2023 keynote speaker Dr. Mohammad Hassan Khalil, P.h.d.

Dr. Mohammad Hassan Khalil, P.h.D., is Professor of Religious Studies, Director of the Muslim Studies Program, and Adjunct Professor in the College of Law at Michigan State University. Before returning to his hometown of East Lansing, he was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His specialty is Islamic thought, and much of his research revolves around Muslim conceptions of and interactions with nonMuslims

Khalil is the author of

Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question (Oxford University Press, 2012) and Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism (Cambridge University Press, 2018); and the editor of Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Muslims and US Politics Today: A Defining Moment (Harvard University Press and ILEX, 2019). He has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on various topics from bioethics to early Islamic historiography to salvation discourse to jihad. In 2015, he received the MSU Teacher-Scholar Award.

Outside of MSU, Khalil is the current chair of the school committee of the Greater Lansing Islamic School and has served as a soccer and basketball coach in the City of East Lansing

The first Mayors' Ramadan Unity Dinner was proposed and organized by Sadia G Covert, Esq in 2007 It started with approximately 100 attendees at the Cooley Temple Conference Center of Cooley Law School, raising over $1,000 its first year. Since then, the Mayors' Ramadan Unity Dinner has grown to reach an audience of more than 500 attendees and has provided thousands of meals to children and families through the proceeds that have been raised for the Greater Lansing Area Food Bank.

Covert is the founder of the nonprofit, Uniting Through Cultural Awareness and Regional Education (UCARE), whose mission is to counter hate and bigotry through diversity education and community empowerment Covert is also an attorney, owner and partner of Covert & Covert, LLP , who wrote a hate crimes law that gives victims more ways to seek restitution and damages and requires education of offenders about the specific community or group they targeted As a state-certified instructor for enforcement, she also was the first female Muslim to develop a four-house state-certified curriculum on Islamic Cultural Awareness in the state of Illinois and has trained hundreds of police officers and other law enforcement officials on the subject

Given her extensive background, experience and dedication in uniting communities together to positively impact the narrative of underrepresented groups of people, Ms. Covert was awarded former U.S. President Barack Obama's Volunteer Service Award in 2016. Former Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero presented Sadia with a special recognition award in 2013 for establishing Lansing's annual Mayors' Ramadan Unity Dinner while she volunteered as a mayoral intern. Her mission for the dinner remains the same: to alleviate hunger while embracing religious diversity and interfaith understanding.