The three-time heavyweight champion died Friday night at age 74 after a lengthy battle with Parkinson’s disease.
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Thomson ReutersU.S. boxing great Muhammad Ali poses at the World Economic Forum in DavosMuhammad Ali’s funeral will be held at a 20,000-seater stadium in his home city Louisville, Kentucky on Friday, June 10.
Ali’s family removed him from life support on Friday, Gunnell said.
The funeral will be led by a Muslim imam, but his family said it will be an “interfaith” service with clerics from a number of religions, The BBC reported.
Meanwhile in Louisville, flags were flown half-mast on all public buildings as people mourned Ali’s death.
“Tributes for Ali – who converted to Islam in the 1960s – even came from Iran, where Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called him “#TheGreatest in the ring and in the fight for justice, dignity and peace”.
“To be properly prepared for burial, prayed over and then buried is a right owed to every single Muslim”, Shakir said in a statement provided by organizers.
That’s not the feeling shared by many on social media, who have criticized the British tabloid for ruining Ali’s legacy.
Muhammad Ali’s body has been returned to his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, where he’ll be laid to rest in a city grieving the loss of its favorite son.
On Sunday, family members were expected to accompany his body from Arizona, where he died, to his home state in the southern United States.
Spectators at the French Open men’s final, many of them standing, have paid tribute to Muhammad Ali with a sustained bout of applause before the title match between Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
The solace he found Sunday morning, he said, was that Ali’s suffering was finally over. “We need a voice who knows that true power is to help us to see that our determination to love in spite of our fear is the greatest expression of power that human beings can muster”. Mourners were offered two types of stamps to choose from: a butterfly or a bee.
A private funeral service for family will be held Thursday, with a public memorial Friday.
Lennox Lewis says the late Muhammad Ali was “like a father” to him, and says the boxing legend will be “forever missed”.
“The champ would have been very proud of his family”, Gunnell said. “Period”, US President Barack Obama said.
“As a Muslim, I think it’s definitely important for us that we have such a person in the respected world that’s known to everybody, that gives us a good image”, said Hamza Shah, a doctor in Louisville, where Ali grew up and first started boxing.
Among only a few dozen companies allowed to use Ali’s image are Adidas, and an electronics company for video games in which players can box the champion.
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“I was devastated”, he said.
