NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The death of boxing great Muhammad Ali cost American Muslims perhaps their greatest hero, a goodwill ambassador for Islam in a country where their minority faith is widely misunderstand and mistrusted.
"We thank God for him," Talib Shareef, president and imam of the Masjid Muhammad mosque in Washington, told a gathering of Muslim leaders who honoured Ali in Washington on Saturday, a day after he died in a Phoenix hospital at age 74. "America should thank God for him. He was an American hero."