List of Famous Celebrities

OdayAboushi (born June 5, 1991) is an American football offensive lineman for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL). Aboushi played college football for the University of Virginia and was selected by the New York Jets in the fifth round of the 2013 NFL Draft. He has also played for the Houston Texans.

Aboushi is the ninth of ten children born to Palestinian parents who immigrated to New York from the Beit Hanina neighborhood of Palestine. Aboushi speaks English and some Arabic.

He is also a practicing Muslim, one of few in the NFL. During Ramadan, which fell every year during training camp season at Virginia, he fasted from sunrise to sunset every day. He was one of almost a dozen Muslim athletes honored by the U.S. Department of State for his contributions in 2011. He is one of the first Palestinian players in the NFL.

On July 12, 2013, the Anti-Defamation League issued a press release defending Aboushi after an article circulating online claimed he was a ‘Muslim extremist’. ADL defended Aboushi’s right to take ‘pride in his Palestinian heritage’ and emphatically stated that being pro-Palestinian is in no way equivalent to being anti-Semitic or a Muslim extremist.

In 2014 and 2015, Aboushi traveled to Sudan with the Islamic Medical Association of North America (IMANA) to help repair cleft lips and cleft palates in the impoverished East African nation.[7] Working with the IMANA SaveSmile team, Aboushi helped to perform surgery that adjusted muscles and connected tissues allowing full lips to form in place of cleft palates.

Ryan Emerson Wilcox Harris (born March 11, 1985) is a former American football offensive tackle of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Denver Broncos in the third round of the 2007 NFL Draft and has also played for the Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs, and Pittsburgh Steelers. He played college football at Notre Dame.

Harris is a devout Muslim. Before finding his faith, he was raised in the church of Unitarian Universalism, at Unity Church Unitarian in St. Paul. In the summer before attending Notre Dame, Harris was featured on the MTV show True Life in a documentary entitled “I Want the Perfect Body”, back in 2003.

Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal (born March 6, 1972), nicknamed Shaq, is a retired American professional basketball player and former rapper who is currently an analyst on the television program Inside the NBA. Listed at 7 ft 1 in (2.16 m) tall[1] and weighing 325 pounds (147 kg), he was one of the heaviest players ever to play in the NBA. O’Neal played for six teams throughout his 19-year NBA career.

Following his career at Louisiana State University, O’Neal was drafted by the Orlando Magic with the first overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft. He quickly became one of the best centers in the league, winning Rookie of the Year in 1992–93 and later leading his team to the 1995 NBA Finals. After four years with the Magic, O’Neal signed as a free agent with the Los Angeles Lakers. They won three consecutive championships in 2000, 2001, and 2002. Amid tension between O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004, and his fourth NBA championship followed in 2006. Midway through the 2007–2008 season he was traded to the Phoenix Suns. After a season-and-a-half with the Suns, O’Neal was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2009–10 season. O’Neal played for the Boston Celtics in the 2010–11 season before retiring.

O’Neal’s individual accolades include the 1999–2000 MVP award, the 1992–93 NBA Rookie of the Year award, 15 All-Star game selections, three All-Star Game MVP awards, three Finals MVP awards, two scoring titles, 14 All-NBA team selections, and three NBA All-Defensive Team selections. He is one of only three players to win NBA MVP, All-Star game MVP and Finals MVP awards in the same year (2000); the other players are Willis Reed in 1970 and Michael Jordan in 1996 and 1998. He ranks 7th all-time in points scored, 5th in field goals, 13th in rebounds, and 7th in blocks. Largely due to his ability to dunk the basketball, O’Neal also ranks 3rd all-time in field goal percentage (58.2%). O’Neal was elected into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

In addition to his basketball career, O’Neal has released four rap albums, with his first, Shaq Diesel, going platinum. He has appeared in numerous films and has starred in his own reality shows, Shaq’s Big Challenge and Shaq Vs. He currently hosts The Big Podcast with Shaq.

