JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and the WWE on Wednesday hosted a special media iftar feast for Muslim American professional wrestler Mustafa Ali at Galleria Hotel in Jeddah.
Ali, whose real name is Adeel Alam, and who has a Pakistani father and Indian mother, made his professional wrestling debut in 2003, and joined the WWE in 2016. He is now signed up to the organization’s Raw brand.
Although Ali has visited Saudi Arabia three times to take part in WWE events, this Ramadan season marked his first time performing Umrah.
After the iftar gathering, Ali thanked the GEA and WWE for hosting the event and for providing the opportunity to perform Umrah for the first time.
“So excited and so blessed to have the opportunity,” he said. “I feel like on a spiritual level, it’s something that I needed to put that first.”
Ali told Arab News that Ramadan and his spirituality comes first, although the changes of routine during the fasting month for an athlete was “a little difficult.”
“The big thing with Ramadan is I ended up having to flip my schedule completely upside down,” he said. “So primarily, I would do my training during the day, but because of the fasting and everything going on, I want to be present for sahoor, and I want to be present for Taraweeh with my family. I put all my work stuff on hold until night, so after Taraweeh prayers when everyone’s at home sleeping, that’s when I go to work.”
“So, I go do my training and any conditioning that I do in the middle of the night. It’s a little harder the first couple of days, but as anything, you can just get acclimated to it,” Ali continued.
The wrestler enjoys having a huge fanbase globally, not only for the love of fame but also because he has a message to deliver as a young talent and a role model for the young WWE Muslim audience.
“You do realize you represent a lot of Muslims when you’re on TV, but the more I’ve been thinking about it is like, no, I get to be what I wanted to see growing up as a lifelong fan, as a Muslim kid,” Ali said. “I would watch WWE programming, I would never see someone that looked like me on TV.
“Then when you finally did, it was a really bad stereotype, it was a really bad negative image that person would be sending. Now, fast forward, I’m in the position where hopefully there’s a kid watching, Muhammad or Aisha, they’re watching and they get to see Mustafa perform on TV and they go, that’s my guy, that’s me.”
After the iftar, the GEA organized a tour for Ali of the historic Jeddah Al-Balad, which was a welcome excursion because he was doing nothing “other than work out.”
The GEA in cooperation with the WWE will be holding the "Night of Champions" at Jeddah Superdome, the world’s largest freestanding dome, on Saturday, May 27.
