The Time Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf Saved My Student Organization From Public Shame
The following story is 100% true, so any resemblance to sitcom plotlines is entire unintentional. Trust me, we never wanted this to happen.
MSA Live: Defining Patriotism, is what we called the event. It was this thing our school’s Muslim Student Association did every year, hosting a ticketed banquet for around 300 attendees, combined with a prominent Muslim speaker. In the past, we’d hosted people like Linda Sarsour, Ibtihaj Muhammad, and Hasan Minhaj.
This time, we’d reached out to former NBA star Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a man who is known for both his athletic talent and his refusal to stand for the national anthem before games. Yes, he’s available, his agent told us over email. Yes, he’ll be there.
The day of, he was all set to come to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — the agent had assured us that everything was going as planned. So we tallied how many tickets we’d sold, we decorated the Great Hall of our student union, we picked up the catered food.
Mahmoud was set to arrive one or two hours before the event started, as guest speakers usually did, so we could give him time to recuperate after the flight. As that time approached, one of our board members messaged Mahmoud with details about what would happen when he landed — where the car would be, who would be there to pick him up. All standard procedure.
Then, as tends to happen in the most tragic of tragicomedies, Mahmoud responded with something along the lines of, salam brother — what do you mean, pick me up?
Followed by a genuinely apologetic message in which he told us, straight up, that he had no idea he was supposed to be anywhere, and that instead of on a flight to North Carolina, he was on the ground in Atlanta, GA.
Cue instant panic.
Turns out, Mahmoud’s agent hadn’t properly communicated the details of our event to him. (He’d never even seen the flyer.)
He hadn’t known that there were people coming to hear him speak from at least four different colleges in the area, not to mention several non-student community members who had driven in from out of town.
He hadn’t known that all those people were already arriving for the event — and that it was too late to cancel.
It was an event planner’s worst nightmare. In our MSA board’s group chat, we had a collective heart attack. What now? We can’t cancel everything. What do we tell the guests? What do we do? Can he Skype in? Did we really just pay $4,000 in honorarium for a Skype call?
Then Mahmoud saved all of our lives (as well as our dignity): during our brief conversation with him, he’d already bought a plane ticket for the next flight to North Carolina.
_*_
I’m no a basketball enthusiast, and before booking him as a speaker for MSA Live, I had never heard the name Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. I’m beyond disappointed in myself for this. He deserves to be known far beyond the world of basketball.
Born Chris Wayne Jackson in 1969, Mahmoud was raised by a single mother in Gulfport, Mississippi. His family was no stranger to poverty; they often struggled to get food on the table. After flunking fourth grade, he was placed in special education classes. On top of that, he lived with Tourette’s syndrome, a condition that is characterized by motor and verbal tics.
Mahmoud describes his tics in a manner that’s reminiscent of OCD: if an action “didn’t feel right” to him the first time he did it, whether it was stepping over a threshold or lacing up his sneakers, then his brain would tell him, you’ve gotta do it again.
And so he would. Over and over and over again, until he got it right.
The same went for basketball. Mahmoud recounts how he would practice free-throws: he would have a goal, around 12 shots in a row, and not a single one of them could touch the rim. If the ball grazed the hoop even slightly, his brain would demand: start over.
“Sometimes,” he recounts, “I would have to throw the basketball all the way over the fence of the court, so I’d be forced to follow it home,” before his Tourette’s could trap him beneath the hoop indefinitely.
His grueling training, however, resulted in huge rewards. His Wikipedia page boasts: “Abdul-Rauf was selected with the third pick in the 1990 NBA draft by the Denver Nuggets. In his first season in the NBA, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team. Despite the fact that he never dunked in an actual game, he participated in the 1993 NBA Slam Dunk Contest…. [He] led the league in free throw percentage in the 1993–94 and 1995–96 seasons. His free throw percentage of .956 in 1993–94 is the third highest seasonal percentage in NBA history.”
He was set for the kind of rags-to-riches story that Americans drool over. A young man with Tourette’s syndrome, overcoming an underprivileged background to become the best of the best. To have all the opportunities and money and fame a 21-year-old could ever want.
Or so it seemed, until he became Muslim.
_*_
In the Great Hall of the Student Union, the banquet table were filled up. The MCs for the night had prepared some skits, and we put them onstage, hoping that no one would notice that the star speaker they were promised hadn’t made so much as a cameo.
Mahmoud’s flight would last an hour and a half. Then it would take another 30 minutes to drive him all the way to Chapel Hill. With buffer time factored in, we’d have to keep the audience entertained for around two hours before Mahmoud would be able to give his speech.
