Meet NBA Legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Wife, Age, Religion, Nicknames, Net Worth and Facts ·

11 May 2024, 00:00

Meet NBA Legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar regarded as one of America’s greatest basketball players. He’s also a best-selling author and has coached basketball. He played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) before retiring in his illustrious career. Several awards were bestowed upon him as a result of his dominant winning streak.

Who is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, also called (until 1971) Lew Alcindor, byname of Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr., American collegiate and professional basketball player who, as a 7-foot 2-inch- (2.18-metre-) tall centre, dominated the game throughout the 1970s and early ’80s. He played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) before retiring in his illustrious career. Several awards were bestowed upon him as a result of his dominant winning streak. He was the NBA’s all-time leader in nine categories when he retired, including points scored and games played. He won six NBA championships, once with the Milwaukee Bucks and the other five with the Los Angeles Lakers.

He has established himself as one of the most gifted and accomplished figures in the world. His signature’skyhook’ is widely regarded as the most iconic weapon in basketball. He began writing and documenting his career after he retired. He’s also written a number of cultural books and appeared in a number of films and television shows. He has triumphed at almost every turn in his unstoppable career, and he is constantly involved in politics. A documentary was also made about his fascinating life. He is currently a contributing writer for the Guardian and a columnist for The Hollywood Reporter.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Childhood & Early Life

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was born as Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr. on April 16, 1947 in New York City to Cora Lillian and Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr. His growth spurt that made him taller than most people when he was very young, drew him considerable attention.

He started playing basketball early. At school, he led Jack Donahue’s Power Memorial Academy team to win three New York City Catholic championships. He was nicknamed ‘The tower from Power’ after this.

The seven-foot-one-inch player enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and soon won three collegiate championships while also studying for his degree.

Alcindor played for Power Memorial Academy on the varsity for four years, and his total of 2,067 points set a New York City high-school record (that has since been broken). His offensive skill was so developed coming out of high school that the collegiate basketball rules committee, fearing he would be able to score at will, made dunking illegal prior to his enrollment at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 1965. Despite the new rule, he set a UCLA scoring record with 56 points in his first game. Playing for renowned coach John Wooden, Alcindor helped lead UCLA to three National Collegiate Athletic Association championships (1967–69), and during his stay at UCLA the team lost only two games. The no-dunking rule was rescinded in the years after Alcindor graduated.

Alcindor joined the National Basketball Association (NBA) Milwaukee Bucks for the 1969–70 season and was named Rookie of the Year. In 1970–71 the Bucks won the NBA championship, and Alcindor led the league in scoring (2,596 points) and points-per-game average (31.7), as he did in 1971–72 (2,822 points; 34.8). Having converted to Islam while at UCLA, Alcindor took the Arabic name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1971. In 1975 he was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers, who won the NBA championship in 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, and 1988. In 1984 he surpassed Wilt Chamberlain’s career scoring total of 31,419 points.

Although Abdul-Jabbar lacked the physical strength of NBA centres Chamberlain and Willis Reed, he brought an excellent shooting touch to the position and a wide range of graceful post moves, including his sweeping, nearly indefensible sky hook. He also was an outstanding passer. Abdul-Jabbar retired at the end of the 1988–89 season, having been voted NBA Most Valuable Player a record six times. By the end of his extraordinarily long career, he had set NBA records for most points (38,387), most field goals made (15,837), and most minutes played (57,446). At the time of his retirement, Abdul-Jabbar had also amassed the most blocked shots in league history (3,189; since broken by Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo) and the third most career rebounds (17,440). He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1995 and was named one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history in 1996.

