On June 3, 2016 the famous boxer Muhammad Ali died at the age of 74. Historian and journalist Dr. David Aikman tells the story of when he shared the Gospel with Ali in a hotel room.

“When I saw him he was on his way to fight what became known as the ‘Thrilla in Manilla,’ which was a match with Joe Frazier in 1975.”

Aikman didn’t know much about boxing, but he knew that Ali was a celebrity and he decided to stick around for the press conference held at the hotel.

“You’re in a hotel, you’re on the way back to the States like I was and you hear there is a press conference, and Muhammad Ali is going to be there, do you want to show up? You bet you do.”

After the press conference was over, Aikman felt the Holy Spirit urging him to speak to Ali, so he did.

“Well, I wasn’t about to stand up and give a prophetic utterance at a press conference so I walked up to him as he was leaving the room and quite casually said, ‘How did you come to be a black Muslim.’”

Ali was astonished that anyone would bother to ask him about anything other than his boxing career, let alone his religious inclinations.

“We got into an earnest conversation, we went all the way up to the lobby, we sat down in the lobby for about half an hour and we talked about the Christian faith. I went up and got a Bible from my room, we went up to his room all together, we spent I would say 90 minutes or no more than two hours. I went through every point of how you put your faith in Christ, how you get salvation, and he listened carefully with great interest.”

When Aikman was done explaining to Ali the basic tenets of the Christian faith, Ali said something interesting.

“He said, you know, you’re the first white man who’s ever explained this to me this way, and I thought, my gosh, this is amazing, but he didn’t make a decision to accept Christ, but what he did show was a softness of personality which I think became reflective in his behavior later, he became less militant.”

Highlight: Witnessing to Muhammad Ali

Reflecting on D-Day and Muhammad Ali