Shabazz was born in Queens, New York, on November 16, 1958. According to many sources, she was named after Attila, the fifth-century ruler of the Huns, one of the most feared enemies of the Roman Empire; her father and Alex Haley, her godfather, wrote that in The Autobiography of Malcolm X.:2 Shabazz has said she was not named after Attila; rather, her name is Arabic for "the gift of God".\n', '

In February 1965, her sister Qubilah woke the family in the middle of the night with her screams; the house was on fire. Shabazz recalled that night in a 1989 interview: "I almost didn\'t realize how dangerous it was—my father was that calm, that together a parent. My eyes were burning, I was coughing, but before you knew it, he had us all out of there, and we were safe at a friend\'s house. My mother\'s like that too. Together."\n', '

A week later, Shabazz was at Manhattan\'s Audubon Ballroom, with her mother and sisters, when her father was assassinated. She was six at the time and reportedly the only one of his children who has clear memories of him. In 2005, she told journalist Gabe Pressman that she remembered the events of that day "vividly":\n', '

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