Khizr and Ghazala Khan

Biography

Khizr Khan was born in 1950, the eldest of ten children, to poultry farming parents in Gujranwala, a city in Pakistan's Punjab Province. Ghazala is also from Punjab, born in 1951 in Faisalabad. The couple met while attending the University of Punjab, where Ghazala studied Persian and Khizr pursued an LL.B. in the Law College. Khizr passed the Punjab bar in 1974. Once married, the couple moved to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates to earn money to move to the United States. Two of their sons, Shaharyar and Humayun, were born in Dubai.

Immigration to the United States

They moved from the UAE to the United States in 1980, first to Houston, Texas. Khizr mentioned in 1983 that he received an LL.M. from University of Missouri Law School in 1982.

Later they moved to Massachusetts, where Khizr earned an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School, graduating in 1986. They became American citizens the same year. Khizr, Ghazala, and their two sons then moved to Silver Spring, Maryland, where their third son, Omer, was born.

Khizr went on to work at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, one of the largest lobbying firms in the United States, where he was employed as the firm's manager of litigation technology from 2000 to 2007.

Death of Humayun Khan

Their middle child, Humayun, attended the University of Virginia, where he became a cadet in their Army ROTC program. Upon graduating in 2000, he was commissioned in the Army as a way to earn money for law school and because, according to Khizr, Humayun "felt that ROTC had completed him as a person, and he wanted to give back." He rose to the rank of captain and served in Iraq during the Iraq War.

In 2004, Humayun was killed in Baqubah, Iraq, in an explosion. He was inspecting a guard post when he saw a suspicious vehicle approaching. Ordering his subordinates to stay back, he stepped forward to engage. The car was later determined to have been carrying more than 200 pounds of explosives, and when it detonated he was killed along with the two suicide attackers. He was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star Medal and Purple Heart and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Move to Virginia

The Khans moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, following Humayun's death, to be closer to their other sons. After moving, they became heavily involved with the Army R.O.T.C. program at the University of Virginia, where Humayun had been a cadet, and became known as the "mom and pop of the department". Ghazala began working at a fabric store and Khizr continued his legal consulting, working in commercial law and specializing in electronic discovery.

In 2008, the Khans participated in an HBO documentary, Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery, featuring visitors to the section of Arlington National Cemetery where their son, and many other United States military personnel who died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, are buried.

2016 DNC speech

On July 28, the final day of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Khizr, accompanied by Ghazala, gave a speech about their son Humayun, during which he harshly criticized Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump. Khan took issue with several of Trump's policies, including his proposed ban on Muslim immigration. Many news outlets focused on two passages from the speech in particular:

Donald Trump, you're asking Americans to trust you with their future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words "liberty" and "equal protection of law."

Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing—and no one.

When Khizr offered to lend Trump his copy of the Constitution, he pulled a small version of the document from his pocket, holding it up and gesturing with it, in what the Washington Post called the most memorable image from the convention. Khan said afterwards that the gesture was unplanned, and that he ad-libbed the sentence about lending Trump his copy upon realizing he had it in his pocket. According to the New York Times, Khan has long kept a supply of pocket Constitutions in his home, carrying one around and distributing copies to visitors "the way other hosts might distribute a party favor." Following the speech, sales of pocket Constitutions soared, with one 2005 edition rising to the second position on Amazon.com's bestsellers list. The ACLU offered everybody a free copy until Election Day (November 8, 2016), but public demand (reportedly over 100,000) exhausted their supply within days. The ACLU also offered an "I'll gladly lend you mine" graphic tee shirt.

New York magazine's Andrew Sullivan declared the speech "the fulcrum of this election," and one minute after it had ended, a spike in searches for "register to vote" was seen on Google.

Aftermath of speech

In an interview with ABC News, George Stephanopoulos asked Trump about the content of the speech, asking him to respond to the charge that he had not made sacrifices. Trump began by suggesting that Hillary Clinton's campaign staff had written the speech (according to Khizr, they wrote it themselves), and said, "I think I've made a lot of sacrifices...I've created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I've had tremendous success. I think I've done a lot." He went on to describe financial help he has provided for veterans' causes. Trump also remarked on Ghazala's presence on stage, implying a connection between her silence and gender roles in Islam: "If you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably — maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say. You tell me." In response to a question from Ruth Marcus on the August 1, 2016 MSNBC Morning Joe, Ghazala Khan stated: "All Muslim women have very strong opinions and if they have to talk to their husband they can say anything they like to, we are not from that type of culture that we will just have to follow the husband. Islam teaches us to be equal but we have different responsibility. At home wife is in charge, outside men whatever is making whatever he is bringing home and we both got together, husband and wife, to raise the family."

Trump's comments sparked widespread outrage and condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans, and were widely reported in the press. Prominently, Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, who Khizr says was a hero to Humayun, issued a statement about what he called his "most severe disagreement" with Trump, saying "While our party has bestowed upon him the nomination, it is not accompanied by unfettered license to defame those who are the best among us." In a Washington Post op-ed, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine cited Trump's treatment of the Khans as one of the major reasons why she "will not be voting for Donald Trump for president."

Directly responding to Trump's comments, Ghazala wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post, explaining that while she was asked if she wanted to speak, she felt she would be too upset to do so. Muslim American women took to social media with the hashtag "#CanYouHearUsNow" to protest Trump's comments.

The organization Veterans of Foreign Wars issued a statement saying, "Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression." Paul Rieckhoff of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America said that Trump's comparison of his own sacrifice to families who lost family members in war was "insulting, foolish and ignorant." The Jewish War Veterans of the United States said that Trump was worthy of "contempt" and said that his remarks on Ghazala Khan were "vile beyond words." An open letter by 23 Gold Star families called upon Trump to apologize to the Khans.

On August 4, a group of protesters at a Trump rally in Portland, Maine, were ejected after standing among the seated attendees and silently holding up pocket Constitutions.

On August 5, Khizr told Anderson Cooper that he and his wife were withdrawing from further TV appearances because it was emotionally draining, but said they would not be silent. On September 3, Khizr and Ghazala were special guests at the Islamic Society of North America convention in Rosemont, Illinois, where they both spoke. They did not address the election, other than Ghazala joking, "I have to speak today."

On October 21, the Hillary Clinton campaign released a 60-second television ad featuring Khizr Khan at home, showing the viewer pictures and mementos while telling the story of Humayun's sacrifice, and his voice wells up as he concludes, "I want to ask Mr. Trump: Would my son have a place in your America?" In the final weeks of the election, Khizr joined Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail in Virginia.

Post-election

After Trump's Electoral College victory, and his pronounced nominations for cabinet positions even before the inauguration, Khizr Khan urged the US Senate Judiciary Committee to reject Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, pointing out the Senate rejection of Sessions in 1986 for a federal judgeship over racism concerns, and adding that Sessions "does not understand patriotic dissent." Khizr also voiced opposition against Trump's "travel ban" limiting travel from seven countries with Muslim-majority populations, threatening an anti-Trump boycott if the ban was not repealed.

Khan is planning on releasing his memoir in fall 2017.

On March 5, 2017, Khan cancelled a planned speaking engagement in Toronto and said he had been told that his travel privileges were being reviewed. His Facebook post noted, "This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad." Camielle Edwards, spokeswoman for Canada's Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said, "We are unaware of any restrictions regarding this traveler."