Oppressive View of Women Came with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s
Islam Conversion
NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
was born Lew Alcindor in New York City on April 16, 1947. In 1971, at
the age of 24, while playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, he converted to Islam and
changed his name to one that means “the noble one, servant of the Almighty.”
There was, however, an ugly side to Jabbar’s conversion to Islam — a troubling and oppressive
attitude towards women.
According to actress Pam Grier’s 2010 autobiography, “Foxy: My Life In Three Acts,”
she and Jabbar shared a passionate and serious relationship during the process
of his religious conversion. Marriage was on the table. She had already met his
parents, and their mutual destinies had launched.
Both were both young. He was already a leading NBA scorer
and had been named the NBA’s Rookie of the Year. She was 22, impossibly
gorgeous, and on the cusp of launching an acting career that would eventually
lead to her earning her own status as a legend.
The relationship abruptly changed when Lew asked her to
start calling him Kareem. He had begun a conversion to what would become a
lifelong commitment to Islam. Immediately, he demanded she stop working. “A
conservative man at heart who was getting more so by the day,” Grier writes,
“he didn’t want to see his girlfriend working.”
At the time Grier was working as a dancer in a nightclub.
The type of work she was doing wasn’t the only issue. He did not want her
working at all, and he also wanted her to convert to Islam. His faith told
Jabbar he could date a non-Muslim, but not marry one. Her heart set on an education,
she didn’t want to move to Milwaukee.
“If we get married, you don’t have to get an education,” was
his reply according to Grier. “I’ll take care of you.”
Although she was a self-described feminist who believed
education was the road to empowerment, Grier, who had been raised a Catholic
but moved away from all religion, agreed to study the Koran. What she found she
didn’t like. Jabbar tried to explain to her that the New Islam was different
from what she was reading. To Grier it didn’t sound all that new.
“Then why is the woman, even in the ‘New Islam,’ supposed to
walk behind the man. Why can’t we walk side by side?”
Jabbar’s answer to this and many other questions was,
“That’s what Allah wants. The man is the leader.
That is how it is written.”
He also told her she would be required to be chaperoned and
wear a headscarf.
“The truth is that Kareem didn’t want me to work or get an
education,” Grier summarizes. “He really just wanted me to be a good Muslim
wife, bear his children, walk behind him, and keep my hair covered up with a
head scarf. … From what I could see, once a woman converted to Islam and got
married, she gave up her individual rights.”
Grier was bugged especially by the fact that in the Middle
East some Muslim woman were living in a more progressive society that gave them
more freedoms and allowed them to get an education. She writes, “[B]ut Kareem
never told me about them. Either he didn’t know or he didn’t want me to know.”
There is no question that although she was conflicted, Grier
was madly in love with Jabbar (she says they remain friends to this day) and
desperate to find a way to reconcile herself to his rigid view of a woman’s
place in the world.
She wanted to make it work.
Then the humiliations came.
One Saturday, Jabbar invited a group of fellow Islamic
converts over. Grier expected to spend the day enjoying everyone’s company.
These were her friends too, but this was the first time she had seen them since
their conversion.
They refused to hug her. They pulled away from her touch as
though she were diseased. Then came the real humiliation.
“I wasn’t supposed to speak to them at all, unless I was
answering a specific question. I stood there awkwardly, when Kareem said in a
quiet voice, ‘You’re supposed to leave the room now, Pam.'”
“For how long?” She asked.
“Until I ask you come back or my friends leave,” was his
reply.
Humiliated, she sat alone in the bedroom until Jabbar came
in and asked her to make the group sandwiches. She obliged, and after serving
the men, Jabbar said, “You have to go now. You can take a sandwich with you.”
Little by little, Jabbar’s oppressive view of women drove
Grier away. He demanded she cover herself, even at the beach and “read me the
riot act about disgracing him” when she didn’t. “This is how it is written in
the Koran,” was his only justification.
The final blow was his desire to have more than one wife. He
finally gave her an ultimatum, a date when he expected her to convert to Islam.
It was, of all days, her birthday. “If you don’t commit to me today, I’m
getting married at 2:00 this afternoon. She’s a converted Muslim and she’s been
prepared for me.”
Grier was blindsided by the news. She had no idea Jabbar had
been seeing or preparing to marry another woman. He left the door open to them
still getting married, “Once you become a Muslim, you might appreciate another
wife.”
