Early Life
Khan's family settled in Baltimore, Maryland, where he attended Owings Mills High School. Like many American teens, Khan listened to hip-hop and played video games. He helped out his family by working the cash register at the family-owned business, his father's gas station. He was granted asylum in the U.S. in 1998, and graduated the following year. Khan was also an active member in the Muslim community, volunteering to teach computer classes for youth at the Islamic Society of Baltimore and attending Jumah services at his local mosque, a mile away from his family home.
In 2002, Khan returned to Pakistan, where he married his wife, Rabia, and subsequently returned to the United States for a short period to continue his work as a database administrator in a Maryland government office. He claims that he helped the FBI investigate and arrest an illegal immigrant from Pakistan during this time.
On December 25, 2002, Aafia Siddiqui made a trip to the U.S. where she had lived from Pakistan, saying that she was looking for a job. She left the U.S. on January 2, 2003. The FBI suspects that the real purpose of her trip was to open a P.O. box for Khan. Siddiqui listed Khan as a co-owner, and falsely identified him as her husband. The key of the P.O. box was later found in the possession of Uzair Paracha, who was convicted of providing material support to al-Qaeda, and sentenced to 30 years in federal prison in 2006. Siddiqui's ex-husband has also said he was suspicious of Siddiqui's intentions, as she made her trip at a time when U.S. universities are closed.
Read more about this topic: Majid Khan (detainee)
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)