|
Chicago Sun-Times - November 23, 2005
Dr. Amir Ali
Educating others about Islam was his mission
BY LISA DONOVAN
It was 1979, and world attention was on the Islamic revolutionaries who had stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and taken 63 Americans hostage. Mir Amir Ali pored over newspaper reports and instantly found his life's mission: To educate people about Islam.
"He was in Saudi Arabia working at the time, and while he was there, he was thinking more and more about this, how people are misinformed about Islam and what people read in the newspapers [is] not correct about Islam. He wanted to establish an organization to tell people about it," said his wife, Mary Ali, who with her husband raised four children in the Chicago area.
Indeed, Mr. Ali already had followed the teachings of Islam, which includes educating -- not necessarily converting -- non-Muslims about his faith.
But now, this man who had received his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago was going to devote his entire life to it, even deciding to earn poverty-level wages so he could embark on his new mission.
That mission, which began in the 1980s, ended for Mr. Ali on Saturday (November 19, 2005), when he died after apparent complications from open-heart surgery, family members say. He was 68.
But Mr. Ali's work, which includes starting the Albany Park- based Institute of Islamic Information and Education, will live on, his family says. The institute's mission is to educate the people of North America about Islam.
Mr. Ali was its managing director and spent nearly every waking moment in pursuit of its mission, his family says.
Honored posthumously: The Muslim Community Center, also in Albany Park, presented his family with a Lifetime Achievement Award on Saturday night, just hours after he passed. The event and the award had been planned for weeks.
Mr. Ali was born in Hyderabad, India. He emigrated to Pakistan, where he earned a bachelor's of commerce degree from the University of Karachi.
He earned a scholarship to study medical technology at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, and in 1961 he was admitted to the University of Iowa to pursue graduate studies.
In his research laboratory, Amir began introducing the topics of Islam and Pakistan to his colleagues but found little interest, according to a biography his children wrote. That's where he met his wife, Mary.
After receiving his master's in biochemistry in 1967, he was admitted to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he began his doctorate studies, receiving his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1972.
Subsequently, Amir worked at a number of hospitals, eventually becoming director of the clinical laboratories at Chicago's Edgewater Hospital.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by two sons, Dawood Ali and Umar Ali; two daughters, Nilofer Ali and Aamina Ahmed, and nine grandchildren.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/obituaries/cst-nws-xali23.html
|
