Thousands pay respects to Muhammad Ali at Muslim funeral service in hometown of Kentucky
14,000 mourners attend Louisville Jenazah service to celebrate legendary boxer's life ahead of interfaith public memorial
MOURNERS caught a glimpse of Muhammad Ali's coffin today at a prayer service for the champ.
The Greatest's close family joined 14,000 worshippers and boxing royalty - including Lennox Lewis, Sugar Ray Leonard and Don King - at the Islamic service.
A black hearse took Ali's body from a funeral home to the prayers at Freedom Hall in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky - where the ring legend defeated Willi Besmanoff on November 29, 1961.
His wooden casket, draped in a black cloth with a gold Islamic inscription, was then wheeled in front of weeping mourners and placed to face the holy city of Mecca.
The service - called a Jenazah and led by prominent Muslim scholar Imam Zaid Shakir - lasted for 45 minutes.
Former boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, who sat through the service, called Ali a "man of great character and courage".
He was seated near promoter Don King - who clutched a selection of flags from around the world.
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson also attended.
Ali famously joined the Nation of Islam, the black separatist religious movement, as a young boxer before embracing mainstream Islam.
He died last Friday after battling Parkinson's disease for 32 years.
The boxer's coffin will be paraded through the streets of Louisville tomorrow before he is laid to rest in a private burial.
Actor Will Smith, who played the star in film "Ali", as well as ex-British heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis will be pallbearers.
A public memorial service will then take place at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville.
Eulogies will be given by former US President Bill Clinton and actor Billy Crystal - in an event screened around the world.
Mourners have made their way to Kentucky from all across the globe, including a man - also named Mohammad Ali - who arrived in the US from Bangladesh without even booking a place to stay.
He was found a place to shelter by Ali's team after proving that the champ had in fact stayed at HIS Bangladeshi house after the pair struck up a friendship.
Champ Ali visited his home in 1978 and always joked he was his twin brother, the man said.
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