Inside the mosque, hundreds of mourners shed their shoes and bowed their heads. And as dozens of tiny bulbs hanging from the domed ceiling burst into light, they knelt before the coffin of Dr. Betty Shabazz and chanted the Islamic prayer for the dead.
Outside, hundreds lined the street, jostling for space behind metal barricades as they gathered to pay their final respects to the widow of Malcolm X, the woman who survived her husband's murder and became a symbol of struggle in her own right.Shabazz, who died Monday from burns suffered in a fire on June 1, was buried Friday after a traditional Islamic prayer service at the Islamic Cultural Center on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. And her funeral drew a parade of prominent and ordinary New Yorkers.
But it was not until the mosque emptied of onlookers that Shabazz's six daughters approached the coffin. In the silence of the great hall, they stood side by side, their feet bare and their heads covered with shawls in Islamic fashion, surrounded by grieving relatives.
"They were feeling strong at first, but at this point they're beginning to feel it," said Gordon Parks Sr., a film director who is the godfather of Shabazz's daughter Qubilah. Qubilah Shabazz's 12-year-old son, Malcolm, is accused of setting the fire at his grandmother's home in Yonkers.