Hakeem Abdul Olajuwon (born January 21, 1963), formerly known as Akeem Olajuwon, is a Nigerian-American former professional basketball player. From 1984 to 2002, he played the center position in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Houston Rockets and the Toronto Raptors. He led the Rockets to back-to-back NBA championships in 1994 and 1995. In 2008, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and in 2016, he was inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame. Listed at 7 ft 0 in (2.13 m) (but standing closer to 6 ft 10 in (2.08 m) by his own admission), Olajuwon is considered one of the greatest centers ever to play the game. He was nicknamed “The Dream” during his basketball career after he dunked so effortlessly that his college coach said it “looked like a dream.”

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Olajuwon traveled from his home country to play for the University of Houston under head coach Guy Lewis. His college career for the Cougars included three trips to the Final Four. Olajuwon was drafted by the Houston Rockets with the first overall selection of the 1984 NBA draft, a draft that included Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and John Stockton. He combined with the 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) Ralph Sampson to form a duo dubbed the “Twin Towers”. The two led the Rockets to the 1986 NBA Finals, where they lost in six games to the Boston Celtics. After Sampson was traded to the Warriors in 1988, Olajuwon became the Rockets’ undisputed leader. He led the league in rebounding twice (1989, 1990) and blocks three times (1990, 1991, 1993).

Despite very nearly being traded during a bitter contract dispute before the 1992–93 season, he remained in Houston where in 1993–94, he became the only player in NBA history to win the NBA MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and Finals MVP awards in the same season. His Rockets won back-to-back championships against the New York Knicks (avenging his college championship loss to Patrick Ewing), and Shaquille O’Neal’s Orlando Magic. In 1996, Olajuwon was a member of the Olympic gold-medal-winning United States national team, and was selected as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. He ended his career as the league’s all-time leader in blocks (3,830) and is one of four NBA players to record a quadruple-double

In Olajuwon’s college career and early years in the NBA, he was often undisciplined, talking back to officials, getting in minor fights with other players and amassing technical fouls. Later, Olajuwon took an active interest in spirituality, becoming a more devout Muslim. On March 9, 1991, he altered his name from Akeem to the more conventional spelling of Hakeem, saying, “I’m not changing the spelling of my name, I’m correcting it”. He later recalled, “I studied the Qur’an every day. At home, at the mosque…I would read it in airplanes, before games and after them. I was soaking up the faith and learning new meanings each time I turned a page. I didn’t dabble in the faith, I gave myself over to it.” “His religion dominates his life”, Drexler said in 1995. Olajuwon was still recognized as one of the league’s elite centers despite his strict observance of Ramadan (i.e., abstaining from food and drink during daylight hours for about a month), which occurred during the playing season throughout his career. Olajuwon was noted as sometimes playing better during the month, and in 1995 he was named NBA Player of the Month in February, even though Ramadan began on February 1 of that year.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Jr.; April 16, 1947) is an American retired professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. In 1996, he was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving have called him the greatest basketball player of all time.

After winning 71 consecutive basketball games on his high school team in New York City, Alcindor attended college at UCLA, where he played for coach John Wooden on three consecutive national championship basketball teams and was a record three-time MVP of the NCAA Tournament. Drafted by the one-season-old Bucks franchise in the 1969 NBA draft with the first overall pick, Alcindor spent six seasons in Milwaukee. After winning his first NBA championship in 1971, he adopted the Muslim name Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at age 24. Using his trademark “skyhook” shot, he established himself as one of the league’s top scorers. In 1975, he was traded to the Lakers, with whom he played the last 14 seasons of his career and won five additional NBA championships. Abdul-Jabbar’s contributions were a key component in the “Showtime” era of Lakers basketball. Over his 20-year NBA career his team succeeded in making the playoffs 18 times and past the 1st round in 14 of them; his team reached the NBA Finals 10 times.

