Opinion: Muslim family is the rule, not the exception
By Paul Barrett, Bloomberg Businessweek
How typical of an American is Khizr Khan, the man who stole the show on the last night of the Democratic National Convention? Answer: pretty typical.
U.S. Muslims are much more mainstream than many Americans might think. Khan brought down the house in Philadelphia when he told the story of his son’s heroic war death in Iraq and excoriated Donald Trump for spreading religious intolerance.
Khan’s son, Army Captain Humayun Khan, died in 2004 as a result of a car bomb explosion near Baquba, Iraq. Capt. Khan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. Earlier, he got his college degree from the University of Virginia, where he enrolled in the ROTC program.
The Khans embody the material and educational success of the roughly 3 million American Muslims who make up about 1 percent of the overall population.