Needless to say, the MSA board (or shurah) was a mess. During the skits and videos, we were too freaked out to laugh. When the MCs had run through all of their acts, we decided to serve dinner, hoping that food would keep people from asking too many questions. We sat on the edges of our seats, attempting to make casual conversation with friends and guests, chewing on catered biryani and salad while keeping an eye on our phones for updates.
When the food and dessert were gone, and we realized we had no more backup acts, the MSA president decided that the time had come to announce that Mistakes Were Made. Mahmoud, by then, was still en route, and wouldn’t be in Chapel Hill for another 30–45 minutes. It was time to admit to our failings.
Shurah gathered at the foot of the stage, and the MSA president went up to make the announcement.
“The minute we messaged him, he jumped on a plane and is on his way right now to North Carolina,” he said, “and that’s the kind of man you’ll be hearing tonight.”
He added, “If anyone wants a refund, just let us know — we’ll give it to you.”
No one demanded a refund. Instead, they applauded.
_*_
Not lot after he was drafted, Mahmoud — whose name was still Chris Jackson at the time — began studying the Qur’an. Talk to any convert, and they’ll highlight different aspects of the Muslim holy book that drew them into the faith. Some highlight the verses that order you to think and ask questions; some cite the messages of love and forgiveness; some point to the passages that talk about humanity’s purpose and the meaning of life.
When Mahmoud talks about the reason behind his now-infamous anthem protests, it seems that the Qur’an’s many verses on justice were what stuck with him. Stand firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, even if against yourselves… Do not spread corruption on the earth after it has been set right… Blame is only on those who wrong people and transgress in the land unjustly.
As he read verses condemning the unjust nations of history, Mahmoud drew parallels between the past and the present. Because really, was America — with its legacy of slavery, indigenous genocide, and international exploitation — so different from nations like ‘Ad and Thamud?
In his eyes, the American flag became a “symbol of oppression” and “tyranny” — something the Qur’an forbade him from paying respect to.
His protests started out subtle, just him remaining in the Denver Nuggets’ locker room during the song. Or he would stretch on the court instead of standing still. He didn’t look up at the flag, like the rest of the players would. He just sat down.
The reporters noticed, of course. When they questioned him, he said, “This country has a long history of [oppression]. I don’t think you can argue the facts. You can’t be for God and for oppression.”
Like the holy book he held in such high regard, Mahmoud refused to budge on this issue. It was truly disgusting behavior. Far worse than all the issues he was protesting (racism, anti-blackness, U.S. imperialism and military interventionism, and the oppression that’s built into every aspect of American society).
People took issue with his stubbornness, other Muslims included. They didn’t like the fact that he had labeled the stars and stripes as a symbol of freedom’s polar opposite.
And so they did what Americans are best known for. They saw that a Black man had stepped out of line, and they decided to make him pay for it.
_*_
Three hours after the event was set to begin, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf finally made it into the Great Hall. He definitely had the look of someone who had just gotten off an airplane. Where past speakers had showed up in slick tuxes and sharp heels, emerging from backstage into the spotlight, Mahmoud looked, for a brief moment, like a deer in the headlights. I don’t blame him. I’m not sure if he’d had the chance to be informed of how many attendees (all in formal attire) would be there.
But forget the fact that he wasn’t wearing a suit, or that he was late, or that in his gray sweatpants and wrinkled tee, he had an almost underwhelming appearance. When he spoke, none of it mattered.
He started off with a few jokes about his delayed arrival — jokes that I can’t remember, because it was his energy that took me completely off guard. He was so remarkably chill, with an easy grin and a casual sort of stage presence. If he’d made a joke at our organization’s expense, he would’ve been completely in the right. But he didn’t seem to hold so much as a flicker of irritation.
See, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf isn’t just a basketball player. He’s also a storyteller.
He wasted no time leading into his speech, and from the moment he opened his mouth, he had the audience latched onto every word. He has this ability to paint a picture in your mind, taking you back to the 70’s, where a young Black kid from Mississippi would wake up at 3 or 4 a.m. every morning, getting ready to go to the basketball court.
He did this even when his Tourette’s slowed him down. Even when he was exhausted and hated the thought of waking up. Even when it was thunderstorming outside:
“I’d see the lighting — tch-tch-tch-BHOOM — cutting across the sky.”
