Muhammad Ali Funeral Attended By All Faiths: Just As He Wanted

Over 10,000 fans and well-wishers arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, to attend funeral services held for the late boxer and civil rights activist Muhammad Ali on Thursday and Friday.

Ali died last Friday at the age of 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s Disease.

The first service, a traditional Muslim funeral called a jenazah, was held in Freedom Hall, the site of Ali’s last fight in Louisville, his hometown. Over 14,000 free tickets had been given out for the event, which was also viewable via livestream on the internet. Just before and during the service, “jenazah” trended globally on Twitter.

The ceremony took less than an hour and included several prayers and multiple speakers. The attendees came from various backgrounds and religions. Jewish people, Muslims, and Christians exchanged stories and photographs of Ali, who had planned his own funeral services years in advance, with the goal of introducing an interfaith audience to Muslim ceremonies.

Imam Zaid Shakir, an American Muslim scholar, spoke at the service to address the multicultural crowd. “We welcome the Muslims, we welcome the members of other faith communities, we welcome the law enforcement community, we welcome our sisters, our elders, our youngsters,” he said.

“Muhammad planned all of this,” Shakir explained. “And he planned for it to be a teaching moment.”

The service opened with four rounds of recitation of “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.” It was followed by a reading from the Quran, and prayers for Ali and for the funeral attendees.

Abdul Rafay Basheer, a 25-year-old Ali supporter from Chicago, traveled especially to attend the service, “In this climate we live in today, with Islamophobia being on the rise and a lot of hate-mongering going on, I think it’s amazing that someone of that caliber can unify the country and really show the world what Islam is about,” he said. “I think he was sort of the perfect person to do that.”

On Friday morning, Ali’s casket was driven in a procession through the city, where 15,000 attendees lined the streets to pay respects. Multiple attendees threw flowers at Ali’s hearse as it passed by. The procession ended at Cave Hill cemetery, his final resting place, where he was buried in a private ceremony.

Later on Friday, a larger interfaith service was held to honor Ali’s passing, featuring hundreds of dignitaries and famous names, as well as local community members, who spoke at the ceremony.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said, “[Ali] decided very young to write his own life story. I think he decided that he would not be ever disempowered. Not his race, not his place, not the expectations of others whether positive or negative would strip from him the power to write his own story.”

Presidential aide Valerie Jarrett read a statement from President Barack Obama, who was unable to attend the service.

“Muhammad Ali was America,” the statement read. “Muhammad Ali will always be America.”

The president’s statement referenced Ali’s famous quote, “I’m black and I’m pretty,” as well as his colloquial self-proclaimed title of “The Greatest.”

“Ali was a radical even in a radical’s time; a loud, proud, unabashedly black voice in a Jim Crow world,” Obama wrote. “What a man. What a spirit. What a joyous, mighty champion. God bless The Greatest of All Time.”

Ali famously converted to the Black separatist religion, Nation of Islam, in 1964. He changed his name to Muhammad Ali from Cassius Clay, which he described as his “slave name.” Ali converted again to Sunni Islam in 1975, choosing to embrace the multicultural viewpoint offered by the more mainstream sect.

Islamic scholar Sherman Jackson, a professor at University of South California, said in a speech that Ali did more than anyone else to normalize Islam, in life and in death. “Ali was the people’s champion and champion he did the cause of his people,” he said. “Ali made being a Muslim cool. Ali made being a Muslim dignified.”

[Photo By John Moore/GettyImages]