 After successfully earning a master's degree with honors, Al-Turki was completing a linguistics doctorate program at the University of Colorado, specializing in Arabic intonation and focus prosody.A father of five, Al-Turki and his wife Sarah Al-Khonaizan were active members of Denver's Muslim community.Additionally, Al-Turki operated Al-Basheer Publications and Translations, a well-known Arabic language translation and publishing house based in Aurora, Colorado.