“When Allah is with you, nobody can beat you, nobody, you have to believe this.” This isn’t an excerpt of a speech given by some religious scholar nor is it a Friday sermon; these are the words of the undefeated hero of the Light Weight Fight (LWF) and Mix Martial Arts (MMA) – Khabib Nurmagomedov. The man who exited the ring with his head held high in all the 29 times he went in; in the last 12 years, there wasn’t a single fight that he lost. On October 25, 2020, he defeated Justin Gaethje in Abu Dhabi, thus becoming the titleholder in the UFC.
Khabib stood firmly for his principles and morals in a profession where most people aren’t even aware of anything called morality; in a field where the people had forgotten God for long, Khabib proudly held his belief. In the ring where everyone is concerned about showing his attitude and grabbing the entire credit, Khabib proclaimed loudly: “The most important for us is to stay connected with Allah. Doesn’t matter what happens with you, you always have to pray. You always have to stay humble and focused and stay connected with Allah. This is very important for us.”
Khabib is a native of Dagestan, a place where Russia has spent decades trying to wipe out the Islamic identity of its people, but the conviction with which these people held their religion firmly is unmatched and we see a glimpse of that in Khabib. The current world is one based on advertising and publicity, anything that becomes a part of fashion gets widely accepted by the masses.
Sportsmen, actors, and other celebrities determine what would be called decent and civilized and what not. Unfortunately, these so-called celebrities in no sense deserved to be made heroes; they facilitated the deteriorating morality of the society and the diminishing spirituality in our youth.
The question that arises is: Where were the decent people? Why didn’t they come forward in such fields? Why did they stay out of the celebrity circle? It was because the practising Muslims had some reservations against such activities and thus lagged in them; on the other hand, those who excelled in such sports thought of religion as a heavy burden to get rid of and they did never publicly declare their religious affiliations.
Khabib realised that this boundary had to be brought down! He knew that there was no contradiction between practising religion and excelling in such sports at the same time. Thus, he entered the ring with unshaken faith, declaring the might of God and denying any credit to himself, when he gets the podium, he talks politely and decently, something unfamiliar among the boxers.
He repeats the name of the Lord despite being surrounded by hardcore atheists. One of them gets intrigued and starts swearing at Khabib and insulting his father, he also slanders against Islam but Khabib maintains his calm composure and ends the convo by challenging him to enter the ring.
He prostrates after every victory, starts his address by remembering God, and gives the credit to his parents, family, and team members instead of bragging. He has no shame in practising the ethics that Islam teaches him and refuses to shake hands with the opposite gender. His noble attitude towards his parents is also a matter of amazement for the audience, in the scenario when most of the people drop their parents in the old age homes.
Khabib showed exemplary behaviour unfathomable in the West by declaring at the zenith of his career – “I just wanted to be a champion with my father. This will be my last fight in UFC. I told my mother that I want to spend more time with her because she is the only parent I have left in this world.”
How beautiful it would have been if we had more celebrities like this! Had that been the case, kindness, love, obedience to parents, and other moral values would have replaced the shameless and selfish culture that is dominating the world.
It is a matter of concern that our religious preachers have a very limited audience. They fail to become role models the society looks up to; they are pious people detached from society, their time mostly spent with those sharing the same righteous ideology, and thus they fail to reach the wide section of masses that are ignorant and astray.
Khabib did not leave his field or detach himself from his profession to join a team of preachers in a mosque; instead, he managed to bring about a positive wave in UFC and in millions of youth around the world who watched him with enthusiasm, it’s an undeniable fact that children learn more from their heroes than they do from their teachers and preachers.
Another such celebrity who managed to bring a positive spin around millions of people is the great American boxer Mohammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr). This man could be called the brand ambassador of Islam in the USA. He participated in many TV shows and debates and boldly defended Islam and presented its correct picture in front of the world, such speeches were watched by more than a billion people across the globe.
Once, a TV anchor asked him: Do you have a bodyguard? Mohammad Ali replied: “I have one bodyguard. He has no eyes, though He sees. He has no ears, though He hears. He remembers everything with the aid of a mighty memory. Whenever He wishes to create a thing, He just orders it to be and it comes into existence. But His order is not commanded with words; which requires a tongue to follow it or the sound carrying ears. He hears the secrets of those under quiet thoughts. Who is that? That’s God. Allah. He is my bodyguard. He is your bodyguard.”
We need more such people, who can be role models for a wide audience, people who combine skills with ethics, who influence their fans positively instead of portraying a selfish, shameless, and arrogant posture. These people could act as ambassadors of Islam and morality to the entire world.