Away from the basketball court, Abdul-Jabbar pursued interests in acting and writing. He appeared on television and in a handful of films, including a memorable turn as a copilot in the comedy Airplane! (1980). His autobiography, Giant Steps, was published in 1983. His writings on the African American experience also included Black Profiles in Courage: A Legacy of African-American Achievement (1996; with Alan Steinberg), Brothers in Arms: The Epic Story of the 761st Tank Battalion, WWII’s Forgotten Heroes (2004; with Anthony Walton), On the Shoulders of Giants: My Personal Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance (2007; with Raymond Obstfeld), and the children’s book What Color Is My World?: The Lost History of African-American Inventors (2012; with Obstfeld). In addition, he wrote Coach Wooden and Me: Our 50-Year Friendship on and off the Court (2017) as well as a mystery series (with Anna Waterhouse) about Sherlock Holmes’s older brother, Mycroft: Mycroft Holmes (2015), Mycroft and Sherlock (2018), and Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage (2019). Abdul-Jabbar also did some basketball coaching and consulting, including a stint on the White Mountain Apache Reservation in Arizona. In 2016 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Has Kareem Abdul Jabbar ever been married?

Habiba Abdul-Jabbar is not a well-known name. Her ex-husband is Kareem Abdul Jabbar. She remained in obscurity due to her husband’s roles as a controversial NBA great, her children, and the unfortunate incidents that happened to her Muslim sect. Habiba Abdul-Jabbar is the ex-wife of legendary basketball star, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, regarded as NBA’s all-time leading scorer. Kareem’s basketball career was indeed exceptional as he won six NBA Championships. His performance during his career has six MVP to his name. Long after his retirement, ESPN ranked him the best center player in the history of the NBA and the second-best player in the NBA history in 2015. Habiba has stayed away from the spotlight and remained there all these years. Here is the untold truth of Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s ex-wife.

Who is Habiba Abdul-Jabbar?

Habiba Abdul-Jabbar’s birthplace might be New York because that’s where her parents lived. She was brought up as a Christian and only made the switch to Islam because of her husband Kareem. What most people fail to realize is that Habiba used to be known as Janice Brown until she met her ex-husband. She was reportedly still in college when she met Kareem.

Her Marriage to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Habiba Abdul-Jabbar and Kareem were married on the 28th of May, 1971. During their marriage, Habiba and Kareem became proud parents to three children; daughters, Habiba and Sultana and actor son, Abdul-Jabbar Jr. born on the 23rd of August, 1976. After seven years of marriage, Habiba Abdul-Jabbar divorced Kareem in 1978. Though not much is known about Habiba, her ex-husband does keep an active profile.

Habiba Abdul-Jabbar had a very rocky marriage with Kareem. Despite changing her name from Janice Brown to become a Muslim, her parents were barred from entering the mosque that the wedding took place in. Because of their Catholic faith, they were denied and it made them understandably offended. They had traveled all the way from New York to see their only child get married, and the incident caused a serious rift. The ceremony, which took place in Washington, D.C, was held at dawn, according to Muslim custom.

Kareem reportedly felt bad about this. He was a new Muslim convert and he had not been told until after the ceremony that her parents were barred from entering the mosque. The rift between him and her parents was slow to heal, and nearly ten years passed before he made amends with the family. After that time Jabbar always made sure to point to the camera and say, “Hi to Moms and Pops in New York,” whenever he appeared on national television.

Kareem spent the summer of 1972 at Harvard studying the Arabic language, and that year, Habiba gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter also named Habiba. Due to challenges in his ability to adjust to family life, he and Habiba separated in December 1973. Despite this, they continued to have children together. Their other children include Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s son Kareem, who was born in 1976, and their other daughter, Sultana, who was born in 1979.

Reasons For Their Divorce

The divorce that ended their union has roots in two factors; one being Kareem’s migraines, the other was Cheryl Pistono. Kareem’s migraines developed after seven people—a friend and six relatives of Abdul-Jabbar’s Muslim mentor, Khalifa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis—members of a group called the Hanafi were murdered allegedly by rival Black Muslims, in a Washington, D.C. house that Kareem had purchased for them. Kareem was thought to be a target as well, and he was accompanied by a bodyguard for several weeks.

The immobilizing headaches came on again in 1977, after Khaalis and his Hanafi group sought revenge by invading three Washington buildings, including the national headquarters of B’nai B’rith. They held 132 hostages for 38 hours, leaving seven wounded and one dead. Khaalis went to jail, and the Jewish Defense League threatened to kidnap Abdul-Jabbar.