At the time of his retirement in 1989, Abdul-Jabbar was the NBA’s all-time leader in points scored (38,387), games played (1,560), minutes played (57,446), field goals made (15,837), field goal attempts (28,307), blocked shots (3,189), defensive rebounds (9,394), and personal fouls (4,657). He remains the all-time leading scorer in the NBA, and is ranked 3rd all-time in both rebounds and blocks. In 2007, ESPN voted him the greatest center of all time, in 2008, they named him the “greatest player in college basketball history”, and in 2016, they named him the second best player in NBA history (behind Michael Jordan). Abdul-Jabbar has also been an actor, a basketball coach, and a best-selling author. In 2012, he was selected by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to be a U.S. global cultural ambassador. In 2016, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.

In 1971, at 24, he converted to Islam and became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, which means “the noble one, servant of the Almighty.” He was named by Hamaas Abdul Khaalis. Abdul-Jabbar purchased and donated a house in Washington, D.C. for Khaalis to use as the Hanafi Madh-Hab Center. Eventually, Kareem “found that [he] disagreed with some of Hammas’ teachings about the Quran, and [they] parted ways.”

Speaking about the thinking behind his change of name when he converted to Islam he stated that he was “latching on to something that was part of my heritage, because many of the slaves who were brought here were Muslims. My family was brought to America by a French planter named Alcindor, who came here from Trinidad in the 18th century. My people were Yoruba, and their culture survived slavery… My father found out about that when I was a kid, and it gave me all I needed to know that, hey, I was somebody, even if nobody else knew about it. When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. And that’s a terrible burden on black people, because they don’t have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.”

In 1998, Abdul-Jabbar reached a settlement after suing Miami Dolphins running back Karim Abdul-Jabbar (now Abdul-Karim al-Jabbar, born Sharmon Shah) because he felt Karim was sponging off the name he made famous by having the Abdul-Jabbar moniker and number 33 on his Dolphins jersey. As a result, the younger Abdul-Jabbar had to change his jersey nameplate to simply “Abdul” while playing for the Dolphins. The football player had also been an athlete at UCLA.

Mesut Özil (born 15 October 1988) is a German footballer who plays for English club Arsenal and the German national team. Özil has been a youth national team member since 2006, and a member of the German national team since 2009. He gained international attention during the 2010 FIFA World Cup and was nominated for the Golden Ball Award, which is awarded to the tournament’s best player. Özil started his senior career at hometown club Schalke in the Bundesliga in 2006, transferred to Werder Bremen in 2008 and was signed by Real Madrid in August 2010 following his break-out performance at the FIFA World Cup with Germany. On transfer deadline day of summer 2013 he moved to Arsenal for a fee of £42.5 million, a record for the cluband the highest fee ever paid for a German player.

Özil is acclaimed for his finesse and improvisation as an attacking midfielder. His style and ability for providing assists for his team-mates has been compared by former manager José Mourinho to that of Real Madrid legend Zinedine Zidane. In 2010–11, Özil ranked first in assists in major European and domestic competitions with 25. In 2011–12, he ranked first in assists in La Liga with 17. Özil was the joint-highest assist provider at both the 2010 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2012, registering three at each tournament.

Özil is a practising Muslim. He recites from the Quran before his matches. Talking to the Berlin-based daily Der Tagesspiegel, Özil said, “I always do that before I go out [on the pitch]. I pray and my teammates know that they cannot talk to me during this brief period.” He observes fasting during the Islamic month of Ramadan, but he has admitted that: “Because of my job I cannot follow Ramadan properly. I do it only the few days I can, only when I have a free day. But other than that it’s impossible, because you have to drink and eat a lot to stay at peak fitness.” In May 2016, he performed Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca.

Samir Nasri (born 26 June 1987) is a French professional footballer who plays for Spanish club Sevilla FC on loan from Manchester City. He primarily plays as an attacking midfielder and a winger, although he has also been deployed in central midfield.

Nasri is known for his dribbling, ball control and passing ability. Of Algerian ancestry is described as a player whose “vision and imagination make him an unpredictable opponent”. His playing style, ability, and cultural background have drawn comparisons to French legend Zinedine Zidane.

Nasri began his football career playing for local youth clubs in his hometown of Marseille. At the age of nine, he joined professional club Olympique de Marseille and spent the next seven years developing in the club’s youth academy at La Commanderie, the club’s training center. In the 2004–05 season, Nasri made his professional debut in September 2004 at the age of 17 against Sochaux. In the following season, he became a regular starter in the team and also participated in European competition for the first time after playing in the 2005–06 edition of the UEFA Cup. In the 2006–07 campaign, Nasri won the National Union of Professional Footballers (UNFP) Young Player of the Year award and was also named to the Team of the Year. He finished his career with Marseille amassing over 160 appearances. He played in the teams that reached back-to-back Coupe de France finals in 2006 and 2007.

In June 2008, Nasri joined Premier League club Arsenal, agreeing to a four-year contract. He reached prominence with the team in his third season winning the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) Fans’ Player of the Month award on three occasions and being named to the association’s Team of the Year. In December 2010, he was named the French Player of the Year for his performances during the calendar year. In August 2011, after three seasons with Arsenal, Nasri joined Manchester City on a four-year contract. In his first season with the club, he won his first major honour as a player as the club won the 2011–12 edition of the Premier League.

Nasri is a former French youth international and has represented his nation at every level for which he was eligible. Prior to playing for the senior team, he played on the under-17 team that won the 2004 UEFA European Under-17 Football Championship. Nasri made his senior international debut in March 2007 in a friendly match against Austria. Two months later, he scored his first senior international goal in a 1–0 UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying win over Georgia. Nasri has represented France at two major international tournaments: UEFA Euro 2008 and UEFA Euro 2012.

Samir Nasriwas born in Septèmes-les-Vallons, a northern suburb of Marseille, to French nationals of Algerian descent. His mother, Ouassila Ben Saïd, and father, AbdelhafidNasri, were both born in France; his father being born and raised in Marseille, while his mother being from nearby Salon-de-Provence. Nasri’s grandparents immigrated to France from Algeria. His mother is a housewife and his father previously worked as a bus driver before becoming his son’s personal manager. At the start of his football career, Nasri initially played under his mother’s surname, Ben Saïd, before switching to Nasri, his father’s surname, following his selection to the France under-16 team. He is the eldest of four children and is a non-practising Muslim. Nasri has a younger sister named Sonia and twin brothers named Walid and Malik. All four were raised in La Gavotte Peyret. After joining Arsenal in England, Nasri settled in Hampstead, a district of North London.

Sam Khalifa (born December 5, 1963) is an American former professional baseball player. An infielder, Khalifa played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1985 through 1987. He retired from baseball when his father, Rashad Khalifa, was murdered in 1990. Khalifa is the only Arab American to play in MLB.

Fawad Ahmed Khan (born 5 February 1982) is a Pakistani-born Australian cricketer who is currently contracted to the Sydney Thunder in the Big Bash League, having been granted Australian citizenship in July 2013. In August 2013, he played for the Australian cricket team in both a T20 and an ODI series against England. He’s the cousin of international Pakistani cricketer Yasir Shah.

Hashim Muhammad Amla (born 31 March 1983) is a South African cricketer who plays for South Africa in all three formats of the game. He is also a former captain of the Proteas and is a right-handed batsman and occasional medium-pace bowler. He was South Africa’s Test captain from June 2014 to January 2016.

In January 2011 Amla became the fastest cricketer to reach 2000 Runs in ODIs in his 40th ODI innings. He also became the fastest cricketer to score 20 ODI centuries. He is currently ranked by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as the world’s number eight batsman in Tests and the world’s number five in ODIs. Amla became the first South African to score a Test match triple century when he scored 311 not out against England in 2012.

