Community Matters

Washington State Senate Confirms Umair Shah as Health Secretary

The Washington State Senate voted 48:2 to confirm Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH, as secretary of health on April 23.

The vote followed Shah’s testimony before the Senate Committee on Health & Long-Term Care in a confirmation hearing on March 10, and the committee’s subsequent recommendation of his confirmation to the full Senate.

Last December, Gov. Inslee appointed Shah to lead the Health Department. Since then, Shah has been responsible for the state’s Covid-19 response and vaccination efforts. Under his leadership, over 40% of the state’s population had received at least one dose of the vaccine and 2 million people had been fully vaccinated by April.

Secretary Shah has also championed innovative efforts like the Vaccine Command and Coordination System (VACCS) Center, a unique public-private partnership responsible for launching an improved Vaccine Locator tool that has helped 2 million users search quickly and easily for vaccine appointments. Since he took up his position, DOH has steadily improved its transparency as regards vaccination data by launching a new dashboard tab to help people understand where and when vaccinations are being given, how many people are getting vaccinated and the demographic makeup of the vaccinated population. DOH continues to update the dashboard with new metrics regularly. “I am proud of what our state has achieved in the past four months. We are making incredible strides in vaccination, equity, public-private collaboration and more,” Shah said. “We are so close to turning the corner on the pandemic, and there is a bright future ahead of us if we keep working together. We can do so much to improve public health across our state in the Covid-19 response and beyond, and I look forward to tackling those challenges.” ih

Halal on the Menu

Barry Caldwell

Selaedin Maksut The Atlantic City (N.J.) school district will begin serving halal food five days a week at several elementary schools and the high school, Superintendent Barry Caldwell announced on March 23.

“We’ve heard the community,” Caldwell said at the start of the school board meeting.

“I think it’s an amazing step forward,” said Selaedin Maksut of the New Jersey CAIR chapter. “I’ve been in communication with officials from Paterson, Jersey City, Prospect Park and other towns across the state that have begun rolling out halal meals for their students, and I think it’s an amazing initiative to see that Atlantic City is doing the same thing.”

Maksut thanked school board member Farook Hossain, who, he said, “has worked tirelessly to get this program up and running.”

Buffalo (N.Y.) Public Schools, which serves a growing population of about 5,000 Muslim students — out of its student population of about 34,000 — hopes to make

Survey Advocates for Muslim American Spiritual Needs in U.S. Hospitals

Thousands of Muslim Americans are overlooked in hospital environments that are not attuned to their religious values and spiritual needs. If you or your loved one have ever had to stay in a hospital, you know how it feels.

To help improve this situation with datadriven policy recommendations, the Initiative on Islam and Medicine, along with the Islamic Medical Association of North America, Stanford Medicine, the Khalil Center, The Family & Youth Institute, the Association of Muslim Chaplains and American Health Professionals, have launched a national survey.

Please check out https://www.medicineandislam.org/mahsn and lend your voice to this effort.

The three-part survey — spiritual needs, experiences of discrimination and sociodemographic questions — takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Your responses are confidential and unidentifiable. Please try to answer all the questions to ensure our findings’ validity.

Survey Link: Is.gd/MAHSN ih

halal-certified meals a lunch option in some schools by the fall, reported The Buffalo News on March 10.

Will Keresztes, the school district’s chief of intergovernmental affairs, planning and community engagement, told the council’s Education Committee meeting, “We will be offering … a separate halal menu so that parents know exactly what they’re getting every week, and it’s a separate and distinct menu that they can be a part of.”

The district can be reimbursed by the federal government for the costs of providing specialized meals as part of its regular federal nutrition program.

Common Council members Bryan J. Bollman and Mitchell P. Nowakowski, both of whom represent burgeoning Muslim populations in their districts, approached the school district after receiving a letter from Atiqur Rahman, a director of Buffalo Muslim Community Services, about the importance of halal food options in public schools. ih

Oklahoma Senate Hears Islamic Invocation

Imad Enchassi (senior imam, Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City) gave the morning invocation for the state Senate on March 29 and 30.

Four years ago, after he was denied entry into a similar program at the state House of Representatives, he accepted an invitation from Sen. Carri Hicks (D-Oklahoma City), who was unaware of the prior rejection.

