It seems like such an obvious concept: keeping track of our fellow Muslims in the sporting world and pointing them out and lauding their efforts. It is something that I have always been curious about, being a practicing Muslim and concurrently a raging sports fan. But I got an interesting response from someone recently. They said, “I don’t care what religion a player follows, as long as they can play. That is all that we should care about.” And that got me thinking. Does caring about the religion of an athlete fly in the face of athletic competition in general? What is the point of following athletes because they have the same beliefs as me? Is there a point to it at all? Hmmmm. Let’s look into the heart of this matter. (more…)