Summer School students found among their ranks this year a man who stood a head above everyone else.
His name is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, also known by his former name, Lew Alcindor, and he had taken time off from his basketball career to study Arabic at Harvard.
The high-scoring center of the Milwaukee Bucks, Jabbar came to Harvard to pursue his education in the scriptures of Islam. He is a member of the Hanafi sect of Islam (not to be confused with the Nation of Islam or the so-called Black Muslims).
"It was a choice between here and Portland, Oregon, so it wasn't much of a choice really," Jabbar said. "Those were the only places that taught Arabic in the summer."
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