“Is the food halal? No, we can’t eat here.” Nizaam Carr, on his Bulls teammates.
Nizaam Carr, the first Muslim to play for the Springboks, says it took him years to ask for what his faith needs. Now his Bulls teammates ask for him.
“Now when we go to restaurants, they[‘re] asking the waiters, waitresses, hey, is the food halal? No, we can’t eat here. We have to find another place,” he said.
Carr, a 35-year-old Bulls back-rower, was speaking on For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa, published on Thursday 15 October. Ben Youngs and Dan Cole had asked how he balances his faith with professional rugby.
He also explained how he gets through a month of fasting with no water at training. It involves waking up every hour of the night.
Has a teammate ever changed a habit for you? Have your say in the comments.
Nizaam Carr was “quite shy of being myself”
Nizaam Carr is 35. He was born in Cape Town and played for Western Province and the Stormers. He won the first of his five Springboks caps against Italy in November 2014.
He captained the Stormers in 2015. Siya Kolisi, a Stormers teammate from those years, moved back to Cape Town this year.
He remembers the start of his career differently.
“In the start of my career I was quite shy of being myself… and you know holding a lot back but I think the more older and the more experience I got I was like you know what rugby is so brilliant and this is the beauty of the game that everybody will just embrace you for who you are.”
He does not say anyone made him feel unwelcome. He says he held back.
Halal meals, Friday prayers, and the manager
Then he started asking.
“The more I came out of… you know this is halal meals or Mr manager, if I fly this way, do they have halal meals? Is there halal meals at the hotel or I have to pray a certain time on Friday, I have to go to mosque… the more I… came out a little bit, the more they accepted.”
His list is practical: halal meals on flights and at hotels, and time for Friday prayers, often the day before a game.
Every one of those is a logistics question, and team managers answer logistics questions all week. The hard part was a young player deciding whether he could put the question.
Carr spent most of 2017 to 2022 at Wasps in England and joined the Bulls in 2022. There, the asking has become the squad’s habit.
Nizaam Carr had already described a Bulls squad that spends its days off together. “We have different boys spending a lot of time going to each other’s farms, hanging out, having a drink or two. I’ll have a Fanta,” he said. “Obviously you guys know I don’t drink so… because of my faith.”
“Just be yourself”
Then he spoke to younger players directly.
“For any young boy watching this, I think just be yourself, your authentic self, things will go brilliantly for you,” he said. “But the more you hold on and you hold back, that’s not really expressing yourself.”
It is advice from a man who did the opposite for the first part of his career and says so.
A protein shake every hour from 10pm
Ramadan is different. No team manager can fix it with a phone call. During daylight there is no food and no water, and the training schedule does not move.
“You lose like 10 to 12 kgs during the Ramadan for professional sportsmen. So that’s quite tough,” Carr said, giving his own estimate.
“But what I did was I sort of change my day around. So I would wake up every hour from 10pm. And so what would happen is you stop eating at six in the morning, and then you eat at six at night… So no water, even while training… what I did was have a protein shake every hour from 10pm to about 6am in the morning. And just lying there on my bed, KFC wings, and just throwing everything down the throat there.”
That leaves twelve hours a day for every calorie and every litre a professional back-rower needs, and some of those hours are meant for sleep.
One of the hosts asked, laughing, whether he still lost weight. Carr suspected he might have put some on. “With the Muslim faith, we… sort of do it since 7, 8 years old,” he added.
Why Nizaam Carr fasts
“People always ask why are you doing it? It’s just a connection between you and… your God or… the Almighty that you believe in and… it’s also how does people feel who doesn’t have… any food or that [are] starving out there or they’re not sure where the next meal is coming from.”
Ramadan next year falls in February and March, in the middle of the URC season.
Nizaam Carr’s full interview is on the For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa channel.
Your turn: could you train through it?
Carr gets through Ramadan with no water at training and a protein shake every hour of the night. He says a professional can lose 10 to 12 kilos.
Could you get through a pre-season session with no food and no water? Yes or no below.
Frequently asked
Who was the first Muslim to play for the Springboks?
Nizaam Carr. He made his Springboks debut against Italy in November 2014 and won five caps between 2014 and 2016.
Does Nizaam Carr fast during Ramadan?
Yes. He told For The Love Of Rugby: South Africa that he trains with no food or water during daylight. At night he drinks a protein shake every hour from 10pm to 6am.
Which clubs has Nizaam Carr played for?
Western Province and the Stormers in Cape Town, Wasps in England, and the Bulls, where he has played since 2022.
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