Islam urges the Muslim to be strong and to seek the means of strength. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have said, “Teach your children swimming, archery and horse-riding.” This direct call to practice sports shows the great importance Islam places on sports in training the Muslims and making their bodies healthy and sound.
Dr. Sano Koutoub Moustapha, professor of Fiqh and its Principles, International Islamic University, Malaysia, states the following: Muslims should be strong and well-established in all fields of knowledge, science, art, sport, and so on. For sure, you need to have a balance in whatever you do and never go to any extremes in your actions and beliefs.
Muslim that engage in some certain sports like taekwondo should refrain from making sujud and let it be known to the trainers that your religion doesn’t allow anyone to bow or make sujud to anyone other than Allah. This gesture from Muslims would be a way of highlighting some of the principles of our religion to those people who ignore it and have no idea about its beautiful and balanced teachings. It is hoped that your trainers would respect your belief and exclude you from doing such an action.
I shall seize this opportunity to inform you that Muslims in south Thailand requested the king to exclude them from the way ministers and high officers greet him because that way is like performing a real sujud to human beings.
Thanks to Allah, Muslim ministers were exempted and allowed to greet the king in a respectful way. All in all, we should take this opportunity to introduce our religion in a nice and friendly manner as we do the same when you want to have a food with a non-Muslim. We would certainly refrain from non-halal food as a respect to the teachings of our religion.