Early Life
Rauf was born in Kuwait. His father, Egyptian Imam and Sunni scholar Muhammad Abdul Rauf (1917–2004), moved with the younger Rauf to New York City in the 1960s. The elder Rauf assisted with efforts to create the multimillion dollar Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the first building designed as a mosque in New York City, which took 25 years to complete and opened in 1991. His father, Abdul Rauf, was actively involved in the American Civil Rights Movement with Malcolm X.
Rauf studied physics at Columbia University, where he earned his Bachelor's Degree in nuclear engineering in 1969, before earning a master's degree in plasma physics at Stevens Institute in Hoboken, New Jersey.
Read more about this topic: Feisal Abdul Rauf
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