2015 Banquet Speakers
Our 11th Annual Banquet is set to take place onSaturday, February 7th, 2015, at 6:00 p.m., at Drury Lane.
Please show your support by purchasing a ticket, table, or becoming a sponsor.Opportunities to support CAIR-Chicago by volunteering are also available for those that
wish to be more actively involved in the event or cannot make a financial contribution. More information can be found here. Announcing Speakers for 2015!
Usama Canon is the founding director of the Ta’leef Collective, an outreach program founded in 2002 in California that serves recent converts by assisting in the conversion and guiding them in the practice of Islam. Prior to founding the Ta’leef Collective, Canon was the Outreach Director and an Arabic instructor at the Zaytuna Institute (now Zaytuna College), the first Muslim liberal arts college in America. He has served as a Muslim chaplain for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and currently is a spiritual adviser for the Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN).
Dalia Mogahed is the Director of Research at Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Washington, DC based think tank focused on the challenges and opportunities of the Muslim American Community. She is former Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies where she led the analysis of surveys of Muslim communities worldwide. With John L. Esposito, she coauthored the groundbreaking book Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. President Barack Obama appointed Mogahed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2009. Mogahed was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about U.S. engagement with Muslim communities, and she provided significant contributions to the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Countering Violent Extremism Working Group recommendations. The World Economic Forum named Mogahed a Young Global Leader, and she is a member of the Forum’s Agenda Council on the Arab World.
Mariam Sobh is one of the first Muslim women wearing hijab in the U.S. to work on air in broadcast media and the entertainment industry.
She is currently an anchor and reporter with WBBM News Radio (CBS) in Chicago , founder of the first hijab fashion and lifestyle blog “hijabtrendz“. and she also performs musical improv and sketch comedy through The Second City Training Center.
Mariam previously worked for WBEZ as the midday anchor and reporter and has worked as a traffic reporter for Navteq and Nokia and as a political reporter for Illinois Radio Network.
Former president of the board at CAIR-Chicago, Safaa Zarzour currently serves as CEO at the IQRA Foundation. Previously he worked as General Counsel and Chief Operations Officer at the Zakat Foundation. Zarzour is an attorney and principal of his law firm, Zarzour, Khalil, and Tabbara, LLC, where he focuses on local government, education, and non-profit law and is an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School. Zarzour is busy in interfaith circles such as Bernadine Center at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and the Mid-Atlantic Muslim-Catholic Dialogue. He has been featured in 60 Minutes, PBS Front Line, the Chicago Tribune, and Time Magazine.
For sponsorship, ticket, and volunteer information click here.