About Us
Dr. Mohammad Ahmadullah Siddiqi is one of the founding members and current President of WCMIR.
He has served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions from 2009 to 2015. In 2014, Dr. Siddiqi was inducted into the Collegium of Interfaith Scholars at Martin Luther King Chapel at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. He has been selected by the One America Movement to serve as the 2025 Lead by Faith Fellow. He is associated with the Islamic Foundation, Villa Park and serves on the IF Interfaith Committee. He is also a member of the CIOGC’s Interfaith Committee, board member of CIOGC and its secretary. Dr. Siddiqi is Professor Emeritus of Journalism and Public Relations at Western Illinois University (WIU) where he has taught for 29 years. At WIU he served as the Journalism Program Director and Chair of the Department of English & Journalism. He has also served as the Dean of Academic and Student Affairs at Northwest Suburban College. He has authored several books and published more than two dozen articles in refereed publications. He serves on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research (UK), Journal of Media Studies (Pakistan), and the Islamic Horizon magazine. He has conducted media workshops and seminars in more than 100 cities in North America as well as in about 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Far East. While at Western Illinois University, he co-founded the Islamic Center of Macomb and helped build a new mosque and Islamic Center at the heart of the campus in 2001 and served as its President and Imam until May 2015 when he retired from the University and moved to the Lombard/Villa Park area. Born in India, Dr. Siddiqi currently lives with his family in Villa Park, Illinois.
Mufti Barkatullah is WCMIR Vice President and board member.
He is a senior lecturer of Islamic Finance at Ebrahim College in London, U. K. He is a prominent Islamic Sharia law scholar with a strong background in economics and finance. Trained extensively both in traditional Islamic and modern Western educational traditions, he has served UK Muslims as a community worker, and Sharia judge at Islamic Sharia Council, London and head of Sharia at Halal Food Authority of the United Kingdom. Previously he has developed Islamic Sharia data information databases on CD-ROM and recently hosted live phone-in shows on community TV channels. Mufti Barkatulla is member of the Sharia supervisory boards for several Islamic financial institutions and banks, including the Islamic bank of Britain and several in India and other European countries. A graduate of the famous Darul Uloom Deoband with degrees of Alim, Fadil, and Iftaa, he is a world-renowned expert in Islamic finance, banking, and Islamic community affairs. He lives in London, U. K.
Dr. Qamrul Islam has been a board member of WCMIR since 2021 and currently serves as WCMIR Secretary.
He has served as President of the Tri-City Islamic Center, Chester, Virginia (2019-2020), as Board Advisor of the Islamic Society of Portland, Maine (2012-2016), as a board of Trustee member (2008-2012) and as President (1999-2001) of the Islamic Center of Virginia, Richmond, VA, as President (1992-1994) and member of the Board of Directors (1992-1995) of the Islamic Society of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, as Secretary of the Al-Huda Islamic Center, Athens, Georgia (190-1991), as a member of the Board of Directors of FOSIS (Federation of Students Islamic Society of the U. K. & Ireland) from 1986 to 1988, and as a General Secretary of the Students Islamic Society, New Castle, England (1986-1988). Since 2022, Dr. Islam has been serving on the Board of Advisors (Academics and R. & D.) of the Jahangirabad Institute of Technology. Dr. Islam has four decades of professional experience in the pharmaceutical industry for developing new medicines, He has held positions from scientist to director in R. & D., Process, Quality Management, and Regulatory CMC. He has received many awards and recognition for his outstanding professional achievements. Currently, he lives along with his family in Chester, Virginia.
Dr. Tanveer Azmat is among the founding members and current treasurer of WCMIR.
He serves on the Islamic Foundation, Villa Park’s Interfaith Committee and is a board member and secretary of the Oak Park Muslim Community. He is an independent researcher and theologian. He received Ph.D. in theology from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago in 2016. His areas of interest are the Qur’anic hermeneutics and early Islamic history. He was born in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, and migrated to the USA in early 80’s. He has worked as an engineer in his earlier career and is currently involved in teaching and research in religious studies
Professor Inam Haq has been a WCMIR Board member since 2020.
