When Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson said he wouldn't support a Muslim president, and then insulted Islam in his attempt to walk back his original statement, he irked plenty of people. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of those people.

Appearing on HuffPost Live on Monday, the six-time NBA champion ripped into Carson for his statement.

"Dr. Carson is trying to say that American Muslims would support some of these atrocities that are being perpetrated in the Middle East, and that has not been the case," Abdul-Jabbar explained. "Most American Muslims are law-abiding and very happy to be here and very happy to obey the laws and respect the Constitution. And they absolutely appreciate the fact that they have American citizenship. I don’t think that Mr. Carson has any idea, or knows, very many Muslims because if he did wouldn’t say the things that he’s saying."

Abdul-Jabbar's words were in reaction to Carson saying that a Muslim president wouldn't be consistent with the Constitution on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday.

“I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” Mr. Carson said when asked about the relevance of a president’s faith. “I absolutely would not agree with that.”

Instantly hit with backlash, Carson stood by his comments the next day on Fox News.

"We don't put people at the head of our country whose faith might interfere with them carrying out the duties of the Constitution," Carson told Fox News on Monday. "If you're a Christian and you're running for president and you want to make this [country] into a theocracy, I'm not going to support you. I'm not going to advocate you being the president."

Abdul-Jabbar converted to Islam when he was 24 and frequently weighs in on political views via his column in Time magazine.

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(Photos from left: Ethan Miller/Getty Images, Sean Rayford/Getty Images)