In the 57th innings of his ODI career, Amla became the fastest batsman to score 3,000 ODI runs, requiring 12 innings fewer than Sir Vivian Richards. Also on 8 December 2013, he became the fastest batsman to score 4,000 ODI runs, requiring 8 innings fewer than Richards. In his 57th match, Amla became the fastest cricketer to reach 10 centuries in ODIs. In 2013, Amla became the first batsman since Ricky Ponting to head both the Test and ODI rankings at the same time in the latest ICC charts.

In 2014, he became the fastest cricketer to reach 15 centuries in ODIs in his 86th innings. In the same year he became the fastest cricketer to reach 16 centuries in ODIs in his 94th inning and fastest cricketer to 17 centuries in ODIs in his 98th innings. He scored 5 hundreds in ODIs in 2014. On 16 January 2015 against West Indies he became the fastest to reach 5000 runs in ODIs in his 101st innings. On 18 January 2015 he became the fastest cricketer to 18 centuries in ODIs in his 102nd inning. On 3 March 2015 he became the fastest cricketer to reach 20 centuries in ODIs in his 108th inning.

He has scored ODI centuries against all test playing countries and only the fourth person to do so. He was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 2013.

Ibtihaj Muhammad (born December 4, 1985) is an American sabre fencer, and a member of the United States fencing team. She is best known for being the first Muslim American woman to wear a hijab while competing for the United States in the Olympics. In individual sabre at the 2016 Summer Olympics, she won her first qualifying round bout, and was defeated in the second round by CéciliaBerder of France. She earned the bronze medal as part of Team USA in the Team Sabre, becoming the first female Muslim-American athlete to earn a medal at the Olympics.

Wojdan Ali SerajAbdulrahimShahrkhani (or “Shaherkani”) (born 1 February 1996 in Mecca) is a Saudi judo competitor who was one of two women selected to represent the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Her inclusion in the games came after the International Olympic Committee put pressure on the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee to include women on their team. The Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee imposed special rules on Shaherkhani related to how to behave while representing Saudi Arabia at the 2012 Games. At the time of the competition, she had only attained a blue belt, having practised judo for just two years.

RamziAbid (born March 24, 1980) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Phoenix Coyotes, Pittsburgh Penguins, Atlanta Thrashers and the Nashville Predators.

Nazem Samir Kadri (born October 6, 1990) is a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He currently plays centre for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). He is the third Muslim to ever play in the NHL, having been drafted by the Maple Leafs seventh overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, which made him the first to be drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs. He played his junior career in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) with first the Kitchener Rangers and then the London Knights, the former of which he won the J. Ross Robertson Cup with and represented in the 2008 Memorial Cup, ultimately losing in the final to the Spokane Chiefs. Kadri has also represented Canada internationally at the 2010 World Junior Championships, where the team won the silver medal.

Since the 2012–13 season, Kadri has led the league in penalties drawn with 164, 46 more than the second place player, Dustin Brown of the Los Angeles Kings.

Kadri’s parents are Sam and Sue, and he has four sisters: Yasmine, Sabrine, Reema and Rayanne. Kadri is named after his grandfather. Sam Kadri moved to Canada when he was four from the small town of KfarDanis, Lebanon. Nazem is an Arab and Muslim-Canadian, and says he has never run into any issues on the ice with “trash talking” concerning his religious beliefs. Kadri was the first Muslim drafted by the Maple Leafs. In high school, Kadri served as a member of his school’s Muslim Student Association. Kadri is the fourth player of Lebanese descent to play in the NHL, following in the footsteps of John Hanna, Alain Nasreddine and Ed Hatoum. He grew up as a Montreal Canadiens fan.

Adlan air bekovich Amagov (born October 30, 1986) is a Russian mixed martial artist and kickboxer of Chechen heritage, who most recently competed in the Welterweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. A professional competitor from 2007-2014, Amagov also formerly competed for Strikeforce and is the former Unifight World Champion.

