ISNA MATTERS
Taking the Baton Forward Saffet Catovic Revives ISNA's Washington DC Interfaith Program
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ast October, ISNA appointed Imam Saffet Abid Catovic to head its Washington, D.C. Office for Interfaith, Community Alliances and Government Relations. In 1992, Catovic was working for a major New York-based corporation. When war broke out in Bosnia, his ancestral homeland, he left his job and helped found the Bosnia Task Force-USA, an alliance of ten Muslim American organizations that worked to stop the genocide. During it and the immedi ate postwar Dayton Agreement period, he served in several senior Bosnian government positions, among them minister counselor at the UN Bosnian Mission until 2001, and then as director for an international human itarian organization. While operating his own management consultancy for the next 20 years, he con tinued quest for knowledge and broaden ing his understanding led him to earn a Master’s in religion and the environment (Drew University ‘18). Now pursuing his Doctor of Ministry at Drew, he also works as an imam, chaplain and MSA advisor, sits on the Drew Religious Life Council and is its religious advisor on Islam and Muslims. In addition, he is one of the GreenFaith fellow ship program’s first two Muslim graduates. He serves this premier interfaith coalition for religious-environmental leadership as its senior Muslim advisor on Islam, Muslims and the environment. A popular speaker, he relates Islam’s teachings on the environment. But he does more than just talk. For example, he applied his GreenFaith training to launch Green Muslims of New Jersey, of which he is chair and co-founder. This organization went on to become the basis for ISNA America Green Initiatives (formerly Green Mosque Task Force). Among his other accomplishments are being inducted into the Parliament of the World’s Religions’ Climate Action Task Force (2017), serving as a member of its Religions Board of Trustees (2019), being named by ISPU–Muslims for American Progress an interfaith innovator for his work in the
greater New York area on the environment and environmental justice issues (2018) and receiving the New Jersey State Governor’s Jefferson Award for commitment as a faith leader for administering Muslim Scouting programs and environmental issues advo cacy (2019). A prolific writer, he has presented many papers at different venues and online about Bosnian Muslims, Islam and the Environment, Islamic Scouting and the Boy Scouts of America and other topics. He is also a regular khateeb in the greater New YorkNew Jersey-Pennsylvania metropolitan area. Currently, he is a member of the scholars’ drafting team of “Al-Mizan: Covenant for the Earth,” organized by the UN Environmental Program’s Faiths for Earth and the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. He has also been appointed to the Muslim Alliance in North America’s executive board. Islamic Horizons talked to him about his background, why he joined ISNA and what he hopes to accomplish in his new role. IH: What is your past involvement with ISNA? SAC: My parents were actively involved with ISNA ever since its inception as MSA. In fact, Dr. Syeed M. Syed (former president, ISNA) attributes much of ISNA’s founding leadership knowledge and benefits from the experiences of the Balkan Muslims to their many conversations and discussions with
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my father. I miss the early MSA days when our family slept in the university dorms. I was involved with MSA national throughout my college years. During those years, my wife and I, along with other Muslim youth organizers from New Jersey, connected with others from Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. We worked with Dawud Zwink (former vice president, ISNA) and established MYNA. My later work with ISNA’s Green Mosque Task Force team enabled me to help draft ISNA’s fossil-fuel divestment policy and rep resent it at COP22 during November 2016. There, I announced ISNA’s commitment to divest from fossil fuels, making it the world’s first national Muslim organization to join the global divest/reinvest campaign. I also represented ISNA at the COP23 as a member of a high-level interfaith delega tion that presented a multifaith statement on sustainable living: “Walk on Earth Gently,” which I also helped draft. I was a co-drafter, along with Jamal Badawi and Zwink, and driver of a fatwa on Fossil Fuel Divestment, which was adopted and put forth by the Fiqh Council of North America. The joint North American/UK delegation released this first-of-its-kind ruling, along with a similar statement by British Muslims, at Cape Town’s Financing the Future Summit (2019). Among my other writings are “Indeed the World is Green and Sweet, “Walk Softly on Earth,” “Towards an Islamic Energy Ethic and Praxis” and “Islam, Nature and Geoengineering.” I co-authored the webbased Muslim Green Worship Resources and have authored and edited other schol arly works on Islamic ecology and Islam’s teachings on the environment. And finally, I was a consultant to the Drafting Committee of the International Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change's “Istanbul Declaration” (2015) and a founding board member of the Global Muslim Climate Network, which was offi cially launched at the UN on Earth Day 2016. IH: What motivated you to take on this new leadership role? SAC: Initially, Basharat Saleem (execu tive director, ISNA) asked me to join ISNA and head up this office. My meetings with him and members of the ISNA Executive enabled me to see that I could make a dif ference. My experience and background, as well as my current involvement in intra-faith and interfaith work and passion for justice
