The Islamic Society of North America has named Muneer Fareed, an Islamic studies professor at Wayne State University in Michigan, as its new secretary general, the second-highest position in what is arguably North America’s largest Islamic organization.
The election of Fareed comes barely two months after the society elected Ingrid Mattson, a Canadian convert, as the organization’s first female president. Fareed succeeds Sayyid M. Syeed, who became secretary general in 1994.
Syeed will head the organization’s new Office of Interfaith and Community Alliances in Washington.
Fareed studied Islam at Darul Uloom Deoband in India, one of the largest Sunni seminaries in the world, as well as in his native South Africa, in Saudi Arabia and at the University of Michigan, where he earned a doctorate in Islamic studies. He came to the United States in 1989, settling in Detroit, where he served as an imam while teaching.
As a well-traveled, classically trained scholar who is also comfortable in American culture, Fareed is expected to further integrate ISNA into U.S. society but keep the group grounded in fundamentals.
“He brings both practical knowledge of lived Islam as well as a depth of scholarship to this position,” Mattson said in a prepared statement. “Dr. Fareed has a good understanding of the challenges faced by youth.”
Fareed has written extensively about the Islamic concept “ijtihad,” or reinterpretation, which many scholars see as a key to bringing modernity to Islamic societies.
