the religion of his ancestors, which the slave masters forced them to abandon. There Ali saw all colors to be beautiful. All people stand naked before God as equal. Islam forbids Muslims to be aggressors. But it also orders them to resist and fight tyranny and aggression only if peaceful means were tried but didn�t work.

When the champ, in the ring, declared that he was no longer Cassius Clay, the name he inherited from the master, and that his name would be Muhammad Ali, a holy name, he infuriated almost all whites in America.  On May 12, 1967, when he announced his refusal for military induction to entertain U.S. troops in Vietnam, since his religion forbids him from serving in a genocidal war against people who yearn to be free, united and independent, Ali became the most hated figure in the land of the free and the brave.

Minutes later, his boxing license was suspended and Ali was stripped of his heavyweight title, though the man had not been charged or arrested for violating the Selective Service Act�much less convicted. Eventually Ali was sentenced to five years in prison, released on appeal, and his conviction overturned three years later.

Ali is not an ordinary boxing champion as some may think.  As a man of peace and spirituality, he went to the World Trade Center in Manhattan and prayed for all Americans and non-Americans, as he prays almost daily for all humans, dead or alive, including 22 million Iraqis who for the last 11 years have been subjected to inhumane sanctions imposed by America in violation of international law and the Geneva Conventions�that regard starvation and collective punishment to be weapons of mass destruction and war crimes against humanity.

Ali realizes that the lives of the 250,000 Iraqis who perished as a result of the Second Gulf War 10 years ago are no less valuable than the Americans and other nationals who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on New York and Washington.  The agony of Iraqis over the one million children murdered due to starvation and disease caused by the U.S. imposed sanctions is no less painful than the Westerners who suffered similar losses in wars to control the world.

Ali also studied Judaism and the Zionist ideology that calls upon Jews to clear Palestinian land from the snakes, in reference to its Arab Muslim and Christian inhabitants. He is well aware of the atrocities committed daily by the Israelis against the Palestinians. Ali agrees with Arnold Toynbe, the 20th century�s most renown historian, that Jews who claim to have suffered at the hands of the Nazis should have learned from their past experiences. Ali prays for Jews who were murdered by European Christians, as well as for Palestinians, particularly children, who are subjected to extermination by Jews who use the ugliest forms of terrorism in the name of Judaism.

Ali grieves for the victims of the terrorist attacks on the United States.  He also grieves for the millions of men, women and children all over the globe who were murdered as a result of wars instigated by American big business, particularly oil companies and weapon manufacturing corporations.

Again, free advice from someone who knows Muhammad Ali.  Beware! Ali must not be taken lightly! Our champ still dances in the ring, floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee!