LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Muhammad Ali was well known as a world champion boxer, but Hussein Hamdani remembers him more for what he did out of the ring, especially his devotion to Islam.
And that was why Hamdani, his brother, Sallah, and their friend Kamran Bhatti traveled from Toronto to pay their respects to Ali, who died last week after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease, and who was honored here on Thursday at a Muslim funeral ceremony.
Boxing is “not how we knew him best,” said Hamdani, a lawyer and Muslim who joined thousands of others in the Jenazah ceremony.