Abdul Malik Mujahid

Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid

Abdul Malik Mujahid is an American Muslim Imam a producer, author, and non-profit entrepreneur. He was born in Pakistan in 1951. Imam Mujahid has been selected five times as one of the "World’s 500 Most Influential Muslims.” ^[1]

Accomplishments

He is the founding president of Sound Vision which was established in 1988 in Chicago. It is a not for profit organization which develops Islamic content and does public relations for the peace and justice causes. He is the executive producer of Chicago's RadioIslam, a daily one-hour (6 PM to 7 PM CST) talk program on WCEV 1450 AM.^[2]

Imam Mujahid has been active with the interfaith movement since the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions was revived. He has addressed the Parliament in Cape Town South Africa, Barcelona, Spain and Melbourne, Australia.^[3] In November 2009, the Board of Trustees of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions elected him as chairman.^[4] He chaired the international 2015 Parliament in Salt Lake City which was attended by 11,000 people from 50 religions and 80 countries.^[5][6][7]

He has served on the Independent Task Force on Civil Liberties and National Security by the Council on Foreign Relations in New York from 2006-2009.^[8] He also served on independent task force of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on the civic and political integration of Muslim Americans. It's report, Strengthening America: The Civic and Political Integration of Muslim Americans, was issued on June 26, 2007 calling for Muslims and non-Muslims to work together to create full and equal opportunities for Muslim Americans to participate in American civic and political life.^[9]

In 2008 he served on the Credentials Committee of Democratic National Convention.^[10]

Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid is a founding member of a political organization called; Muslim Democrats

Imam Mujahid is among the faith leaders asking for better policies on the climate change. He addressed a major interfaith gathering along with Al Gore at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, the evening of the September 21, 2014 historic march on the climate change Imam Mujahid announced the climate change will be one of the major themes of the forthcoming Parliament of the World's Religions.^[11]

He has been a major supporter of the undocumented workers' movement, speaking and leading one of the largest marches in Chicago history for immigration rights.^[12][13] Imam Mujahid has served at the steering committee of the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights. As the national coordinator of the Bosnia Task Force USA, in the ’90s, he successfully led efforts in collaboration with the National Organization of Women (NOW) to declare rape as a war crime in the international law for the first time in human history.^[14]

Imam Malik Mujahid also chairs a coalition Burma Task Force USA, that reaches out to media and community stakeholders, US policymakers and international NGOS and human rights groups to raise awareness of ongoing genocide and persecution. Burma Task Force includes involvement of 17 other organizations from the Muslim American community.^[15] Based on Burma Task Force lawsuit a federal court summons Burmese President Thein Sein and several Burmese ministers for human rights violations allegedly committed against the stateless Rohingya Muslim minority.^[16] The US embassy in Yangon, however, issued a clarification that the lawsuit has nothing to do with Washington’s policy toward Burma.^[17] He co-chaired an international conference in early 2015 at the Nobel Peace Institute, Oslo, Norway, where 7 Nobel Peace Laureates declared that what Rohingya are facing in Burma is a "text book case of genocide".^[18] The Nobel Laureates included Desmond Tutu from South Africa, Mairead Maguire from Ireland, Jody Williams from the USA, Tawakkol Karman from Yemen, Shirin Ibadi from Iran, Leymah Gbowee from Liberia and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel from Argentina.^[19] Burma Task Force is housed at Justice for All, a not for profit organization and the member of the Task Force.^[20]

Under Imam Mujahid's leadership Sound Vision also initiated and coordinated an informal network of 26 Muslim organizations against domestic violence.^[21]

Imam Mujahid developed a friendship with Muhammad Ali after meeting him at a reception given by the Mayor of Chicago in 1977 in honor of Imam Warith Deen Mohammed. Ali worked with Mujahid to lend a famous name to the efforts of Bosnia Task Force, thus reducing the time it took to accomplish their objectives(Ref.?). Ali also marched with Mujahid in Chicago in the 1980s in support of oppressed Palestinians. Mujahid volunteered with Ali for food distribution and also interviewed him several times under the auspices of Sound Vision.^[22]

As an Imam, he gives Friday sermons ("khutba" in Arabic) at various Chicago mosques and prayer locations.^[23]

From 2005–2008 he served as Chairman of the Council of the Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago(CIOGC).

He has authored one book, "Conversion to Islam: Untouchables Strategy for Protest in India," which won the Outstanding Academic Book of the Year Award in 1990 from the American Library Association.

People are occasionally confused with his namesake Abdul Malik Mujahid, a General Manager of Saudi-based Dar-us-Salam Publications . They are unrelated to each other.

Writings

Abdul Malik Mujahid is a frequent contributor of analytical opinion pieces on world events. Here is a selected list of his writings:

The Unwinnable Wars on Drug and Terror

Muslims Are More Peaceful Than Their Neighbors^[24]

Sharia and the Lives of Muslim Americans

Katrina: Where Faith and Interfaith Groups Picked Up as Federal Government Failed

Words of Burma’s Religious Affairs Minister Too Serious to Ignore

Why Do Afghans Have a Life Expectancy of Only 44 Years?

References

External links

• Sound Vision Website
• Radio Islam website
• Burma Task Force USA website

Articles on the website of the Council for the Parliament of the World's Religions Huffington Post Articles