Of all the legendary wins in Muhammad Ali’s life, few are as little known as the one he pulled off exactly 25 years ago today: Defying the odds and the American government, Ali traveled to Iraq, where 15 Americans were being held hostage by Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Gulf War.

As with much in Ali’s life, his mission was misconstrued and criticized. President George H.W. Bush did not approve. “I basically believe these people are playing into the propaganda game that Iraq is holding here,” said Joseph Wilson, then the top American diplomat in Baghdad. “These people traveling to Iraq are making a serious mistake.”

Even The New York Times criticized Ali, suggesting that he was just another egomaniacal celebrity out of his depth.

“Surely the strangest hostage-release campaign of recent days has been the ‘goodwill’ tour of Muhammad Ali, the former heavyweight boxing champion . . . he has attended meeting after meeting in Baghdad despite his frequent inability to speak clearly.”

At that point, Ali was 48 years old and had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for six years.

Decades before, Ali transcended boxing to become one of the most polarizing figures in America. Shortly after demolishing champ Sonny Liston in an upset on Feb. 25, 1964, he changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali and joined the Nation of Islam. He was 22 years old, the world heavyweight champion.

The famous sportswriter ­Myron Cope wrote an editorial shortly after Ali’s conversion that reflects the hysteria this caused. Cope’s refusal to call Ali by his new name was not unusual.

“For a time, when he was confining himself to bad poetry, Cassius was a loudmouth but a likeable character who seemed to be harmless in or out of the ring,” Cope wrote. “Then he won the championship and became, in his own estimation, ‘The Greatest.’ After the fight, he acknowledged that he was a Black Muslim, converted by the arch-extremist Malcolm X, the man who crowed that President Kennedy’s assassination was ‘a case of the chickens coming home to roost’ . . . Clay has been fighting a socio-religious battle with the Christian world.”

Ali refused to be cowed. “I’m the king of the world!” he said. “I’m pretty! I’m a bad man! I shook up the world!”

He was more plain-spoken in challenging white America to look at the black experience, especially as it related to his sport. “Boxing is a lot of white men watching two black men beat each other up,” he said.

In 1967, Ali refused to be drafted and sent to Vietnam. He claimed conscientious-objector status on religious and racial grounds.

“Why should they ask me to go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?” Ali told reporters in his native Kentucky. “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me n—-r.”

Ali was arrested, and on June 20, 1967, he was tried and convicted of evading the draft. He was stripped of his title, banned from boxing for three years, fined $10,000 and sentenced to five years in prison.

“Just take me to jail,” he said.

While his lawyers appealed, Ali was a free man. He continued to make his case to the media, humor intact. He talked about the money he was losing: “Ain’t nobody wanna see the world heavyweight champion drivin’ a Volkswagen,” he said. “I broke my wife’s piggy bank to get gas money.”

Ali took to the college circuit and said he was making $1,500 a speech. The military reported his IQ as 73, yet on college campuses he debated students with the same wit and quickness he unleashed on other fighters. To one young male student who called him a draft dodger:

“You talkin’ about me and about some draft, and all of you white boys are breaking your necks to get to Switzerland and Canada and London . . . You won’t even stand up for me in America, for my religious beliefs.”

Ali returned to the ring in 1970, knocking out Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in the third round. A year later, Ali’s case made it to the Supreme Court. After 21 minutes of deliberation, his conviction was unanimously overturned.

“One thing must be taken into account when talking about Ali,” his trainer Angelo Dundee once said. “He was robbed of his best years, his prime years.”

Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1984, three years after retiring. By 1985, he had a new mission: He devoted his life to humanitarian aims, especially in bridging divides between the West and the Muslim world.

In the recent documentary “I Am Ali,” Gene Kilroy, Ali’s business manager of nearly 50 years, explained the evolution.

