Ali to be mourned with traditional Muslim prayer service

Mustafa Abdush-Shakur leaned on his cane as he limped into the arena to stand shoulder to shoulder with thousands of Muslims from around the world in a final tribute to The Greatest, Muhammad Ali.
He came 800 miles from Connecticut despite a recent knee replacement that makes it excruciating to walk.
"This is a physical pain," he said. "But had I not been able to come and pray for my brother, it would have caused me a spiritual pain and that would have been much deeper."
He never met Ali, but he felt it was his duty to pay his respect to the boxing giant, as famous for his faith as for his fists.

"I came to pray for my brother and ask our lord to grant him the highest place in paradise because I believe that he is deserving," Abdush-Shakur said.
He will join more than 14,000 people who have tickets to today's Jenazah prayer service, a traditional Muslim funeral service that will be broadcast worldwide and streamed online, offering a window into a religion many outsiders have come to scorn. US Muslims hope the service will help underscore that Islam is fully part of American life. Ali insisted the service be open to all.

"Muhammad planned all of this," said Imam Zaid Shakir, a prominent US Muslim scholar who will lead today's prayers. "And he planned for it to be a teaching moment."

Mourners began arriving shortly after the doors opened at 9 am The attendees were young and old; black, white and Arabic. Some wore traditional Islamic garb, others blue jeans or business suits.
A fellow Muslim who shares the boxing great's name arrived with no hotel reservation, just a belief that this 8,000-mile pilgrimage was important to say goodbye to the global icon considered a hero of his faith.
Mohammad Ali met the boxer in the early 1970s and they struck up a friendship based on their shared name. The Champ visited his home in 1978 and always joked he was his twin brother, he said.

He stood weeping at the funeral, a green Bangladeshi flag draped over his shoulder, holding snapshots he took of the boxer during his visit, one standing with his family, another of him sprawled on a bed in his home.
Ali, who died Friday at 74, famously joined the Nation of Islam, the black separatist religious movement, as a young boxer, then embraced mainstream Islam years later.