but I was born Abdul Aziz as Sayyad
Nosair my identity changed out of
necessity on a November evening in 1992
bullets would change the trajectory of
my life I was 7 years old my mother sat
down in the living room to watch
television while I cleared plates from
the kitchen table when I’d finished I
went upstairs to read and eventually
drifted to sleep downstairs breaking
news flashed across the television the
extremist rabbi meir Kahana had been
shot in New York and so it his assassin
the camera cut to footage of the
assassin my father laying in a pool of
blood
neither were expected to live my mother
watched as they put my father into an
ambulance this would be my family’s
first introduction to terrorism but
unfortunately not its last a few months
prior to his arrest my father sat me
down and explained that for the past few
weekends he and some friends had been
going to a shooting range for target
practice he told me I’d be going with
him the next morning we arrived at the
shooting range which unbeknownst to our
group was being watched by the FBI when
it was my turn to shoot my father helped
me hold a rifle to my shoulder and
explained how to aim at a target about
30 yards off that day this the last
bullet I shot hit the small orange light
that sat on top of the target and to
everyone’s surprise especially mine the
light exploded my uncle turned to the
other men and an Arabic said
if Nabu like father like son and the men
all seemed to get a really big laugh out
of that comment but it wasn’t until a
few years later that I fully understood
what they thought was so funny they
thought they saw me the same destruction
my father was capable of shortly after
the assassination my father was found
guilty of assault and weapons charges
and sentenced to a minimum of seven
years in prison he maintained his
innocence throughout the trial and was
initially found not guilty of a murder
and so my family believed him my mother
tried her best to shield me from the
fallout of my father’s trial from the
death threats the media lawyers the FBI
being ostracized everywhere we went
hoping to escape the spotlight my mother
decided to take my siblings and I to
Egypt to visit my father’s side of the
family what happened next
illustrate how surreal my life was
becoming when we exited the airport in
Cairo we were met by a group of soldiers
who were there to protect my family
during our stay snipers were positioned
on the rooftops around our apartment
building while men in uniform guarded
Lobby and at the same time historical
monuments like the Pyramids at Giza were
closed off to tourists allowing my
family to have a private tour soldiers
in tow the security seemed excessive to
a young kid like me but as it turned out
I couldn’t have been more wrong one
afternoon while I was playing with some
friends outside a strange man who
mistook my cousin for me attempted to
kidnap him the soldiers caught the man
and dragged him back to their truck I
remember his face bloody and beaten it
almost seemed like a movie an infamous
terrorist father armed guards and a
foiled kidnapping attempt the next
chapter in my life returning home to the
US would not
any less dramatic my family and I were
trying to hold on to any scrap of
normalcy that we could find but my
father had been busy making his own
plans from his prison cell he was found
to have connections directly to Osama
bin Laden and the organization that
would ultimately become al Qaeda wiretap
and an undercover informant found
evidence of bomb-making manuals and a
plot to bomb major New York City
landmarks with this new evidence my
father was retried for the Kahana murder
among other crimes and sentenced to
because of this my family decided to end
communication with him trying our best
to start a new life outside of the
shadow my father cast is there any
emotion that exists more effortlessly
than that of the love between a parent
and a child
and yet here I stand caught between the
love that one naturally feels and the
recognition that not only did my father
abandoned his family to commit these
these emotions are confusing to me as a
grown man can you imagine what that’s
like for a child in 2014 I gave a TED
talk in which I shared my life story
publicly the story of an American boy
raised by an extremist father
the day after my talk Ted approached me
about doing the first ted book in print
and that book would become the terrorist
son a story of choice I knew that outing
myself would be risky but I also knew
that there was a value in the lessons
that I learned from my experiences one
morning I woke up to find an email from
the Bureau of Prisons saying that my
father would like to begin communication
with me it had been more than ten years
since we last spoke the email said I had
ten days to decide yes or no to the
communication now the truth is before I
ever started speaking publicly I had
contemplated getting in contact with my
father I wanted to ask him why he chose
the path he did was it for his faith
fame did he feel some overwhelming need
to be a part of something greater than
himself
if so why wasn’t his family enough I
wasn’t sure if I was ready to hear the
answers to these questions but every
part of me felt like I had to know I
thought what if he died in prison and I
never got this opportunity again I would
ask what would you do if you were me I
clicked yes I told my father about life
after he went to prison about being poor
moving from ghetto to ghetto
being bullied and the anxiety that
manifested from those experiences it was
important to me that he understand how
hard life was after he left particularly
how hard it was for my mother I told him
that I was no longer a Muslim but I’d
like to make it a point to say that I
didn’t leave the religion because of my
father’s actions I knew that what he did
was well outside of mainstream Islam I
simply lost my faith however I’ve had
the privilege of working with people all
over the world who believe very strongly
in their faith and in the pursuit of
peace working together to create a world
where people of all religions or none at
all can come together in solidarity
after I told him this his emails began
to take a different tone he became
suspicious of my questions going so far
as to ask if I was somehow trying to
incriminate him all of those questions
that I had pondered for much of my life
he summed up by saying that it was
simply God’s plan to say this answer was
disheartening would be an understatement
and ultimately our conversation became
unhealthy so once again I ended
communication
it took me a long time to sort through
all of the emotions that our
conversation had brought to the surface
but in that time I realized that
although not what I wanted to hear he
had actually given me the answers that I
have been looking for his beliefs led to
a narrow and oversimplified worldview
one in which a person’s religion was all
that was needed to determine that
person’s worth and yet I felt as though
a weight had been lifted from me and I
realized that I no longer needed his
wherever I speak the subject inevitably
turns to groups like Isis and what we
can do as individuals to combat those
willing to go to such brutal lengths for
their beliefs and there are a lot of
complicated answers to this question
there is no one path that a person takes
but the simplest answer that I can give
you is to say don’t give in to fear do
not allow the actions of a radical group
to alter society in a way that further
alienates nonviolent citizens
marginalized by a fearful majority
groups like Isis traffic in fear and
vengeance they use these emotions to
fill their ranks religion is used simply
to cloak the intentions of men like Abu
Bakr al-baghdadi the leader of Isis but
it is those human emotions fear
vengeance the isolation that binds the
rank and file whenever we divide people
into smaller and smaller groups based on
one arbitrary distinction or another we
create communities engrained with
hostility toward one another as I mature
I realize the only way that I can
overcome the challenges of my past which
at times has been crippling is to help
others understand that hatred only
produces more hate but belief in
non-violence at least provides an
opportunity
to heal I stand here as proof that those
cycles of violence no matter how old
don’t have to continue forever thank you [Applause]