Irshaad “The White Tiger” Sayed (born 30 March 1989) is a South African national kickboxing champion, two time Muay Thai world champion and mixed martial arts champion who is currently signed with EFC Worldwide: Extreme Fighting Championship and is the current Interim EFC Bantamweight Champion. He is a former 135 lbs Chinese National MMA Champion.

Oussama “Ous” Mellouli (born 16 February 1984) is a Tunisian swimmer who competes in the freestyle and medley events. He is a three-time Olympic medalist, is an African record holder, and trains with the USC Trojans team based at the University of Southern California, where he studied as a computer science undergraduate and swam collegiately.

Since returning from an Adderall related drugs ban, OussamaMellouli has been the 1500 m freestyle World champion at the 2009 World Aquatics Championships with a winning time of 14:37.28, then the second best performance of all time. Mellouli was the gold medalist in the 1500 freestyle at the 2008 Olympics, the bronze medalist in the 1500 freestyle at the 2012 Olympics, and the gold medalist in the 10 km marathon swim at the 2012 Olympics. He is the first Olympian to win medals in both the open water and the pool in a single Olympics.

Nada Mohamed WafaArakji (born 30 October 1994) is a Qatari swimmer. She competed in the 50 m freestyle at the 2012 Summer Olympics, becoming the first woman to represent Qatar at the Olympics. She served on the bid committee for Doha’s bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Arakji’s family is heavily involved in sports. She is the daughter of the former Qatar national football team goalkeeper and Al Sadd player Mohamed WafaArakji. She is a student at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar.

Younes El Aynaoui (born 12 September 1971) is a retired professional tennis player from Morocco of French descent.

He is a five-time singles winner on the ATP Tour and reached his career-high singles ranking of world No. 14 in March 2003, at the age of 31. His long career has been plagued by injuries and he did not play competitive tennis between September 2008 and January 2010. However, in December 2009 he scheduled to play at the ATP Champions Tour tournament in London, where he made his debut at the senior tour.

Sania Mirza (born 15 November 1986) is an Indian professional tennis player who was formerly ranked No. 1 in the women’s doubles rankings. From 2003 until her retirement from singles in 2013, she was ranked by the Women’s Tennis Association as India’s No. 1 player, both in singles and doubles. Throughout her career, Mirza has established herself as the most successful female Indian tennis player ever and one of the highest-paid and high-profile athletes in the country.

In her singles career, Mirza has notable wins over Svetlana Kuznetsova, Vera Zvonareva and Marion Bartoli; as well as former world No. 1s Martina Hingis, DinaraSafina, and Victoria Azarenka. She is the highest-ranked female player ever from India, peaking at world No. 27 in singles in mid-2007; however, a major wrist injury forced her to give up her singles career and focus on the doubles circuit, where she was ranked No. 1. She has achieved a number of firsts for women’s tennis in her native country, including surpassing US$1 million in career earnings (now over $6 million), winning a singles Pro-level title, and winning six major titles (three each in women’s doubles and in mixed doubles), as well as qualifying for (and eventually winning) the WTA Finals in 2014 alongside Cara Black, defending the title the following year partnering with Martina Hingis.

In addition, she is the third Indian woman in the Open Era to feature and win a round at a Grand Slam tournament, and the first to reach the second week. She has also won a total of 14 medals (including 6 Gold) at three major multi-sport events, namely the Asian Games, the Commonwealth Games and the Afro-Asian Games.

Mirza was named one of the “50 Heroes of Asia” by Time in October 2005. In March 2010, The Economic Times named Mirza in the list of the “33 women who made India proud”. She was appointed as the UN Women’s Goodwill Ambassador for South Asia during the event held to mark the International Day To End Violence Against Women on 25 November 2013. She was named in Time magazine’s 2016 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.