Celebrating Muslim Leadership in Elected Offices
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali

 

 

Northern California Islamic Council (NCIC) held an event to honor Muslims in Elected Offices.

The event, held on February 25, 2023, at the Chandni Restaurant, Newark, CA, was addressed by a number of elected officials including Aisha Wahab, California State Senator. 

Dr Hatem Bazian, President of NCIC was also among the speakers.

Hosham Haqqag, Clerk of City of Santa Clara, was the MC of the event.

Elected officials who addressed the event included: Aisha Wahab, California State Senator; Aziz Akbari, Director, Alameda County Water District; Aliya Chisti, Trustee, San Francisco City College Board; Hosham Haggag, Clerk of City of Santa Clara was MC of the event. This video shows speeches by Omar Din, Vice Mayor, City of Sunnyvale; Belal Aftab, Councilmember, City of Saratoga; Kashef Qaadri, Councilmember, City of Dublin; Sarah Syed, Director, Alameda County Public Transportation; Antonio López, Vice Mayor, City of East Palo Alto and Moina Shaiq from CA Democratic Club.

A number of civil advocacy groups also attended the event. They included: American Muslim Voice (AMV) led by the AMV founder Samina Sundas and AMV National President Khalid Saeed; Reshma Inamdar from the League of Women Voters; Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA).

In their speeches the speakers asked the community to extend moral and material support for the Muslim candidates and political activists.

A rich tribute was paid to the late Prof Agha Seed, the pioneer of Muslim Empowerment. In 2000, Dr Saeed, the founder of American Muslim Alliance (a leading civil advocacy Muslim group), presented his Fourteen State Strategy to make Muslim voters’ voice effective. He suggested that in the 2000 elections “we should focus on 14 states because they have 304 electoral votes and secondly because Muslims are concentrated in the largest of these states. Dr Agha Saeed’s goal: To establish effective political presence in the 40 most populous cities of the 14 major states…The focus of the Fourteen State Strategy will be on political education, leadership training and organized participation.

More than two decades after Dr Agha Saeed’s Muslim Empowerment strategy Muslims made history when they made historic gains in the 2022 midterm elections. A record-breaking 145 American Muslim candidates ran for local, state, and federal office, including 48 state legislative candidates in 23 states.

Tellingly from California state 12 Muslims were elected to various public offices. The elected officials included:

Aisha Wahab, State Senate District 10; Kashef Qaadri, Dublin City Council; Shakeel Ali, Jefferson Elementary, School District; Farrah Khan, Irvine City Mayor; Ali Sajjad Taj, Artesia City Council; Sarah Syed, Alameda County Public Transportation; Sadia Khan California, Albany Board of Education; Maimona Afzal Berta, Santa Clara Board of Education District 6; Belal Aftab, Saratoga City Council; Raeena Lari California, Santa Clara Board of Education District 7; Ahmad Zahra California, Fullerton City Council District 5 and Sara Deen California, Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District.