From MMA Fandom to Islamic Insights

Hello everyone and As-Salamu Alaykum,

I wanted to respectfully begin by stating that I am not a Muslim. As a huge MMA fan, especially of UFC, I’ve always been drawn to Russian fighters like Islam Makhachev. Over time, I started noticing how many of these fighters are Muslim, and that piqued my curiosity about the faith. I knew nothing but the media surface of Islam religion and culture. I know pork is not eaten, Rammadan and that they have a strong brotherhood.

This past weekend, there was no UFC fight (womp womp). I found myself in a YouTube rabbit hole, beginning with watching Islam Makhachev highlights of his most recent fight with JDM (2 division champ baby!). I made my way to the Islam religion videos and watched MANY(same name fighter same name religion, go figure).

I learned about the prophets, the amazing stories, I learned about its history, traditions, and the teachings of the prophets, and I gained a lot of respect for the faith. Learning about the afterlife was incredible. I always lived a decent life, never harmed anyone intentionally, very giving, very grateful, respectful, all that positive stuff. I always felt that if I live a good life then I will live a good afterlife.

Here comes an interesting part to me. While I was in the rabbit hole, I saw a clip from a funny compliation on youtube. I first saw this clip years ago. The clip involved an Islam preacher threatening to knock out a person making fun of his accent. The kid folded and took off like a punk ass bitch. It was just a funny clip to me, I watched it and moved onto the next funny clip. I wonder if this is some type of connection with me learning Islam and I just happen to come across that video. I may be dramatic lol

I respect the religion of Islam very much. I respect the brotherhood bond with each other, ALL prophets (and their background stories), daily Muslim routines influenced by prophets, Mecca, Hajj, Kaaba, historical locations, etc. Loved learning about it all. I must say I was not raised Christian, but was exposed to it at young age. I just live day by day being a good person. If I had to choose to join Christianity or Islam, Id go with Islam based off of everthing I learned.

Clip of the video I connected with while learning about Islam if anyone intersted 🤣

Towards Eternity is one of the youtube channels that taught me about Islam. I am a visual learner so I appreciate the utilizing of AI images/videos to help me better understand.

I am a very open person. I never thought about becoming a Muslim. I know no Muslims. I love Halal food when I am in the city. I don't know if I have intentions on becoming a Muslim. I make this post with absolute no disrespect. Forgive my ignorance around anything posted that may offend anyone. I guess I just wanted to interact with the Muslim community.

Ma Salama