Former heavyweight world champion had retired from boxing in 1981 with a record 56 wins and only five losses.
Muhammad Ali, the boxing legend, has died in a hospital in the US state of Arizona.
The 74-year-old former heavyweight world champion had been hospitalised on Thursday with respiratory problems.
US media reported that the problems were complicated by his Parkinson’s disease.
Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 17, 1942, as Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr, a name shared with a 19th century slavery abolitionist. He later changed his name after his conversion to Islam.
Nicknamed The Greatest, Ali retired from boxing in 1981 with a record 56 wins and only five losses.
Ali was known globally not only for his ring career but also for his civil rights activism.
He had been hospitalised multiple times in recent years. Ali spent time in hospital in 2014 after suffering a mild case of pneumonia and again in 2015 for a urinary tract infection.
Limited speaking
His Parkinson’s, thought to be linked to the punches he took during his career that spanned three decades, had limited his public speaking for years.
However, he had continued to make appearances and offer opinions through his family members and spokespersons.
In April, he attended a Celebrity Fight Night Dinner in Phoenix that raised funds for treatment of Parkinson’s.
In December, he issued a statement rebuking US presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.
Ali lived with his wife, the former Lonnie Williams, who knew him when she was a child in Louisville, along with his nine children.
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