His area of expertise is Islamic Theology and Muslim World Studies. He has been principal of two Muslim day schools in Chicago area for 13 years. He has taught courses on Islam in various local universities including Benedictine, Loyola, U of Illinois, and Catholic Theological Union. Currently he is Professor of Religion and Muslim Advisor at Elmhurst University. Prof. Haq has served on Chicago Committee of Human Rights Watch and on Illinois Governor Pat Quinn’s Muslim Advisory Council. Professor Haq currently serves on Board of Cardinal Bernardin Center at C.T.U. and is an honorary Imam in various local mosques and serves on Muslim-Catholic and Muslim-Jewish Scholars Committees. Professor Haq studied in various religious seminaries in Pakistan including Shah Wali Ullah Oriental College & International Islamic University in Islamabad. In addition, he holds Traditional Ijaza in Tafseer, Hadith, Fiqh & Tasawwuf. He holds a Masters in sharia from International Islamic University and a Masters in Humanities from Drew University in New Jersey.
Mr. Jawed Aslam has been a WCMIR Board Member since 2020.
He serves in various capacities in many local and national Muslim organizations. At Islamic Foundation, Villa Park, he has been the Marriage Director and Director of the burial and funeral services for more than two decades. He earned a master’s degree in chemistry from Aligarh Muslim University and also has a diploma in Company and Insurance laws. He has worked in Glaxo, Crescent Diagnostics, Gulf Cooperation Insurance, MetLife, and Massmutual. He is a senior financial advisor and consultant and lives along with his family in Villa Park, Illinois.
Chaplain Kaiser Aslam is the Muslim Chaplain at Center for Islamic Life at Rutgers University.
Kaiser has studied various classical Islamic sciences in his studies within the United States and abroad and holds a Masters’s degree in Islamic Studies & Muslim-Christian Relations from Hartford Seminary. In addition to his work at universities, Kaiser has served as the Muslim Chaplain at Hartford Hospital and as a youth director at various Islamic centers, most recently at the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center. Kaiser has worked with and in over a dozen educational and service-based organizations in the American Muslim Community over the last decade. Most notably, he served as the National Coordinator of Young Muslims, the largest Muslim youth group in North America. Kaiser is a public lecturer on Islam, Muslim youth, Interfaith work, Muslim culture, and various other topics. In his last role as the chaplain at Wesleyan University, he made a major impact on student life and a lasting legacy. He travels regularly to different communities across the United States to speak and organize events. Kaiser’s thesis at Hartford Seminary aims to provide a definition of undergraduate ‘Islamic Literacy’ for undergraduate Muslim Americans. Kaiser spends his free time commenting on popular culture, consuming scientific journals, reading comics, and adventuring his way through nature.
Dr. Babacar Mbengue is a professor of history and Islamic studies at DePaul University in Chicago.
He received his PhD at the University of Dakar, Senegal. He has also received degrees from various universities including Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris and Cambridge University. Dr. Babacar Mbengue was a Fulbright scholar, and his fields of research include Islam, Islam in Africa, Islamic banking and finance, Islamic law of contract, Islam and politics, world history and International relations. He is the author of many articles and book chapters. Dr. Babacar Mbengue is fluent in a number of languages including Arabic, Wolof, French and English.
,After completing her Master’s in English language and literature at AMU, Aligarh, India, Dr. Nusba Parveen, came to the US in 1982. She took some graduate courses in English literature,
philosophy, and educational psychology in Chicago and Ann Arbor, MI. After moving to Malaysia, she completed her Master’s in English literature again at ISTAC, International Islamic
University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and earned her Ph.D. in Islamic civilization in 2005. Topic of her thesis was “Muslim Educational Reforms in Nineteenth Century India: An Analysis of
Shibli Nu’mani’s Thought & Practices.” Nusba is the eldest daughter of WCMIR Founding President, Late Dr. Irfan Ahmad Khan. She lives in Markham, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, with
her husband Dr. Abdullah Ahsan, a retired professor of IIIU.