FACE TO FACE with Muhammad Ali

He may no longer float or sting, but make no mistake, his words still pack a punch

- Howard Bingham

The date was set. Muhammad Ali would talk to Readers Digest on the morning of 11 September 2001, at his home, a 35 hectare farm. But when the hour arrived, the world was turned upside down. Ali agreed the interview should go on, but for several hours, the room was mostly quiet.

As the terrible events unfolded, he stared silently at the big screen television while the World Trade Center buckled and crumpled. And then Ali began to talk. His Parkinson's and his age (he turned 60 on 17 January) have turned him into a slow-motion version of his former self. Make no mistake, though, Muhammad Ali is in there, all of him.

Son of a sign painter and his Christian wife, heavyweight champ, poet and wit, black rights advocate, military draft resistor, philanthropist, father, and now grandfather six times over, the roles and causes Ali embraced remain a part of him, and from up close, you can see and hear them all.

You can feel his warmth as well. At one point, Assad Ali, 10, the youngest of his nine children, peeked into the room. The round faced, smiling boy stopped short, waiting to be acknowledged. Ali turned his head, his expression frozen, and slowly, wordlessly unfolded his body to create an opening. Assad ran to him, filled the space, hugged his dad and his father, hugged him back.

As images of Osama bin Laden began flashing across television, a transformation of sorts began for Ali. The man who started life as Cassius Clay and then announced his conversion to Islam in 1964 suddenly became only the second most recognizable Muslim face in the world.