Muhammad Ali was a champion in the true sense. He fought as bravely inside the ring as he did outside it. He fought for his titles and for his beliefs. He was not afraid of hitting or speaking out.

He showed speed, grace, power, resilience and rebellion. This won him fans and followers. Then having knocked out every boxer worth fighting at the time to prove that he was the greatest, Ali won people’s hearts and admiration by being a champion of civil rights and a philanthropist. This made him one of the greatest human beings of the 20th century along with being its greatest sports personality.

Ali’s charisma and commitment to social and political causes — against public opinion when he converted to Islam, against the US government when he refused to be inducted into the army during the Vietnam War and against Parkinson’s disease which he battled with for more than three decades — make him endearing to even those who have never seen him enter a boxing ring or move without shaking and speak without a slur.

Here is a glimpse into the life of Muhammad Ali, “the greatest” as he called himself, and what made him the greatest.

Muhammad Ali was born Cassius Clay Jr in Louisville, Kentucky, on January17, 1942. His venture into boxing was as accidental as it can be. The bike he had gotten from his parents as gift on his birthday was stolen and he went to the police station to report and it is said he “threatened to find and beat up the thief”.

The police officer, seeing the 12-year-old display such passion, asked him to learn how to fight first. The policeman was a boxing instructor too and under him Clay trained and entered the local amateur boxing circuit.

By 18, Clay qualified for the Olympics in Rome and won the gold medal in the light-heavyweight category in September 1960. Now there was no holding him back and Ali had arrived on the professional boxing scene.

In 1964, Clay became the world heavyweight champion when he defeated Sonny Liston. And by this time Clay had become Muhammad Ali. He publicly announced his conversion, without any fear for how it would affect his career or popularity.

Ali, the rebel that he was, gave up three years of his career, right in the middle of his prime, for his beliefs. In 1967 he refused to join the US Army and fight in the Vietnam War, saying, “Man, I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”

This saw him arrested and stripped of his world title and boxing license. He spoke up against what he felt was injustice and this made him all the more endearing to his fans and won him new ones.

It was only in mid 1970 that the Supreme Court allowed Ali to fight again and he returned to boxing. The ban had somewhat affected his skills, as was apparent in his fight with Joe Frazier at the Madison Square Garden in March 1971. Frazier was the then heavyweight champion and Ali lost to Frazier in the 15th and final round due to a unanimous decision.

But Ali would fight Frazier again, in 1974, and win. Then came the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, the match with heavyweight champion George Foreman in Zaire, on October 30, 1974. Ali knocked Foreman down in the eighth round.

Ali had his third match with Joe Frazier in Manila, nicknamed ‘Thrilla in Manila’, in October 1975 and is one of the most brutal boxing matches ever, where the two greats gave it all they had until the 14th round when Frazier’s trainer stopped the fight. Ali was declared the winner but he would later claim that this was the closest to dying he had ever been.

After becoming heavyweight champion for the third time in 1978, Ali announced his retirement with the words: “I suffered and sacrificed more than I ever did. There’s nothing left for me to gain by fighting.”

Muhammad Ali did return to the ring once more, though it would have been better if he hadn’t, this time to face Larry Holmes in the 1980 match where he didn’t win a single round on the judges’ cards!

Ali was a larger-than-life sportsperson in so many ways. He was smart and witty. He recited poems and pitchy quotes when giving interviews and taunted opponents to knock them psychologically before doing so physically.

Ali rose to prominence during the American civil rights movement and had he been like most sportsmen and kept away from courting controversy or taking any social or political stance, Ali would have been forgotten soon after his retirement. His persona offered young blacks, and all others who considered their beliefs and morals as important, an example of how to live by and for their beliefs, even if it meant sacrificing.

The great boxer was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1984, which many believe could have resulted from head trauma sustained in boxing. Despite the disease impairing his movement, Ali continued as a champion of peace and even travelled to Iraq during the Gulf War, to negotiate the release of American hostages in 1991. Again in 2002, Muhammad Ali was the UN Messenger of Peace to Afghanistan.

Muhammad Ali’s courage in not shunning the public eye even when his speech and movement were severely impaired by Parkinson’s is also an example of how bravely he accepted his condition and showed others how to continue doing good to others despite limitations.

In 1996, when he light the flame at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, his hands shock but his spirit did not. It was a very emotional scene — his left hand shook terribly but he held the torch firmly in his straight right arm. His whole body trembled as he stooped to light the small plug that would then go up to the Olympic cauldron.

On July 2012, the world would see Ali again at the Olympic stage when he was a titular bearer of the Olympic Flag during the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in London. This time, he couldn’t do it alone so he was helped to his feet by his wife to stand before the flag. Though he did take a few fluttering steps, he was unable to carry the flag into the stadium alongside other humanitarian icons.

At both instances, the crowd in the stadium and those watching on TV across the globe were moved by the resilience of this icon.

With his passing away on June 3, 2016, the world lost a great sporting figure and a greater humanitarian.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 11th, 2016