Like Ali, Khabib's greatest challenges were bouts he took on outside of the ring. Hailing from Dagestan, an embattled region of modern Russia that is overwhelmingly Muslim, Khabib walks the tightrope of representing a people bludgeoned by Soviet rule and, during the War on Terror, representing an ummah—the global Muslim community—that is conflated with "terrorists" and "backwardness."

DEFINE: Defines 'ummah' as the global Muslim community, a key term for understanding Khabib's symbolic weight. XREF: Connects to the broader theme of athletes as symbols of embattled peoples, paralleling Ali's political significance.

Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamopho…, loc. 1095