Cheryl Pistono, his girlfriend at the time had a greater impact on his adult life than any of his teachers, coaches, owners, friends or teammates. She convinced him to seek a divorce from his wife Habiba, whom he married in 1971 but had not lived with since 1973. The divorce was settled in court. Kareem’s son Amir was born from his relationship with Cheryl.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Why I converted to Islam

It’s not easy being Muslim in America, but my choice was a spiritual transformation.

I was born Lew Alcindor. Now I’m Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The transition from Lew to Kareem was not merely a change in celebrity brand name — like Sean Combs to Puff Daddy to Diddy to P. Diddy — but a transformation of heart, mind and soul. I used to be Lew Alcindor, the pale reflection of what white America expected of me. Now I’m Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the manifestation of my African history, culture and beliefs.

For most people, converting from one religion to another is a private matter requiring intense scrutiny of one’s conscience. But when you’re famous, it becomes a public spectacle for one and all to debate. And when you convert to an unfamiliar or unpopular religion, it invites criticism of one’s intelligence, patriotism and sanity. I should know. Even though I became a Muslim more than 40 years ago, I’m still defending that choice.

Unease with celebrity

I was introduced to Islam while I was a freshman at UCLA. Although I had already achieved a certain degree of national fame as a basketball player, I tried hard to keep my personal life private. Celebrity made me nervous and uncomfortable. I was still young, so I couldn’t really articulate why I felt so shy of the spotlight. Over the next few years, I started to understand it better.

Part of my restraint was the feeling that the person the public was celebrating wasn’t the real me. Not only did I have the usual teenage angst of becoming a man, but I was also playing for one of the best college basketball teams in the country and trying to maintain my studies. Add to that the weight of being black in America in 1966 and ’67, when James Meredith was ambushed while marching through Mississippi, the Black Panther Party was founded, Thurgood Marshall was appointed as the first African-American Supreme Court Justice and a race riot in Detroit left 43 dead, 1,189 injured and more than 2,000 buildings destroyed.

I came to realize that the Lew Alcindor everyone was cheering wasn’t really the person they imagined. They wanted me to be the clean-cut example of racial equality. The poster boy for how anybody from any background — regardless of race, religion or economic standing — could achieve the American dream. To them, I was the living proof that racism was a myth.

I knew better. Being 7-foot-2 and athletic got me there, not a level playing field of equal opportunity. But I was also fighting a strict upbringing of trying to please those in authority. My father was a cop with a set of rules, I attended a Catholic school with priests and nuns with more rules, and I played basketball for coaches who had even more rules. Rebellion was not an option.

Still, I was discontented. Growing up in the 1960s, I wasn’t exposed to many black role models. I admired Martin Luther King Jr. for his selfless courage and Shaft for kicking ass and getting the girl. Otherwise, the white public’s consensus seemed to be that blacks weren’t much good. They were either needy downtrodden folks who required white people’s help to get the rights they were due or radical troublemakers wanting to take away white homes and jobs and daughters. The “good ones” were happy entertainers, either in show business or sports, who were expected to show gratitude for their good fortune. I knew this reality was somehow wrong — that something had to change. I just didn’t know what it meant for me.

Some fans took my decision very personally, as if I had firebombed their church while tearing up an American flag.

Much of my early awakening came from reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” as a freshman. I was riveted by Malcolm’s story of how he came to realize that he was the victim of institutional racism that had imprisoned him long before he landed in an actual prison. That’s exactly how I felt: imprisoned by an image of who I was supposed to be. The first thing he did was push aside the Baptist religion that his parents had brought him up in and study Islam. To him, Christianity was a foundation of the white culture responsible for enslaving blacks and supporting the racism that permeated society. His family was attacked by the Christianity-spouting Ku Klux Klan, and his home was burned by the KKK splinter group the Black Legion.

