Olajuwon had been considering whether or not he ought to quick on recreation days throughout Ramadan. In that month, commemorating the time when the Qur’an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), grownup Muslims, whose well being permits, abstain fully from meals, drink, and sexual exercise from daybreak to sundown. It’s a time of religious self-discipline, reflection, and gratitude. One turns inward, making an attempt to get as shut as doable to the Divine. Ramadan additionally binds the neighborhood nearer collectively, reminding the entire struggling and poverty that lots of its members endure.
Olajuwon hadn’t but fasted throughout precise video games. “I can not do it on recreation days,” he advised reporters in February 1993. “So what I’ve to do is make up for the times I miss after the season.” However a dialog with Denver guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, one other Muslim participant, impressed him to ponder fasting on recreation days. Olajuwon wasn’t conscious at first that Abdul-Rauf, with whom he had prayed earlier than, had accomplished it.
After a recreation in Denver in January 1995, the 2 caught up with one another. “I bought to get one thing to eat. I’ve been fasting,” Abdul-Rauf stated.
“You quick?” Olajuwon requested.
“Yeah, man. I’ll inform you. I can’t clarify it. My focus is on an entire ’nother degree. You’ll assume it might be down. It’s like . . . magnified.”
“Actually?” Olajuwon responded, stunned. “Nicely, you quick. I’m going to quick.”
“Alhamdulillah!” Abdul-Rauf stated, which interprets as “reward be to God.”
“We’re athletes,” Abdul-Rauf says now, reflecting on that dialog, “however we’re additionally aggressive when it comes to, if we see any individual that has some good qualities and it sounds good, properly, shoot, I’m going to attempt it.”
Hanif Khalil, Abdul-Rauf’s supervisor and a Houstonian who had prayed alongside Olajuwon as properly, explains the dynamic: “That’s one of many issues in Islam, is that within the sight of Allah, that we don’t compete so far as financial institution accounts. We don’t compete in worldly affairs or something like that,” Khalil says. “But when there is a wholesome competitors, it’s within the deed of piety and good works. . . . Hakeem is a fierce competitor. If he sees that Mahmoud is [fasting], it’s nearly a contest in good deed . . . a wholesome competitors.”
Olajuwon started to publicly focus on the thought as a result of he determined he would quick throughout video games all through Ramadan. “If you find yourself on the highway, you’re allowed to make it up. However to go all the way in which as a substitute of delaying it to make it up [is exciting],” he stated in February 1995. Olajuwon was referring to the stipulation that he was thought of a traveler, and the Qur’an permits one to postpone fasting and make up the times on the finish of Ramadan. “He didn’t wish to do this,” says Rudy Tomjanovich, the Rockets coach. “He needed to do it the correct means.” Olajuwon believed that the traveler rule didn’t apply to him as a result of it was meant for historical instances when touring by camel over tough terrain. That didn’t evaluate, he felt, to an NBA participant’s journey by airplane.
Olajuwon knew fasting on recreation days can be tough, a rare train of self-restraint. It will be a shock to his system. But it surely grew to become a joyous time for him, one thing he regarded ahead to—albeit one thing that got here with nice sacrifice. “It’s a means of purifying the physique and the thoughts and it makes me really feel good,” he stated on the time, including that it requires self-discipline. “Sure, it’s laborious. However that’s the reason it helps in the long term. You be taught to understand the presents God provides us, even one thing so simple as a glass of water. We take a lot without any consideration. We ignore the worth of so many blessings.”
Nonetheless, the Rockets employees members have been involved. They reasoned that gamers, particularly facilities as cellular as Olajuwon, expended an incredible quantity of power operating up and down the court docket. “You are concerned about dehydration as a lot as something,” says Bruce Moseley, Rockets staff doctor from 1993 to 2003. “As a result of they sweat a lot. They exert themselves a lot. It’s fairly continuously for about two and a half hours. The traditional NBA participant will sweat an infinite quantity of physique fluid.” Moseley and the remainder of the Rockets employees monitored him extra carefully throughout Ramadan.