The 2017 denial became controversial, particularly after House leader Rep. Chuck Strohm changed the rules of the House Chaplain of the Day/Chaplain of the Week program to eliminate all non-Christian religious leaders. Interfaith leaders from across the state came to Enchassi’s defense, arguing that because the Legislature was majority Christian, the changes were discriminatory. Enchassi, a Palestinian, has previously given the invocation for the Oklahoma City Council, the Oklahoma County Commissioners and other government groups. “I had mixed feelings in the sense that it was déjà vu. It wasn’t long ago that I was asked to serve as a chaplain and my application was denied. It was a big embarrassment,” Enchassi told The Oklahoman on March 21. He added, “At the same time, my heart was pulsating with joy that we go ahead and went over this hurdle and they want me back.” ih

Reem Kirja, now a 13-year-old eighth-grader at Iowa City, Ia., Northwest Junior High, led a petition on change.org and spent three years raising awareness and support for Muslim students to have a school holiday on Eid al-Fitr. She launched her campaign, which received more than 5,000 signatories, with fellow student Rayan Saeid at Weber Elementary School.

Kirja, told KCRG.com/9-ABC on March 4 that while she appreciates the thousands of people who signed her petition, the support from her classmates and teachers means the most to her. “As someone who’s been bullied in the past years, instead of teasing I get support and encouraging words, so that’s kind of my push to keep going.”

On March 24, the Gazette reported that Matt Degner (superintendent, Iowa City Community School District) has announced that future calendars, starting with the 2022 school year, will include Eid as a no-school day.

Kirja’s effort was covered statewide and by major media.

The Sterling, Va.-based ADAMS Center inaugurated its Ashburn branch mosque on March 27.

The $1.6 million mosque’s groundbreaking ceremony had taken place on Dec. 22, 2019.

ADAMS Ashburn, established in 2003, had been sharing space with Jewish Congregation BCRC.

The hard work and countless efforts of the Ashburn Committee, led by Syed Akhtar Alam (chair and member, Board of Trustees), bore results when the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors approved the special use permit for the new branch to build its center on the approximately 10,000 squarefoot property purchased, with donations from the community, for $1.25 million.

Sanford, Fla.’s Masjid Al Hayy became the first Covid-19 vaccination site where county workers vaccinated almost 400 people. It was Seminole County’s first mobile vaccine site hosted at a mosque.

Mosque outreach director Minaz Manekia told News13 that the event was “a natural step” that “truly represents the culmination of a year-long effort to help stop the spread of Covid-19 in Seminole County.”

Manekia said Masjid Al Hayy, as part of its efforts to serve others, delivered pizza to first responders and provided food to local schools and homeless shelters.

“Since we opened our doors, we have always been an involved and active member of the Sanford community,” Manekia said in an email to Spectrum News 13. “Looking after and advancing the well-being of our community is a core value, and one that we are passionate about.”

The mobile unit returned to the mosque in mid-March to administer second vaccination shots.

The Islamic Schools League of America (ISLA) welcomed its newest board member, Berthena Nabaa-McKinney, Ed.D., in March.

Nabaa-McKinney, who has 20+ years of educational experience in teaching, school administration, board leadership and development, accreditation and professional development, has participated in and led accreditation teams in schools and school districts across Tennessee.

She also has private and public school leadership experience, acquired during her six years as principal of an Islamic school and as a member of her public school district’s board.

As a school improvement and turnaround specialist, Nabaa-McKinney focuses on working with public and private schools and districts to reimagine equitable outcomes for students of color.

She sits on the board of the Muslim ARC, is a commissioner for the Metro-Nashville Action Commission, board chair with the

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

In his letter to the editor for the May/ June issue, Wa’eel Alzayat (CEO, Emgage) took issue with my article “Political Scams under the Muslim Cover and How to Avoid Them” (March/April 2021, p.30). Alzayat claimed that the previously documented and by now well-known facts about his organization were “slander,” even comparing it to the “QAnon” conspiracy theory. However, he identified no “incorrect” facts in the article, but only claimed that I had cited a “discredited Islamophobe with a history of genocide denial.”

For the record, I had cited Emgage itself, the US Council of Muslim Organizations, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, and from my newsletter on Muslim nonprofits, where I had spoken to several Emgage insiders (ehsan.substack.com).

Alzayat made a valiant effort to prove his organization’s bona fides by leaving the facts in my article unrebutted, while offering his own, evidently hoping that readers won’t bother to check.

Muslim American Cultural Center, co-chair of Women of Color for Education Equity and is a board member of several other important organizations.

ISLA executive director Shaza Khan, PhD, said, “We are thrilled to have Dr. Berthena join the ISLA Board! She brings such a broad array of experience and expertise to the organization.”

Malik Aziz, former Dallas deputy chief of police, took charge as chief of Prince George’s County (Md.) Police Department on May 9. Speaking at his appointment announcement on March 26, Aziz, who has a 29-year record in law enforcement, said, “I want the citizens and the officers of Prince George’s County to understand what type of police chief I will be, and that is one of communication and high visibility.”

Aziz said that the nation is in the throes of a “reformation era” defined by a crisis in police–community relations. He stressed that local actions can “form a blueprint and an action for positive policing with 19,000 police departments around this great nation.”

The county police department employs about 1,500 sworn officers and 300 civilians in the Washington suburb of nearly 1 million.

Aziz served as the national chair of the National Black Police Association and caught President Barack Obama’s attention for his contributions to the task force on 21st-century policing in 2015. He invited Aziz to the White House for a discussion on policing.

According to the task force’s final report, Aziz advocated for the Justice Department to collect annual demographic statistics from all police agencies to hold them accountable for diversifying their command ranks.

Yousra Khan has joined the nonprofit Poughkeepsie Public Schools Foundation board of directors. The foundation champions for children in Poughkeepsie City Schools. A Poughkeepsie native and product of area public schools who works with the Office of International Services & Special Projects at Vassar College, Khan said, “Our school district holds a special place in my heart. We are blessed with talented youth, families who have overcome adversity and remain committed to supporting our small, close knit community and my goal is to ensure that our Poughkeepsie families have the resources they need to succeed. This is one of the main reasons why I wanted to join our foundation. It is an honor to be given an opportunity to assist in overcoming the challenges our district faces and understand the responsibilities we have to help our students and families accomplish their goals.”

Salma Bachelani, PhD, OTD, OTR/L, joined Washington University Saint Louis’ occupational therapy and pediatrics program as an occupational therapy instructor on April 1. She teaches pediatric evaluation and intervention, professional immersion and case-based learning courses to master’s and doctoral students. Bachelani was previously affiliated with St. Louis Community College and continues to sit on the advisory board of Project Downtown St. Louis.

A Kansas City native, Bachelani (Ph.D., Washington University ‘16; BA, Missouri State University ‘13) is interested in examining best practices for therapy service provision in school settings and in researching and developing community-based programs such as youth development workshops and parent education sessions. ih

ACHIEVERS

Zaiba Malik, M.D. (University of Miami School of Medicine Medical School) and Zaina Al-Mohtaseb, M.D. (Baylor College of Medicine) were named in the first-ever Top 100 Women in Ophthalmology Power List by The Ophthalmologist (https://theophthalmologist.com/). When asked why it is

Zaiba Malik important to celebrate women in the field this way, Malik (medical director, Medpace; ophthalmologist/CEO, EyeMD; clinical assistant professor, Wright State University Boonshoft School of Med-

Zaina Al-Mohtaseb icine) replied, “Amplifying women’s efforts empowers more women — and men — to envision broader possibilities and create their own legacies.” An ophthalmology specialist with 20+ years of experience in the field, she should know.

Al-Mohtaseb (associate residency program director and associate professor of ophthalmology, Houston’s Baylor College of Medicine) completed her ophthalmology residency at the college’s Cullen Eye Institute and was elected chief resident during her final year of training. She finished her training at the nation’s top program, University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, with a fellowship in cornea/external disease, cataract and refractive surgery. Throughout her career, she has excelled in clinical/ surgical, education and research. Her work involves the medical and surgical management of patients with cornea, cataract and refractive issues.

Al-Mohtaseb’s clinical and surgical productivity led to her being awarded the BCM Early Career Faculty Award for Excellence in Patient Care in 2018. Due to her adoption of new surgical and clinical techniques (e.g., DMEK corneal transplantation and double needle scleral lens fixation) she has become the go-to clinician for many referring optometrists and ophthalmologists.

She has also won the “Top Doctors” in Houston for the past three years, BCM Women of Excellence Award, the National Award Outstanding Leader in Ophthalmology, and, most recently, the Rising Star in Ophthalmology National Award. And as if all of that were not enough, she has authored 37+ peer-reviewed publications, 40 poster/paper presentations and 33 non-peer reviewed publications such as book chapters, online journals and articles.

The Ophthalmologist editor Aleksandra Jones noted that the Power List of the Top 100 Women in Ophthalmology celebrates the impact the nominees have had on ophthalmic clinical practice, research, education and industry. She said that the past lists have been undeniably male-dominated, with women making up a mere 17% of nominees in 2020. The magazine received nominations for 300+ “incredibly accomplished individual female leaders.” Jones added, “The thought of whittling that list to 50 was almost impossible, which is why we chose to expand our list to include the top 100 women in ophthalmology. And once you see the list, you will understand why.”

Bayan Galal, ’23, is Yale’s first Muslim student body head in the school’s 320-year history. She accomplished this feat by winning the presidency of the Yale College Council (YCC) on April 30 with 56.4% of the vote. A molecular, cellular, developmental biology and global affairs double major on the premed track, she is interested in pursuing the intersection between health care access and international development, particularly in the Middle East and Africa.

