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Muhammad Ali: Thousands expected at memorial service on Friday

Mourners who can not get tickets will be able to watch a funeral procession that will drive Ali’s remains through Louisville, including along a boulevard bearing his name, to the Cave Hill Cemetery.

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Ali was born in Louisville on January 17, 1942, in a segregated part of the city.

California imam and scholar Zaid Shakir will preside over the service at the KFC Yum!

The Louisville funeral will be preceded on Thursday by a family funeral and an Islamic prayer service, held in the 18,000-seat Freedom Hall that hosted Ali’s last fight in Louisville, against Willi Besmanoff in 1961. Ali called on fellow Muslims to “stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda”.

“There will be people coming from all over”. “It meant a lot to Jacob that he was there”, Khaliah Ali-Wertheimer said, according to Haaretz.

More details about the ceremonies were to be revealed at a press conference in Louisville on Monday.

The official cause of Ali’s death was septic shock due to unspecified natural causes. He had sought medical attention for a cough, but his condition rapidly deteriorated, Mr Gunnell said. He was admitted to a hospital in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, where he had lived with his wife Lonnie.

Ali’s family removed him from life support on Friday, Gunnell said.

“Our hearts are literally hurting”.

“All his kids and grand kids were there, we were with him in Arizona, and he was bright-eyed and alert and had a great day”, she said, adding of her two kids, “.I have to stay strong and teach them about celebrating life and moving on and all of that because it’s a part of life”. “We will be okay, ‘” she wrote.

Political leaders, sports figures, celebrities and fans around the world paused to remember “The Greatest”, whose remarkable career spanned three decades.

As tributes pour in for the late Muhammad Ali following the passing of the world heavyweight boxing champion, an interesting story has emerged.

“His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing”.

Laila Ali, who followed her father into professional boxing, remembered her dad as a “fighter inside and out of the ring” who spoke for people who “couldn’t speak up for themselves”. In some of his most famous remarks, describing in 1967 why he would refuse to be drafted into military service for the war in Vietnam, Ali had said, “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and 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?” He finished his career with 37 wins by knockout.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. on January 17, 1942, Ali dazzled fans with slick moves in the ring and his wit and engaging persona outside it.

He famously said he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.

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At services all over town, they recited Ali’s words on religion: “Rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, oceans all have different names, but they all contain water”, Ali once said. The US Supreme Court overturned his conviction in 1971.

Members of the Louisville Islamic Center write messages on a memorial banner as they pay their respect to Muhammad Ali the former world heavyweight boxing champion after he died at the age of 74 on Friday at the Islamic Center in Louisville Kentucky U