Ahmad, outside the Pentagon, during a rally against the genocide in Bosnia in 1995
Longtime Urbana resident Irfan Ahmad passed away on May 2 due to complications from a chronic lung condition. He was 66. Ahmad immigrated from Pakistan in 1989 to pursue his graduate education in agricultural engineering at the University of Illinois. He later joined the College of Engineering and College of Medicine as research faculty.
As a scientist, Ahmad began his career looking for solutions to hunger and working to improve food security. He developed machine vision systems to detect stresses and diseases in crops like corn and soy. However, his efforts to help people extended far beyond the laboratory as he worked to bring different groups together—students, faculty, businesses, local residents—to lessen suffering and foster justice. One of his favorite quotes was Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Ahmad’s activism began almost as soon as he arrived in the United States. He raised funds for international humanitarian crises in places like Kashmir (where his wife Raheela’s family is originally from), Chechnya, Iraq, and Kosovo. During the conflict in Bosnia in 1995, he helped organize a caravan of community members to travel to Washington, DC to raise awareness of the Bosnian genocide. He also led clothing and food drives and collected donations to purchase an ambulance for people in the afflicted region.
The core of Ahmad’s activism was his faith. He was a member of the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center (CIMIC) and a leader on the “da’wah” committee, which engaged with the broader community about Islam and Muslims. This work gained urgency after 9/11, when xenophobia and Islamophobia rose in the United States. Ahmad took a proactive approach, leading cultural sensitivity trainings and seminars for university leaders, the media, and local law enforcement. He also cultivated personal relationships with religious leaders across Urbana-Champaign, organizing interfaith forums and community-wide events. Throughout his work, Ahmad emphasized getting to know people personally in order to learn from them.
Irfan Ahmad
These outreach efforts continue to this day: Ahmad helped establish the CIMIC presence at the weekly Urbana farmers market—where community members can talk directly and frankly to their Muslim neighbors, creating a welcoming and safe environment to ask questions, learn, and discuss beliefs. Ahmad’s warm, affable demeanor let him connect with people from all walks of life.
In 2007, Ahmad was one of six recipients of the Champaign-Urbana International Humanitarian Award. He was nominated by Professor Rizwan Uddin for his disaster relief fundraising and supply drives after the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and India as well as similar efforts for the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.
“I rarely come across people with as much energy—directed in the right direction—as Irfan,” said Uddin in the nomination letter. “Through his activities, he promotes dialogue and civic engagement as a means to solve problems, both locally and abroad. He brings a tremendous amount of energy to the table and inspires others to do their best.”
One of Ahmad’s most enduring legacies is the Avicenna Community Health Center, which he cofounded in 2009. At the time, he was working on a number of National Cancer Institute projects at the university and was starting to spend more of his professional time on health care. Looking at his own community, Ahmad saw a need for more accessible care. He tapped into his network and assembled a team of volunteer physicians, medical students, and undergrads interested in health care to launch a free clinic for the under- and uninsured residents of Champaign County. Now in its fifteenth year, the clinic continues to run every Sunday from 1–4 pm at 201 W. Kenyon Road in Champaign.
As Ahmad stated in a 2015 interview with a student journalist, “I don’t do it for worldly kudos, I do it because of my conviction and my faith that it’s for a higher purpose.”
In his last few months, Ahmad’s energy was increasingly directed to raising awareness of the ongoing occupation of Palestine and genocide in Gaza. The night before he died, he attended meetings with University of Illinois administrators to advocate for the student protesters at the encampment on the main quad. Following that meeting, he brought fruit to the protesters despite the fact that he was feeling ill. A statement from the University Faculty for Justice in Palestine reads, “May we remember this good man and honor him and his last gift, a sweet offering of peace and solidarity.”
Roveiza is Irfan Ahmad’s daughter; she is an Urbana native, University of Illinois alum, and a founding member of the Avicenna Community Health Center. She currently works as a management consultant at ZS, advising emerging oncology companies in the Bay Area.
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