“Definitely, I had issues,” says Ray Melchiorre, former Rockets coach. “However I knew he was consuming good when he did eat. He ready for it.” Olajuwon usually ate a bowl of oatmeal and drank juice and water within the mornings earlier than prayer. And he took such care of his physique and his health that he knew he might maintain the quick.
The Rockets, regardless of their preliminary reservations, supported his choice. “We revered his private alternative,” Tomjanovich says. “We needed to let him know that we have been 100% behind him.” That was evident in different respects, too. Workers members scrambled to seek out prayer rooms for him on the highway. A lot of that obligation fell on Jay Namoc, the tools supervisor, who made positive Olajuwon had his prayer rug and compass, and would ask different groups for a personal locker room or an auxiliary area. “He simply wants it for a thirty-minute block of anyplace he can pray that’s non-public,” Namoc would say.
It wasn’t all the time simple to discover a area. “We had some rooms the place he can be praying in these little closed closets,” Namoc says. Usually, there wasn’t a clear room obtainable. “He didn’t care how unhealthy it was inside,” Namoc says, “so long as he had a spot to place his rug down and pray.”
Finally, David Nordstrom, the tools supervisor, spearheaded the development of prayer rooms each within the Summit and within the staff’s observe facility. Rockets coach Keith Jones was additionally instrumental in ensuring Olajuwon had the whole lot he wanted to wish. However for the 1994–1995 season, he made do with no matter room he had.
His first game-day quick was on February 2, 1995, and Olajuwon performed spectacularly. He dropped forty-one factors in a win over the Utah Jazz, all of the whereas being defended by the relentlessly bodily Karl Malone. The subsequent recreation, a nationally televised Sunday showdown in opposition to Charles Barkley and the Suns in Phoenix on February 5, he put up twenty-eight factors, eleven rebounds, three assists, and three blocks in thirty-nine minutes. The Rockets gained the sport 124–100. “You do marvel how on earth he does it,” Tomjanovich says. “He was so good. God. It’s simply wonderful.”
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Olajuwon averaged 29.5 factors, 10.1 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and three.4 blocks throughout that month of Ramadan, successful NBA Participant of the Month honors. “I noticed it,” Bullard says. “I don’t imagine it.” Olajuwon additionally misplaced ten kilos within the course of. “There are 48 minutes to a recreation,” Robert Horry, former Rockets ahead, later recalled, “and so that you can play 42 minutes of that 48 and never even have the ability to take a sip of water? That’s simply phenomenal.”
Within the coming years he’d have a few of his career-best performances throughout Ramadan. In 1997 he averaged 25.4 factors, 8.3 rebounds, and three.4 assists in 37.2 minutes an evening. In opposition to the Nuggets, he had 48 factors and 10 rebounds in 43 minutes. In opposition to the Bulls, he tallied 32 factors, 16 rebounds, 5 blocks, 4 assists, and 4 steals in 39 minutes, snapping Chicago’s nine-game win streak. “He’s unsolvable,” Michael Jordan stated afterward. Barkley, who had joined the Rockets in 1996, agreed: “To have the ability to play like that with out water for the entire recreation, it’s one of the vital wonderful issues I’ve seen in my life.”
Not solely did Olajuwon appear to play higher throughout Ramadan, however he additionally appeared to really feel higher. “Your abdomen begins to shrink up after a time period,” says Anthony Falsone, former Rockets power coach. “However he bought stronger. He was a man who, the psychological a part of it was so robust. He would say, ‘Anthony, I really feel so good.’ We’d be two weeks into it. In my thoughts, I’m going, There’s no means he feels stronger. He’s like, ‘I’m stronger. I’m lighter. I’m faster.’”
As Olajuwon stated on the time, “Many individuals assume taking part in basketball is tougher due to the absence of meals. However once they see the profit and that it’s the reverse, [they can see] that we now have extra power, [are] a lot faster, quicker, extra centered.”
“If solely they knew,” Olajuwon stated about NBA gamers and the way good it felt to quick, “they’d be fasting.”
He was posting video-game stats on the order of forty factors and fifteen rebounds on nationwide tv in opposition to a number of the hardest within the league: Jordan, Ewing, Robinson. Identify an elite participant, and Olajuwon dismantled him—with nothing in his stomach. “It was outstanding,” Moseley says.
