Renowned Kenyan academician Professor Ali Mazrui was laid to
rest on Sunday in the coastal city of Mombasa with hundreds flocking to the
city to pay farewell to the prominent scholar.
Mazrui Mazrui, a world-famous political scientist and a
leading pan-Africanist who wrote on African and Islamic politics and rose to
prominence with his television series The Africans: A Triple Heritage, died
last Sunday in the United States at the age of 81 in the U.S. after a struggle
with illness.
The funeral was attended by Cabinet Secretary for Mining
Najib Balala, Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho and
Mombasa Senator Hassan Omar.
Hundreds of Mombasa residents also attended the emotional
burial ceremony at the Mazrui family’s cemetery in Mombasa’s Old Town.
“Africa, Kenya and Mombasa has lost one of its great sons,”
Governor Joho told Anadolu Agency on the phone, moments before the burial
ceremony.
“He was Kenya’s best known scholar. He will be remembered as
an African who remained true to his roots, and that’s why he insisted in his
will to be buried home,” Joho added.
The body of the late scholar arrived early Sunday at the Moi
International Airport aboard a Turkish Airlines plane. The body was accompanied
by his Nigerian wife Pauline Itu and sons Harith Mazrui and Farid Mazrui. The
casket was draped in the Kenyan National flag.
The scholar, who worked as a professor at Binghamton
University in New York, comes from the respected Mombasa-based Mazrui dynasty,
an Omani Arab clan known in history for putting an end to the 200-year rule of
Mombasa by the Portuguese.
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