All that was readily identifiable were parts of the black turban that marked the ayatollah as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, and a couple of prayer books, the nephew, Amar Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, said in an interview.
A childless couple's prayers are answered when a boy magically sprouts from their vegetable garden.
At the Friday prayers a couple of days after the bombing, the country's leading Imam condemned the attack.
He alluded to his recent health issues and told the crowd: "Save your prayers for a couple of days".
Although one of the most fiery preachers, with his decrees posted on the Internet, the sheik only drew a couple dozen worshipers to Friday Prayers recently.
5 30 p.m. | Updated with a tweet |Jack Cushman, a Times journalist with a longstanding interest in the environment, just sent me a recent National Geographic web feature on a Vatican decision, prompted by the warming climate, to approve a change in a centuries-old annual Catholic ritual and prayer in a couple of villages high in the Swiss Alps.
Only the crackled sound of me turning the prayer wheels a couple of times, my footsteps in the garden and the bark of a stray dog in the distance created rhythm through the stillness of the night.
The mosque, which is in a ramshackle building on Central Avenue less than a mile from the Capitol, is a modest affair that draws a couple of hundred faithful for Friday prayers.
At Thornton, prayer at least a couple of days a week has become the norm for the Prayer Warriors.
But when we get there there's dense cloud and freezing winds and it's all I can do to hop out, shivering, and take a couple of photos of the cairns, prayer flags and Buddhist stupas marking the top.
