Sports
Prayers, incantations, and rituals of purification were for centuries an important aspect of the hand-to-hand combat of Islamic wrestlers. It was not unusual to combine the skills of the wrestler with those of a mystic poet. Indeed, the celebrated 14th-century Persian pahlavan Maḥmūd Khwārezmī was both. Among the many games of North Africa was ta kurt om el mahag (“the ball of the pilgrim’s mother”), a Berber bat-and-ball contest whose configuration bore an uncanny resemblance to baseball. GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Arizona Cardinals are playing the first half of football games as if they just rolled out of bed. The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means. The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regar...