According to Grier, Jabbar kept his promise and married that
day. Because they were not Muslim, Jabbar barred his own mother and father from
the ceremony
Jabbar and his “prepared” Muslim wife would have a troubled
relationship until they finally divorced in 1977. He would later describe
barring his parents from his wedding as “a mistake that took me more than a
decade to rectify.”
If at all, Jabbar doesn’t talk much about his relationship
with Grier. According to a Google books search, in his 1983 autobiography
“Giant Steps,” she isn’t mentioned.
In “Giant Steps” Jabbar does talk about his marriage, its
collapse, and Cheryl, an opinionated Buddhist woman he never married but
would have a child with and remain in a committed relationship with until 1984.
He says nothing, though, about whether or not his views on Muslim women and
wives had evolved since his relationship with Grier.
From what he does write (at age 36), it doesn’t appear as
though they had:
I had never lived with a woman or anyone who could either
put demands on me or even have her own different routine. Never a great
compromiser, I was never the easiest guy to live with. … It’s not easy being a
Muslim woman – her hair and arms and legs must be covered in public; she can’t
be too aggressive; she must take care of the children.
Almost all of the demands Jabbar made on Grier, including
the fact that she would have almost no financial or parental rights or recourse
should the marriage end, fall under the definition of Sharia Law.
Grier described their frequent and bitter arguments about
her role in Islam as being about “submission and slavery.”
In a column this week, Jabbar dove
into the ongoing dispute over Indiana’s Religious Freedom laws. He described a
law that gives legal standing to all faith’s and sides in a conflict over
competing rights as “a step toward establishing an American version of Shari’a
Law.”
If Jabbar has condemned Islamic Sharia as forcefully, a good
faith search, including links to Jabbar’s columns over the years provided by
his representative, resulted in nothing.
Through his representative, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar refused
numerous requests for comment or an interview. Should that change we will
update this post.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar was a player for the Los
Angeles Lakers, and is a performer in the Yes We Can video.
Note:
Magic Johnson
was a player & part-owner for the Los
Angeles Lakers, a franchise owner for the Starbucks Corporation, a supporter for the 2008 Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and is the chairman
& part owner for Vibe Holdings.
Vibe Holdings
is an investor in the Yucaipa Companies.
Common is a performer in the
Yes We Can video, and a parishioner
at the Trinity United Church of Christ
(Chicago).
Barack Obama is
featured in the Yes We Can video, was
a parishioner at the Trinity United
Church of Christ (Chicago), and an intern at Sidley Austin LLP.
Trumpeter
Newsmagazine is a publication for the Trinity
United Church of Christ (Chicago).
Louis Farrakhan
is awarded the 2007 Jeremiah Wright Jr.
Trumpeter award, the organizer for the Million
Man March, and the acting head for the Nation
of Islam.
Michelle Obama
was a lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP.
R. Eden Martin is
counsel at Sidley Austin LLP, and
the president of the Commercial Club of
Chicago.
Newton N. Minow is
a senior counsel at Sidley Austin LLP,
and a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago.
Mellody L. Hobson
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, and a director at the Starbucks Corporation.
Starbucks Says
'Race Together' No More
Starbucks baristas will no longer write "Race
Together" on customers' cups starting Sunday, ending a visible component
of the company's diversity and racial inequality campaign that had sparked
widespread criticism in the week since it took effect.
Valerie B. Jarrett
is a member of the Commercial Club of
Chicago, the senior adviser for the Barack
Obama administration, and her great uncle is Vernon E. Jordan
Jr.
Cyrus F.
Freidheim Jr. is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, and an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution
(think tank), Common Cause, and People for the American Way.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, is a co-chair,
national finance council at Ready for
Hillary, and the founder & chairman for the Open Society Foundations.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
Gara LaMarche was
a VP & director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Foundations, and a director at the White House Project.
Vernon E. Jordan
Jr. is an honorary trustee at the Brookings Institution
(think tank), Valerie B. Jarrett’s
great uncle, a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think
tank), a senior counsel for Akin, Gump,
Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, and a 2008 Bilderberg conference
participant (think tank).
Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP is the lobby firm for the United Arab Emirates.
