Khalid Yasin (born in 1946), is an American Islamic preacher, a former Christian, who lives in Manchester, England and lectures in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world. Yasin frequently travels overseas to spread his faith and has called himself a "media-bedouin," remarking that the Bedouins are willing to settle wherever there is "water and shelter". Background Yasin was born in Harlem, New York and raised in Brooklyn as a Christian along with nine siblings. Although not an orphan, he was put up for adoption due to his family's financial state. He grew up in foster homes from the age of three along with some of his siblings, until he was fifteen. He describes each foster home as having a different Christian denomination, so he covered a wide spectrum of Christianity. Prior to his conversion, Yasin was a gang member. Yasin has described his youth in "the ghetto", where it was "Me and my two brothers Sam and Julius, against the world. We had nothing but converting and accepting Islam now we have everything". When first reading about Islam, he often used Encyclopædia Britannica as a reliable source on Islam and its concepts. Yasin felt the grief of African-American people, and he was especially influenced by the turbulent 1960s and figures like Malcolm X. Yasin converted to Islam in 1965. He began his ministry as the "Amir" or leader of Jammat Ita'hadul Iqwa on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Yasin has been accused of espousing a radical form of Islam. Channel Nine in Australia described him as "a charismatic preacher who’s capturing the hearts and minds of young Australian Muslims with a radical mix of pleas for the understanding of terrorism, anti-Western conspiracy theories and radical homophobia. Rather differently, the Oman Tribune described him as a "learned scholar" who "regularly tours different countries debunking the misinformation about Islam". Discussing his leisure time, Yasin said, "I’m a fairly avid horseman, I swim, I box, I read quite a bit. Probably once every two years I visit Mecca and I cleanse myself spiritually by performing the Umrah or the Hajj, and then daily I pray five times a day. As a Muslim that gives me the refreshment and our Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him, said that the prayer is the coolness of his eyes. So I have the opportunity to recede five times a day into that inner sanctum."