Galal, a research assistant with the Yale School of Medicine who is especially focused on how social and political infrastructure impacts one’s access to and delivery of healthcare, hopes to bridge the worlds of medicine and international relations in order to work toward equitable health care access. She is currently devoting her time to the etiology of autoimmune disorders such as type 1 diabetes.

In her position, she works with various Arab countries’ ministries of health to assess factors impacting the uptake of the Covid-19 vaccine and with Yale’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, where she focuses on global health ethics. In the YCC, Galal has previously served as a senator from Grace Hopper College, the YCC’s health and Covid-19 policy chair and the Yale International Relations Association’s events and partnerships director.

Her sister Ayah has also made history in recent years — the first reporter in Connecticut to wear a hijab on TV.

Marya Bangee (vice president, Multicultural Audience Engagement, Disney Studios) works as a creative thought partner with Disney live action, Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Animation, Pixar, 20th Century and Searchlight, all of which are under the Disney Studios umbrella. She is tasked with telling culturally representative stories.

In her previous job, she worked with networks, studios and culture shapers to promote new narratives within popular culture.

She also ran her own company, SILA Consulting, which advises on film and television projects and consulted on Disney’s live-action $1.05 billion grossing feature “Aladdin” and the upcoming Disney+ series “Ms. Marvel.”`

Bangee (UC Irvine ‘09; University of Southern California, MPA ‘15) started her journey as a community organizer in the Muslim American community. She has led a national advocacy campaign to protect free speech on college campuses.

After graduation, she became director of Mentors for Academic and Peer Support, a MSA West UCLA organization dedicated to improving youth education in inner-city high schools. She also led the national advocacy campaign for the Irvine 11, a highly publicized trial of eleven Muslim students prosecuted for their pro-Palestine activism.

Selected for the prestigious Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs, she worked on a national senate campaign, staffed California’s Speaker of the Assembly and helped develop part of the 10-year strategic plan for the California Community Foundation. In 2017, the Ford Foundation named her a Public Voices Fellow. In 2019, as part of the inaugural cohort of the Pillars Fund Narrative Change Fellowship, she participated in developing narrative strategies for Muslim communities. In 2020, she was selected as a USC Annenberg Civic Media Fellow, where she is exploring how to cultivate her own creative practice for social change.

According to a Navy press release, on April 9, U.S. Navy Commander Houssain “Sam” Sareini of Dearborn, Mich., became one of the first Muslim Americans to command a U.S. naval ship — the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Nitze — at a ceremony held in Portsmouth, Va.

Sareini, who enlisted in the Navy in 1994 as an operations specialist, earned his commission through the Enlisted Commissioning Program. He graduated from Iowa State University with a BS and MS in biochemistry.

Dearborn mayor John B. O’Reilly Jr. said, “His [Sareini’s] remarkable military service reflects a strong sense of patriotism and duty, and such impressive accomplishments throughout a long career serve as inspiration to others on what can be achieved through determination, dedication and education.”

Captain Ammen Matari recently took charge as Prospect Park’s (N.J.) police chief. Mayor Mohamed T. Khairullah announced, “Captain Matari has demonstrated tremendous leadership capabilities since the departure of Chief Charlie Atie. The Public Safety Council Committee and I were impressed with his plans for the Police Department, which includes additional community policing and innovative quality of life initiatives.”

Matari is the second Palestinian American to hold this position in the state. The first one was Police Chief Mustafa Rabboh of Bergenfield.

Yasar Bashir has been appointed assistant chief of Houston Police as head of the family violence department, said an official announcement.

Bashir, who also appeared in a National Geographic feature on Muslims in America in 2018, is the nation’s first Muslim assistant chief of police.

Born near Lahore, Pakistan, his family came to the U.S. in 1985 when he was eight years old. Pursuing a college major in criminology, Bashir joined the police force in 2001. He was in the academy when 9/11 happened.

Houston police chief Troy Finner, who personally attended a Muslim community event to announce Bashir’s appointment, said, “I am going to have somebody who will represent all of you.”

The police department respects its Muslim officers. For instance, during Ramadan they are allowed to take breaks for iftar and prayers if they want to. ih

IQRA Foundation Needs Funds Urgently

THE ROOF OF THE IQRA FOUNDATION building suffered extensive damage during the winter 2020 storm.

The foundation must complete the work before winter 2021 to restore and protect the premises, which include the offices and a boardroom; a library and an archive; classrooms used for two weekend Islamic schools; the community musalla, meeting spaces for the community, interfaith, youth and refugee programs; and the warehouse.

Earlier fundraising drives were impossible, due to the illness of its founder and president, Dr. Abidullah Ghazi. He passed away on April 11. (Please see his obituary on p. 15.)

Those who wish to honor Dr. Ghazi’s legacy, can donate through https:// www.launchgood.com/campaign/give_ schools_a_roof#!/ ih