Rashad Khalifa

Khalifa was born in Egypt on November 19, 1935. He obtained an honors degree from Ain Shams University, Egypt, before he emigrated to the United States in 1959. He later earned a Master's Degree in biochemistry from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. from University of California. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen and lived in Tucson, Arizona. He was married to an American woman and they had a son and a daughter together.

Khalifa worked as a science adviser for the Libyan government for about one year, after which he worked as a chemist for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. He next worked as a senior chemist in Arizona's State Office of Chemistry in 1980.

He was central to the founding of the USI.

Khalifa said that he was a messenger of God but not a prophet, and that the archangel Gabriel "most assertively" told him that chapter 36, verse 3, of the Quran, "specifically" referred to him.He coined the phrase "Final Testament" in reference to the Quran, with his followers referring to him as "God's Messenger of the Covenant". Some Muslims objected to his interpretations, based on his claim that parts of the Quran were fabricated; precluding him from being a strict Quranist.

In his works, Khalifa claimed that the Quran contains a mathematical structure based on the number 19. Starting in 1968, Khalifa used computers to analyze the frequency of letters and words in the Quran, with his first book on the topic appearing in 1973.

Khalifa's research did not receive much attention in the West. In 1980, Martin Gardner mentioned it in Scientific American. Gardner later wrote a more extensive and critical review of Khalifa and his work.

Khalifa's first published report in the Arab world appeared in the Egyptian magazine Akher Sa'a, in January 1973. Updates of his research were subsequently published by the same magazine later that year and again in 1975.

In October 1979, Khalifa was accused in Tucson of sexual assault, sexual abuse, and sexual contact with a minor. The accuser, a 16-year-old-girl, testified at a hearing that Khalifa sexually molested her while supposedly recruiting her for a "United Nations" research project on the human aura. There was no physical evidence of intercourse found when the girl was examined at a local hospital, although Khalifa admitted to police that he had manipulated the girl's breast during his research. Justice of the Peace James P. West ruled there was probable cause to hold Khalifa for trial on the charges, due to his admission and "the circumstances under which Khalifa obtained the office".

On January 31, 1990, Khalifa was found stabbed to death inside the Masjid (Mosque) of Tucson Arizona, his place of employment. He was stabbed multiple times.

Nineteen years after the murder, onApril 28, 2009, the Calgary Police Services of Canada arrested Glen Cusford Francis, a 52-year-old citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, on suspicion of killing Rashad Khalifa. Investigators in Tucson learned that Francis, who was going by the name Benjamin Phillips, had begun his studies under Khalifa in January 1990. Phillips disappeared shortly after the slaying, and was said to have left the country. An investigation revealed Phillips and Francis were the same man when the police analyzed fingerprints found in Phillips' apartment. A specialty unit of the Tucson Police Department progressed in its investigation in 2006 and in December 2008, and was able to use DNA testing on forensic evidence from the crime scene to tie Francis to the assassination. In October 2009, a Canadian judge ordered Francis's extradition to the United States to face trial.

The trial for the murder began on December 11, 2012. On December 19, the jury, after a three-hour deliberation, found Glen Francis guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

Prior to the Francis trial, James Williams, an alleged member of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra organization, was convicted of conspiracy in the slaying. Williams disappeared on the day of his sentencing and could not be found. In 2000 Williams was apprehended attempting to re-enter the United States. And sentenced to serve 69 years in prison. His convictions were upheld on appeal by the Colorado Court of Appeals except for one count of forgery.

CBS News reported that Muslim extremist Wadih el-Hage was "connected to the 1990 stabbing death... El-Hage, who was indicted for lying about the case, called the assassination 'a good thing.'" If he was involved, Khalifa would be possibly the first American to be killed by an operative of Al Qaeda in the United States.