Muhammad Ali that year, before converting to Islam after 1961. At age 22, in 1964, he won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset. He then changed his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his "slave name", to Muhammad Ali. He set an example of racial pride for African Americans and resistance to white domination during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1966, two years after winning the heavyweight title, Ali further antagonized the white establishment by refusing to be drafted into the U.S. military, citing his religious beliefs, and opposition to American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Bachtyar Ali Bachtyar Ali Bachtyar Ali Muhammed (Kurdish: بەختیار عەلی, also transcribed Bextyar Elî, Bakhtiyar Ali, or Bakhtyar Ali), was born in the city of Slemani in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1960. He is a Kurdish novelist and intellectual, a literary critic, essayist, and poet. Ali started out as a poet and essayist, but has established himself as an influential novelist from the mid-1990s. He has published six novels, and several collections of poetry and essays. Since the mid-1990s, Ali has been living in Germany (Frankfurt, Cologne and most recently Bonn). In his academic essays, he has dealt with various subjects, such as