Mohammed
bin Rashid al-Maktoum is the prime minister & VP for the United Arab Emirates, and an investor
in the Yucaipa Companies.
Vibe Holdings
is an investor in the Yucaipa Companies.
William J. Clinton
was an adviser for the Yucaipa Companies,
is the founder of the Bill, Hillary
& Chelsea Clinton Foundation, and married to Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton is married to William J.
Clinton, a director at the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the founding chair for the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and
Security, was the secretary of state for the Barack Obama administration, and Melanne Verveer was her chief
of staff.
Melanne Verveer
is an executive director for the Georgetown
Institute for Women, Peace and Security, was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief of staff, a field manager for Common Cause, and an EVP for People for the American Way.
Georgetown
Institute for Women, Peace and Security is an institute at Georgetown University.
Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding was a center at
Georgetown University.
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Talal is a benefactor for the Prince
Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, the Saudi Arabia prince, and the founder of
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and was a funder for the Bill, Hillary
& Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
League of
Arab States is a member of the United
Arab Emirates.
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Bin Talal Foundation was a funder for the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, the Islamic Development Bank, and the Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow.
Cordoba
Initiative is a sponsor for the Muslim
Leaders of Tomorrow, and a sister organization with the American Society for Muslim Advancement.
Feisal Abdul
Rauf is the founder & chairman for the Cordoba Initiative, a co-founder for the American Society for Muslim
Advancement, married to Daisy Khan,
and a developer for Park51.
Park51
Controversy
Although the Park51 building would not be visible from the World
Trade Center site,[33] opponents of the Park51 project have said that establishing
a mosque so close to Ground Zero would be offensive since the hijackers in the
September 11, 2001 attacks were Islamic terrorists. Supporters have pointed out
that some victims and victims' families are in favor of the Park51 project and
that some victims were also Muslims. Prominent supporters and opponents of the
project can be found among the families of the 9/11 victims, the American and
worldwide Muslim communities,[5][43][106][123][124][125] and local and national
politicians,[43][126] making it a divisive political campaign issue in the 2010
midterm elections.[16][127] The controversy over the project has coincided with
unexpected protests of mosque projects in other states, leading to concerns
that relations between Muslims and non-Muslims within the US are deteriorating.
Daisy Khan is
married to Feisal Abdul Rauf, an executive
director for the American Society for
Muslim Advancement, a developer for Park51,
and was a director for the White House
Project.
Gara LaMarche was
a director for the White House Project,
the VP & director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Foundations, an associate director for the Human Rights Watch, a director at ProPublica, is the president of the Democracy Alliance, and a director at
the Roosevelt Institute.
Open
Society Foundations was a funder for the Human Rights Watch, and the Bill,
Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.
George Soros
is the founder & chairman for the Open
Society Foundations, a co-chair, national finance council at Ready for Hillary, was a benefactor for
the Human Rights Watch, a member of
the Democracy Alliance, and the
chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Human Rights Watch, ProPublica,
the Roosevelt Institute, the Common Cause, People for the American Way, and the Brookings Institution
(think tank).
Vernon E. Jordan Jr. is an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think tank), Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a director at the American
Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), a senior counsel for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP,
and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think tank).
Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP is the lobby firm for the United Arab Emirates.
Mohammed
bin Rashid al-Maktoum is the prime minister & VP for the United Arab Emirates, and an investor
in the Yucaipa Companies.
Vibe Holdings
is an investor in the Yucaipa Companies.
Magic Johnson is
the chairman & part owner for Vibe
Holdings, a franchise owner for the Starbucks
Corporation, a supporter for the 2008
Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign, and a player & part-owner
for the Los Angeles Lakers.
Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar was a player for the Los
Angeles Lakers, and is a performer in the Yes We Can video.
Common is a performer in the
Yes We Can video, and a parishioner
at the Trinity United Church of Christ
(Chicago).
Barack Obama is
featured in the Yes We Can video, was
a parishioner at the Trinity United
Church of Christ (Chicago), and an intern at Sidley Austin LLP.
Trumpeter
Newsmagazine is a publication for the Trinity
United Church of Christ (Chicago).
Louis Farrakhan
is awarded the 2007 Jeremiah Wright Jr.
Trumpeter award, the organizer for the Million
Man March, and the acting head for the Nation
of Islam.
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