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Nouman Ali Khan
American Islamic speaker (born 1978) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Nouman Ali Khan (born 1978) is an American Islamic preacher and the founder of the Bayyinah Institute for Arabic and Qur’anic Studies.[2][3]
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Personal life
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Khan was born in 1978, in East Germany to a Pakistani Punjabi family and spent his preschool years in the former East Berlin.[4][5] He later lived in Saudi Arabia, where he attended the Pakistan Embassy School, before moving to New York as a teenager, during which he struggled with his faith, briefly identified as an atheist, and eventually became religious.[6] He taught Arabic at Nassau Community College until 2006, after which he began working full-time on Bayyinah, through which he has taught over 10,000 students via seminars and programs.[6][2] He was previously married to Sofia Sharieff.[7]
Misconduct Allegations and Resignation from Board
In September 2017, allegations of misconduct were made public against Khan involving inappropriate relationships with female followers. The allegations became public through a Facebook post by Omer M. Mozaffar, a Chicago-based Muslim chaplain brought in to mediate between Khan and scholars,[8] who alleged that Khan had "confessed inappropriate interactions with various women, violating agreed-upon bounds of Islamic law."[9][10] A panel of four Muslim clerics investigated and produced a written summary alleging Khan used his position to pursue "secret sham marriages" with female admirers.[11]
Screenshots of alleged text conversations between Khan and women circulated on social media. Khan acknowledged being in contact with women but said all conversations were "between consenting adults" and were not "inappropriate," explaining he was seeking to remarry after being divorced.[9] Khan disputed Mozaffar's claims and called the allegations an attempt to damage his reputation.[9][10]
A second panel of six Muslim clerics and academics issued a statement affirming that Khan had "engaged in conduct unbecoming of any believer, much less someone who teaches about the Holy Qur'an."[11] Khan's attorney disputed the allegations, calling them "unfounded and clearly driven by a damaging motive."[11] The controversy contributed to broader discussions within American Muslim communities about accountability and oversight of religious leadership, highlighting the lack of formal mechanisms in many Islamic institutions for investigating misconduct allegations.[12]
In 2018, Khan was named in a report by Facing Abuse in Community Environments regarding his handling of sexual misconduct allegations against imam Zia Ul-Haq Sheikh at the Islamic Center of Irving, where Khan served as board president. According to the report, when a woman reported that Sheikh had sexually abused her after years of counseling, Khan "advised her to seek mental health services and also discouraged her from sharing what she experienced because it would harm Sheikh's reputation as a respected religious leader and family man." Khan stepped down from the board shortly after Sheikh's resignation.[13]
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