Rugby Champion Williams: Islam Brings Me Happiness

CNN

NEW YORK, Mar 19 — It was in the cave of Hira that the Prophet Muhammad (s) received the first revelation of the Holy Qur’ran. For rugby’s original wild child Sonny Bill Williams, meeting a Tunisian family who lived with their five children in a one-bedroom flat in the south of France proved pivotal to his conversion to Islam, according to a report carried by CNN news channel.

The New Zealander’s unshakeable belief in the Almighty has proved to be the making of one of the island nation’s most gifted — and controversial — sports stars. “I was real close with them, and I saw how happy and content they were. And to see how they lived their lives, it was just simple,” Sonny Bill Williams, a prodigious rugby talent, professional boxer and tattooed poster boy, told CNN’s Human to Hero series. “One thing I’ve learned over my career is that simplicity is the key. On the field, off as well.”

“I’ve become a true Muslim,” added Williams. “It’s giving me happiness. It’s made me become content as a man, and helped me to grow. I’ve just got faith in it and it has definitely helped me become the man I am today.”

The Williams of today does not visibly bear the scars of the 15-year-old who was thrust into the unrelenting drinking culture of one of Australia’s top rugby league clubs and shamed by national media after being caught in a compromising position with a model.

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