‘The Iraqis would ask him for autographs, want to stand and talk to him…Ali never, ever turned anybody down’ - Vernon Nored, Ali’s liaison from the US Embassy

“When he got Parkinson’s, and his voice wasn’t as strong as it used to be, he said, ‘Well, maybe God is punishing me for some of the things I didn’t do right,’ ” Kilroy said. “ ‘I believe that when you die and go to heaven, God won’t ask you what you’ve done but what you could have done.’ ”

In 1985, Ali traveled to Lebanon in an attempt to free 40 American hostages. His mission was deemed a failure, although someone claiming to be with the Islamic Jihad told Western news outlets that American hostage Jeremy Levin, who reportedly escaped, was released “after the intervention and insistence of a noted American ­Islamic personality.”

That “may have been myself,” Ali said.

In August 1990, shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam took thousands of foreigners hostage. After the United Nations passed a resolution demanding that Iraq pull out of Kuwait, Saddam still had 15 American men, using them as human shields by holding them in buildings America was likely to bomb.

Some of the men had worked at the GM plant in Baghdad. All were civilians.

As recounted in the ESPN “30 for 30” documentary “Ali: The Mission,” America’s most famous Muslim went to Iraq. He landed on Nov. 23, 1990, Day 113 of the crisis.

“It was well-announced to the Iraqis that Muhammad Ali, world champion, world-renowned hero, is now in Baghdad,” said Vernon Nored, who was Ali’s liaison from the US Embassy.

Everywhere he went, Ali was swarmed. “The Iraqis would ask him for autographs, want to stand and talk to him . . . Ali never, ever turned anybody down.”

The remaining hostages had no idea Ali was there — they only knew war was imminent. As Saddam kept Ali waiting for days, the fighter took to the streets, visiting children in schools and praying in mosques. “We hope and pray there is not a war,” he told the press, which followed him everywhere. “And with the little authority from the fame that I have, I’ll show the real side of Iraq.”

Ali had been in Baghdad for one week, with no word from Saddam, when the unthinkable happened: Ali ran out of his Parkinson’s medication.

“He could barely get out of bed,” Nored told “30 for 30.” “He couldn’t stand up. And he couldn’t talk, because his voice wouldn’t go above a whisper.”

Ali fought through it, appearing suited and seated at yet another press conference, where an aide explained that Ali wouldn’t be speaking. Nored, meanwhile, tracked down emergency meds at the Irish Hospital in Baghdad.

The following day, Ali was told Saddam would meet with him. The Bush White House insisted this was all favorable propaganda for the Iraqis, and rumors circulated that Ali and other would-be do-gooders were in it for a Nobel Prize.

“Loose-cannon diplomacy” was the term.

Ali’s meeting with Saddam on Nov. 29, 1990, was open to the media. Ali sat patiently while Saddam praised himself for treating the hostages so well. Once he sensed an opening, Ali promised Saddam that he’d bring America “an honest account” of Iraq.

“I’m not going to let Muhammad Ali return to the US,” Saddam replied, “without having a number of the American citizens accompanying him.”

Ali got all 15. Once released, the men were filmed going into Ali’s modest hotel room, where an exhausted Ali sat on the foot of his bed. One by one, the former hostages thanked him. An emaciated older man named George Charchalis lightly touched Ali’s shoulder and said, “He’s our guy.”

On Dec. 2, 1990, Ali and the hostages flew out of Baghdad, headed for JFK. The men remained overwhelmed.

“You know, I thanked him,” said former hostage Bobby Anderson. “And he said, ‘Go home,’ be with my family . . . what a great guy.”

“I was just lucky enough, for some reason, to be on Muhammad Ali’s list,” said Harry Brill-Edwards.

“He’s a marvelous individual,” said Sergio Coletta. “Marvelous man.”

Ali was humbled. “They don’t owe me nothin’,” he said in Baghdad. “They don’t owe me nothin’.”

Just weeks later, on Jan. 6, 1991, the United States began bombing Iraq. Ali himself was still dogged by criticism that his mission was one of self-aggrandizement, that he was just in search of more publicity.

The old Ali roared back.

“I do need publicity, but not for what I do for good! I need publicity for my book, I need publicity for my fights, I need publicity for my movie — but not for helping people,” he said. “Then it’s no longer sincere.”