He did the sound effects flawlessly. He dribbled an imaginary basketball across the stage. He relived the moment after his famous toe-to-toe duel with Michael Jordan, bent with his hands on his knees as if in exhilarated exhaustion, and the thought that crossed his mind afterwards:
I just scored on Michael Jordan.
And it was easy.
The audience laughed at that, a mix of amusement of delight. Listening to him is a little reminiscent of Muhammad Ali. He’s proud of his athletic ability, proud of his faith, proud of his Blackness.
Not that any of that mattered to conservative America during the NBA season of ’96. To them, star-spangled patriotism is the only sort of pride that matters. If yours doesn’t conform to what stuffy white people find acceptable, then don’t even bother calling yourself American. The nation was quick to condemn Mahmoud:
Go back to Africa.
F you.
You were supposed to be a role model.
You’re supposed to be grateful.
You would’ve been stoned for doing that anywhere else.
America’s letting you make a living off playing games. If that’s oppression, we want a piece of it.
It’s exactly the same rhetoric we saw after Colin Kaepernick silently took a knee in 2016. As if not standing for the anthem is some unforgivable crime. As if supposedly disrespecting a song should get you punished more severely than a police officer who murders an unarmed Black man.
Just like Kaepernick was blackballed by the NFL, Mahmoud quickly fell from grace in the NBA. First, he was suspended from one game. Then, despite coming to a compromise that allowed to pray with his head bowed during the anthem, his playing time was dropped. The Denver Nuggets gave him up to the Sacramento Kings. He couldn’t get tryouts after his contract expired. His basketball career, which had started off so strong, was over before it had even begun.
After being dropped by the NBA, he played basketball internationally for some time, hopping from Turkey to Canada, Russia to Italy, Saudi Arabia to Japan. These days, he’s playing for the BIG3 basketball league and traveling the country for public speaking engagements.
I’m sure it’s not the career a 20-something-year-old NBA player would have wanted for himself. But to hear Mahmoud talk about it, he’s perfectly content — and he’s glad to see that finally, finally, more people (re: Kaepernick and his supporters) are beginning to take a knee with him.
_*_
Because of the time constraints on our venue, we had to conclude the event before Mahmoud could talk in detail about the anthem protests. Even so, I wasn’t overly disappointed, and neither was our audience. In his talk, Mahmoud had laid out the mindset of the kind of person who would refuse to stand for the anthem.
“When you take away people’s history, you take away their identity,” he said. He was talking about white America, and the way they have purposefully created the education to belittle Black and Indigenous history.
“Did you know about Timbuktu?” he asked us. “Did you know about how wealthy that city was? How it was the trading spot of empires?”
Did you know about the way Black, Brown, Arab, and Asian people shaped the sciences and technologies we rely so heavily on today?
Did you know about the world before white men decided they were center of it?
Seek knowledge, was the point he kept hammering into us. Learn your history. Know what your people have accomplished.
And that’s where you’ll find yourself.
That’s where you’ll find your purpose.
_*_
In Islam, we have this concept called ihsan. It means doing the absolute best you can in everything you do, going above and beyond what’s expected of you. Muslims are told to strive for it in every aspect of our lives, from our prayers to our dealings with people.
Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf didn’t have to drop everything and jump on a flight from Atlanta to Raleigh within an hour after getting our panic-inducing texts. He didn’t have to stay for an extra hour after the event ended, doing a meet-and-greet with a crowd of fans outside of the student union. He didn’t have to greet every one of us with a smile.
But he did. And honestly, that was more impactful than his speech as a whole, because I learned much more from his behavior than from his words.
Ihsan embodied. How often do you see something like that?
_*_
So in a very cliche ending to what sounds like a very cliche story, we ended the night in a flood of compliments from attendees: you guys handled that so well, I’m glad I came, best MSA Live yet. I went home feeling like I could’ve slept for a month — and I probably might have, too, if I didn’t have a GPA to think about.
Even though I was glad the fiasco was over, I didn’t stop thinking about Mahmoud’s story. You’d think that any number of the events in his would make him bitter. Growing up in poverty, having Tourette’s, dealing with all-American racism, being thoroughly disrespected by the NBA, being summoned out of Georgia by a group of frantic college kids for a speech that lasted all of forty-five minutes.
What amazes me is the fact that no matter what’s been thrown at him, he’s always made the most of it. He’s always met life head on, whether with determination or with a smile.
I never got the chance to ask Mahmoud how he does this. Maybe one day I will.
But until then, I’ll speculate that it’s because of these three things:
- He knows that his ancestors moved mountains.
- He knows what he believes in.
- And because of those two things, he knows himself.