Maybe that was as a result of his potential to excel had as a lot to do together with his internal drive, his religious sense, as any bodily supply of power. His teammates requested him: “How do you do it? The place are you getting this power?” He’d merely say: “Allah. Allah provides me the power I would like.”
Olajuwon made himself imagine he wasn’t drained, wasn’t thirsty. He centered on controlling his need. He reminded himself of the aim of his quick and the way, though his physique was being starved, his soul was being nourished. “He noticed it because the gas that gave him the willpower to be the perfect,” says Ameer Abuhalimeh, the director of Olajuwon’s Islamic Da’wah Middle. “He advised me many instances that in fasting . . . it made him transfer across the court docket a lot simpler. Not enthusiastic about meals, or not having meals in his abdomen, made his pondering course of a lot sharper and his focus a lot sharper, which translated into a greater recreation and higher numbers.”
However the actuality is that fasting throughout video games is awfully tough—for anybody. At one level throughout his unbelievable February 1995 Ramadan stretch, he shot simply ten of twenty-one in a loss to the Knicks regardless of ending with twenty-seven factors, 9 rebounds, 4 blocks, three steals, and three assists. He admitted that he felt drained of power: “I had a burning in my chest all day from not having the ability to drink and didn’t play the type of recreation that might permit us to win.”
Workers monitored the solar throughout video games, continuously checking to see if it had gone down so Olajuwon might take a sip of water or eat a contemporary date, which the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ate to interrupt his quick. Throughout time-outs, Olajuwon would ask: “What time is it? Is it time?”
“Not but.”
A number of the video games wherein he fasted started simply earlier than sundown, so he might break his quick at halftime. However many instances the Rockets had afternoon video games with a 1:30 p.m. or 2:30 p.m. tip-off, and he wouldn’t have the ability to eat or drink till a while after the buzzer sounded. “We have been involved like, ‘Dream, would you like some water?’ despite the fact that you knew to not ask him,” Namoc says. “Our concern was his well being.”
Generally they’d ask him if he needed some Quench Gum, to generate saliva and provides some moisture to his mouth. Bullard remembered seeing salt across the edges of Olajuwon’s lips. “Dream, drink some water!” he stated. “You’re getting dehydrated! You must drink!” Olajuwon calmly responded: “No.”
Not a sip.
Not a drop.
“He refused,” says Joel Clean, Rockets director of broadcasting from 1994 to 2016. “He would say: ‘I can’t go in opposition to the rules.’” It was nearly as if he have been in a trance, so pushed towards his function. “Oh my gosh. This simply provides ranges, and layers upon layers of simply being in awe,” says Scott Brooks, the previous Rockets guard. “There have been instances that I might say to myself, ‘There’s no means you’re going to have the ability to do that,’ however he did I’m like, ‘Man, you aren’t actual.’”
But Olajuwon didn’t see himself as superhuman, even when everybody else did. He was merely satisfying his obligation as a Muslim, no completely different from any of his brothers and sisters on the mosque. “For him, the way in which he noticed it, is that he wasn’t doing something particular,” Arch says. “He noticed it as fulfilling his dedication.” The one distinction in his life, Olajuwon as soon as talked about jokingly, was that his lodge payments have been far cheaper throughout Ramadan. No room service.
A lot of his teammates didn’t even know he was fasting till reporters talked about it. “He didn’t actually speak about it,” says Pete Chilcutt, former Rockets ahead. “He simply did it. When he got here to work, he got here to work.”
After his magnificent efficiency in opposition to the Bulls throughout Ramadan in January 1997, reporters peppered him with questions on how thirsty he have to be, how a lot he should crave a drink of water. He calmly answered their questions, telling them about controlling need, about being grateful for the blessing of water.
“Earlier than, you’re taking it without any consideration,” he stated. “You possibly can have water at any time. Now, a glass of water turns into like a jewel.”
From the ebook “Dream: The Life and Legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon” by Mirin Fader. Copyright © 2024 by Mirin Fader. Reprinted by permission of Hachette Books an imprint of Hachette Ebook Group, Inc., New York, NY. All rights reserved.