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Worshipers and well-wishers take photographs as the casket
with the body of Muhammad Ali is brought for his jenazah
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A Muslim funeral for Muhammad Ali on Thursday drew thousands
of admirers to the boxer's hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, where mourners
prayed over the body of a man who battled in the ring and sought peace outside
it.
An estimated 14,000 people, representing many races and
creeds, attended the jenazah, or "funeral" in Arabic, where he was
repeatedly feted as "the people's champion."
Ali, a three-time heavyweight champion known for his
showmanship, political activism and devotion to humanitarian causes, died on
Friday of septic shock in an Arizona hospital. He was 74.
"The passing of Muhammad Ali has made us all feel a
little more alone in the world," said Sherman Jackson, a Muslim scholar at
the University of Southern California.
"Something solid, something big, beautiful and
life-affirming has left this world," he said of a man who was forced to
give up more than three years of boxing at the height of his career for his
refusal to serve in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.
Jackson praised Ali for advancing the cause of black
Americans during and after the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Others
admired him for making Islam more acceptable and giving U.S. Muslims a hero
they could share with the American mainstream.Imam Zaid Shakir, a founder of
Muslim liberal arts school Zaytuna College in Berkeley, California, led
worshippers in prayers such as "Allahu akbar" ("God is
greatest") over Ali's body, which lay in a casket covered with a black and
gold cloth.
Ali and his family planned his funeral for 10 years, making
sure it would honour his Muslim faith while also adapting to the demands of
Western media-driven culture.
U.S. President Barack Obama also praised Ali on Thursday in
a Facebook live broadcast from the White House, showing off a copy of the book,
"GOAT: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali," and a signed pair of boxing gloves
gifted to him by Ali.
"It's very rare where a figure captures the imagination
of the entire world," Obama said. "He was one of a kind and in my
book he'll always be the greatest."
Ali was due to be buried on Friday, after a funeral
procession and before one final goodbye when thousands more will gather for an
interfaith service.
Luminaries including former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan and comedian Billy Crystal will attend Friday's event,
at the KFC Yum Center.
"Ali will never die. His spirit will live on,"
boxing promoter Don King told Reuters from Thursday's venue at Freedom Hall,
the complex where Ali defeated Willi Besmanoff in 1961 in his last fight in
Louisville.
Others on hand to pay respects included U.S. civil rights
leader Jesse Jackson and singer Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens.
Ali rose to the top of the boxing world when black fighters
were expected to be quiet and deferential. His braggadocio, even before he
changed his name from Cassius Clay, startled white America. He further shocked
Americans after he joined the Nation of Islam and adopted an Islamic name in
1964.
In the 1970s, Ali converted to Sunni Islam, the largest
Muslim denomination worldwide. Late in life he embraced Sufism, a mystical
school of the faith.
Ali's boast of being "the greatest of all time"
and his ability to "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee"
stoked controversy at home, while his criticism of the U.S. war in Vietnam
earned him admiration in much of the developing world.
With time, even his American critics grew scarce, and he
achieved near mythical status as he lit the flame to open the 1996 Olympics in
Atlanta, by then muted and trembling from the Parkinson's disease that
afflicted him over the final three decades of his life.
One admirer, Ali Shah, 45, travelled from California to
attend.
"It didn't seem too much to spend a couple days travel
to pay respects for a lifetime of inspiration by my hero, Muhammad Ali, my
namesake and hero," Shah said. "He's just been a positive inspiration
for me for as long as I've had memories."
-Reuters-
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