Two C-U Area Residents on Governor’s Muslim American Panel

Gov. Pat Quinn this week used the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Fit--closing the holy month of Ramadan--to announce the members of a new Muslim-American Advisory Council.

The 26-member panel will advise the governor on ways to advance the role of Muslim-Americans in the state. Two of its members are from the Champaign-Urbana area.

Dr. Irfan Ahmad is executive director of the Center for Nano Scale Science and Technology, at the University of Illinois. He said the panel could help raise awareness throughout Illinois that Muslims are part of the fabric of the community--and also raise awareness within the Muslim community.

"That's (the) awareness we try to create within the Muslim community itself, that they have a role to play, we have a role to play, and the rest of society, the rest of the general fabric of the U-S has a role to play," Ahmad said. "Illinois can really drive home this message, both within the Muslim community, but also reaching out into the Muslim world."

Strengthening ties with the Muslim world is an area where Ahmad believes the advisory council can also help. He said the panel's understanding of Muslim culture could help identify economic opportunities. For instance, Ahmad points to the demand for meat slaughtered in accordance with Muslim dietary law, or halal.

"New Zealand exports a lot of meat to Muslim countries, but they do it in a slaughtered fashion, which is according to the Islamic (tradition)," Ahmad said. "So if the state and other entities are attuned to some of those sensitivities, they could potentially leverage some of those markets, say, if we were to export meat, for example."

Also serving on the governor's Muslim American Advisory Council is Imad Rahman. He's a board member at the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center in Urbana, and serves as financial officer for the mosque's community health clinic in Champaign.

The Governor's Muslim American Advisory Council will be co-chaired by Samreen Khan, Governor Quinn's senior policy adviser and liaison to Asians and Muslims, and Kareem M. Irfan, president of the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago.

The panel is already being criticized on anti-Muslim websites, for including officers with the Islamic Society of North America and the Council of American Islamic Relations, both of which have been accused of ties to Islamic extremist groups. The two organizations have denied the charges.