Rashad Khalifa was an
Egyptian-AmericanEgyptian Americans are Americans of Egyptian ancestry, first-generation Egyptian immigrants, or descendants of Egyptians who immigrated to the United States. In the 2007 U.S. census, the number of people with Egyptian ancestry was estimated at 195,000, although some estimates range from several...
biochemistBiochemists are scientists who are trained in biochemistry. Typical biochemists study chemical processes and chemical transformations in living organisms. The prefix of "bio" in "biochemist" can be understood as a fusion of "biological chemist."-Role:...
, closely associated with the
United Submitters InternationalUnited Submitters International is a reformist moderate Islamic religious community, following the teachings of Rashad Khalifa who is regarded in this faith as God's messenger of the Covenant, who claims to be prophesied in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Quran. Majority of Muslims...
. He was
assassinatedTo carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
in 1990.
Life
Khalifa was born in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
on November 19, 1935. His father was a Sufi who is reported to have led a group with thousands of followers.
Khalifa obtained an honours degree from
Ain Shams UniversityAin Shams University is an institute of higher education located in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 1950, the university provides education at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels.-History:...
, Egypt, before he emigrated to the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1959, later earning a
Master's DegreeA master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
in
biochemistryBiochemistry, sometimes called biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes in living organisms, including, but not limited to, living matter. Biochemistry governs all living organisms and living processes...
from
Arizona State UniversityArizona State University is a public research university located in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area of the State of Arizona...
and a PhD. from
University of CaliforniaThe University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
. He became a
naturalizedNaturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
U.S. citizen and lived in
Tucson, ArizonaTucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
.
Khalifa worked as a science adviser for the Libyan government for about one year, after which he worked as a chemist for the
United Nations Industrial Development OrganizationThe United Nations Industrial Development Organization , French/Spanish acronym ONUDI, is a specialized agency in the United Nations system, headquartered in Vienna, Austria...
, then became a senior chemist in Arizona's State Office of Chemistry in 1980. Khalifa's son,
Sam KhalifaSam Khalifa , is a former Major League Baseball player. The seventh overall pick in the 1982 June draft. He played 164 games across three seasons in the majors, most as a shortstop and all as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates...
, played for the
Pittsburgh PiratesThe Pittsburgh Pirates are a Major League Baseball club based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They play in the Central Division of the National League, and are five-time World Series Champions...
and was the first
major leagueMajor League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
player of
EgyptianEgyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
descent.
He was central to the founding of the
United Submitters InternationalUnited Submitters International is a reformist moderate Islamic religious community, following the teachings of Rashad Khalifa who is regarded in this faith as God's messenger of the Covenant, who claims to be prophesied in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Quran. Majority of Muslims...
, (USI), an offshoot Islamic group that usually prefers not to use the terms "
MuslimA Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
" or "
IslamIslam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
," instead using the English equivalents "Submitter" and "Submission."
Doctrine
Khalifa said that he was a messenger (
rasool) of God and that the Archangel Gabriel 'most assertively' told him that chapter 36, verse 3, of the Quran, 'specifically' referred to him.
His followersUnited Submitters International is a reformist moderate Islamic religious community, following the teachings of Rashad Khalifa who is regarded in this faith as God's messenger of the Covenant, who claims to be prophesied in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Quran. Majority of Muslims...
refer to him as God's Messenger of the Covenant. He promoted a strict
monotheismMonotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
and was a prominent Quranist, rejecting the
hadithThe term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....
and
sunnahThe word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...
as fabrications attributed to prophet Muhammad by later scholars.
He is most notable for his statement that the Quran contains a mathematical structure based on the number 19 and making the highly controversial claim that the last two the verses of chapter nine in the Quran were not canonical, telling his followers to reject them. Starting in 1968, Khalifa used computers to analyze the frequency of letters and words in the Quran. In 1974, he claimed that he had discovered a mathematical code in the text of the Qur'an involving the number 19. The details of this analysis are available in his book,
Quran, the Final Testament.