Malcolm X’s transformation from petty criminal to political leader inspired me to look more closely at my upbringing and forced me to think more deeply about my identity. Islam helped him find his true self and gave him the strength not only to face hostility from both blacks and whites but also to fight for social justice. I began to study the Quran.

Conviction and defiance

This decision set me on an irreversible course to spiritual fulfillment. But it definitely wasn’t a smooth course. I made serious mistakes along the way. Then again, maybe the path isn’t supposed to be smooth; maybe it’s supposed to be filled with obstacles and detours and false discoveries in order to challenge and hone one’s beliefs. As Malcolm X said, “I guess a man’s entitled to make a fool of himself if he’s ready to pay the cost.”

I paid the cost.

As I said earlier, I was brought up to respect rules — and especially those who enforced the rules, such as teachers, preachers and coaches. I’d always been an exceptional student, so when I wanted to know more about Islam, I found a teacher in Hammas Abdul-Khaalis. During my years playing with the Milwaukee Bucks, Hammas’ version of Islam was a joyous revelation. Then in 1971, when I was 24, I converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (meaning “the noble one, servant of the Almighty”).

The question I’m often asked is why I had to pick a religion so foreign to American culture and a name that was hard for people to pronounce. Some fans took it very personally, as if I had firebombed their church while tearing up an American flag. Actually, I was rejecting the religion that was foreign to my American culture and embracing one that was part of my black African heritage. (An estimated 15 to 30 percent of slaves brought from Africa were Muslims.) Fans thought I joined the Nation of Islam, an American Islamic movement founded in Detroit in 1930. Although I was greatly influenced by Malcolm X, a leader in the Nation of Islam, I chose not to join because I wanted to focus more on the spiritual rather than political aspects. Eventually, Malcolm rejected the group right before three of its members assassinated him.

My parents were not pleased by my conversion. Though they weren’t strict Catholics, they had raised me to believe in Christianity as the gospel. But the more I studied history, the more disillusioned I became with the role of Christianity in subjugating my people. I knew, of course, that the Second Vatican Council in 1965 declared slavery an “infamy” that dishonored God and was a poison to society. But for me, it was too little, too late. The failure of the church to use its might and influence to stop slavery and instead to justify it as somehow connected to original sin made me angry. Papal bulls (e.g., “Dum Diversas” and “Romanus Pontifex”) condoned enslaving native people and stealing their lands.

Conversion is a risky business because it can result in losing family, friends and community support.

And while I realize that many Christians risked their lives and families to fight slavery and that it would not have been ended without them, I found it hard to align myself with the cultural institutions that had turned a blind eye to such outrageous behavior in direct violation of their most sacred beliefs.

The adoption of a new name was an extension of my rejection of all things in my life that related to the enslavement of my family and people. Alcindor was a French planter in the West Indies who owned my ancestors. My forebears were Yoruba people, from present day Nigeria. Keeping the name of my family’s slave master seemed somehow to dishonor them. His name felt like a branded scar of shame.

My devotion to Islam was absolute. I even agreed to marry a woman whom Hammas suggested for me, despite my strong feelings for another woman. Ever the team player, I did as “Coach” Hammas recommended. I also followed his advice not to invite my parents to the wedding — a mistake that took me more than a decade to rectify. Although I had my doubts about some of Hammas’ instruction, I rationalized them away because of the great spiritual fulfillment I was experiencing.

But my independent spirit finally emerged. Not content to receive all my religious knowledge from one man, I pursued my own studies. I soon found that I disagreed with some of Hammas’ teachings about the Quran, and we parted ways. In 1973, I traveled to Libya and Saudi Arabia to learn enough Arabic to study the Quran on my own. I emerged from this pilgrimage with my beliefs clarified and my faith renewed.

From that year to this, I have never wavered or regretted my decision to convert to Islam. When I look back, I wish I could have done it in a more private way, without all the publicity and fuss that followed. But at the time I was adding my voice to the civil rights movement by denouncing the legacy of slavery and the religious institutions that had supported it. That made it more political than I had intended and distracted from what was, for me, a much more personal journey.