Khalifa's research did not receive much attention in the
WestThe Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
. In 1980,
Martin GardnerMartin Gardner was an American mathematics and science writer specializing in recreational mathematics, but with interests encompassing micromagic, stage magic, literature , philosophy, scientific skepticism, and religion...
mentioned it in
Scientific AmericanScientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
. Gardner later wrote a more extensive and critical review of Khalifa and his work.
Khalifa's first publicized report in the
ArabArab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
world appeared in the Egyptian magazine
Akher Sa'a, in January, 1973. Updates of his research were subsequently published by the same magazine later that year and again in 1975.
Assassination
On January 31, 1990, Khalifa was murdered at Masjid Tucson. He was stabbed multiple times and his body drenched in
xylolXylene encompasses three isomers of dimethylbenzene. The isomers are distinguished by the designations ortho- , meta- , and para- , which specify to which carbon atoms the two methyl groups are attached...
but not set alight. Although nobody has been convicted of his murder, James Williams, an alleged member of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra organization, was convicted of
conspiracyIn the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement...
in the slaying. Williams disappeared on the day of his sentencing and could not be found. In 2000 Williams was apprehended attempting to re-enter the United States and sentenced to serve 69 years in prison. His convictions were upheld on appeal by the
Colorado Court of AppealsThe Colorado Court of Appeals is the intermediate-level appellate court for the state of Colorado. It was established by statute by the Colorado General Assembly under Article VI, Section 1 of the Constitution of Colorado.-Jurisdiction:...
except for one count of
forgeryForgery is the process of making, adapting, or imitating objects, statistics, or documents with the intent to deceive. Copies, studio replicas, and reproductions are not considered forgeries, though they may later become forgeries through knowing and willful misrepresentations. Forging money or...
.
CBS NewsCBS News is the news division of American television and radio network CBS. The current chairman is Jeff Fager who is also the executive producer of 60 Minutes, while the current president of CBS News is David Rhodes. CBS News' flagship program is the CBS Evening News, hosted by the network's main...
reported that Muslim extremist
Wadih el-HageWadih el-Hage is a former al-Qaeda member who is serving life imprisonment in the United States for his part in the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He was indicted and arrested in 1998, and convicted on all counts and sentenced to life without parole in 2001...
was "connected to the 1990 stabbing death of... Rashad Khalifa [who] was hated by Muslim extremists [that were] opposed to his teachings. El-Hage who was indicted for lying about the case, called the assassination 'a good thing.'
On Tuesday, April 28, 2009 the Calgary Police Services of Canada arrested Glen Cusford Francis, a 52-year-old citizen of
Trinidad and TobagoTrinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...
, on suspicion of killing Rashad Khalifa. Investigators in Tucson learned that Francis, who was going by the name Benjamin Phillips, had began his studies under Khalifa in January 1990. Phillips disappeared shortly after the slaying, and was said to have left the country. An investigation revealed Phillips and Francis were the same man upon discovering fingerprints found in Phillips apartment. A specialty unit of the Tucson Police Department furthered in its investigation in 2006 and in December 2008 and was able to use DNA testing on forensic evidence from the crime scene to tie Francis to the assassination. In October 2009, a Canadian judge ordered his extradition to the United States to face trial.
External links
Resources
- R. Khalifa, Quran: Visual Presentation of the Miracle, Islamic Productions International, 1982. ISBN 0-934894-30-2
- R. Khalifa, http://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/index.html, Authorized English Translation
- R. Khalifa, http://books.google.com/books?id=KSZhy_x7r2QC&dq=quran+rashad+khalifa&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=_01ESsHEBM7OjAeT-4DQAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4, Authorized English Translation
- R. Khalifa, The Computer Speaks: God's Message to the World, Islamic Productions International, 1981. ISBN 0-934894-38-8
- R. Khalifa, Quran, Hadith, And Islam, Universal Unity, 2000. ISBN 1-881893-04-9.
- Y.Y. Haddad and J.I. Smith, Mission to America; Five Islamic Sectarian Communities in North America, University Press of Florida, 1993. ISBN 0-8130-1216-3.
- A.Y. Musa, Hadith as Scripture (Palgrave, 2008) ISBN 0230605354