Many people are born into their religion. For them it is mostly a matter of legacy and convenience. Their belief is based on faith, not just in the teachings of the religion but also in the acceptance of that religion from their family and culture. For the person who converts, it is a matter of fierce conviction and defiance. Our belief is based on a combination of faith and logic because we need a powerful reason to abandon the traditions of our families and community to embrace beliefs foreign to both. Conversion is a risky business because it can result in losing family, friends and community support.

Some fans still call me Lew, then seem annoyed when I ignore them. They don’t understand that their lack of respect for my spiritual choice is insulting. It’s as if they see me as a toy action figure, existing solely to decorate their world as they see fit, rather than as an individual with his own life.

Kermit the Frog famously complained, “It’s not easy being green.” Try being Muslim in America. According to a Pew Research Center poll on attitudes about major religious groups, the U.S. public has the least regard for Muslims — slightly less than it has for atheists — even though Islam is the third-largest faith in America. The acts of aggression, terrorism and inhumanity committed by those claiming to be Muslims have made the rest of the world afraid of us. Without really knowing the peaceful practices of most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, they see only the worst examples. Part of my conversion to Islam is accepting the responsibility to teach others about my religion, not to convert them but to co-exist with them through mutual respect, support and peace. One world does not have to mean one religion, just one belief in living in peace.

Bruce Lee’s Game Of Death: Why Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Really Cameoed

Bruce Lee and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had an iconic fight scene in Game of Death. Here’s the story behind the NBA superstar’s cameo in the 1978 film.

One of Bruce Lee’s most famous movie battles is with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in his unfinished film, Game of Death. Abdul-Jabbar, who famously played for the Los Angeles Lakers for more than a decade, has a reputation as one of the best basketball players in the history of the NBA. He’s also had roles in various movies and TV shows, including Airplane!

Abdul-Jabbar’s acting career began when he appeared in Game of Death, which was the fourth and final movie Lee made with Hong Kong studio, Golden Harvest. Shortly after writing, directing, and starring in Way of the Dragon for the studio, Lee moved on to Game of Death, where he was to have the same level of oversight. The movie’s story was to focus on Lee’s character advancing through a tower. On each level, he was to fight a martial artist of a different style. One of these battles saw him cross paths with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s character, who engaged him in an intense fight that lasted for five minutes.

Comments from the NBA superstar have revealed how his cameo came to be [via ESPN]. After developing an interest in martial arts during his time in New York City, Abdul-Jabbar decided to seek out a new instructor once he moved to California to attend UCLA and play on the basketball team. At the age of 20, he was pointed in the direction of Lee, who had created his own kung fu style, known as Jeet Kune Do. Abdul-Jabbar sought out Lee, who then became both his kung fu teacher and good friend. Abdul-Jabbar trained often with Lee, who taught him a multitude of techniques that later became beneficial to his NBA career.

A few years later, Lee personally invited Abdul-Jabbar – who was playing for the Milwaukee Bucks at the time – to Hong Kong to film a fight scene for Game of Death. The scene called for five days of shooting. Not long after that, filming came to a halt so Lee could make Enter the Dragon in Hollywood. And unfortunately, Lee’s sudden death in 1973 prevented the filming process from being completed. Years later, stand-ins, a great deal of editing, and footage from other Bruce Lee movies allowed it to be released anyway.

Since Lee was only able to film a portion of Game of Death, no number of changes could have turned it into a martial arts masterpiece. That being said, it’s still regarded as required viewing for Bruce Lee fans, and a lot of that is due to the movie’s Bruce Lee vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar fight. The notable height difference between Lee and the seven-foot-two basketball player helped create one of the most visually striking and unique action sequences of Lee’s career. No one will ever get to see Lee’s entire vision for Game of Death, but audiences can at least marvel at the spectacle at watching the NBA star go toe-to-toe with the kung fu legend.

Meet NBA Legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - Wife, Age, Religion, Nicknames, Net Worth and Facts