Uniting the Imams and Community of Australia
Ausrtalian National Imams Council © All Rights Reserved
Bilal has been active in the Muslim and broader Australian communities over many years. He has also been active in the media, including participating in panel discussions and interviews, in addressing matters relating to the Australian Muslim communities. In NSW, Bilal is a member of the Australian Asian Lawyers’ Association and was also a former President of the Muslim Legal Network (NSW). In 2017, he assisted with drafting ANIC’s Explanatory Note on the Judicial Process and Participation of Muslims (which is now referred to by judicial officers and lawyers throughout Australia). Bilal also spent many years in Queensland, where he was the Secretary of the Muslim Business Network and a member of the Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Multicultural Round Table group.
Professionally, Bilal is a barrister and has been a member of the legal profession since 2001. He graduated from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Arts in 1998 and Bachelor of Laws in 2000. From 2001 until 2014, Bilal worked at national law firms. He has been practising as a barrister since 2014. Bilal appears in courts and tribunals throughout Australia, including for some of Australia’s largest corporations, employer associations and government entities.
Bilal has been active in supporting initiatives to build bridges and provide opportunities for engagement and understanding between Australian Muslim communities and the broader Australian communities. In recent years, he has been focussed on the legal profession and assisting members of the profession, including judicial officers, to understand and appropriately handle religious matters affecting Australian Muslims. Bilal also assists with initiatives to achieve diversity in the legal profession, including participating in mentoring programmes.
Mariam Ardati is a Funeral Director, Consultant and Educator based in Sydney. Following an information management pathway and many years working in health-related industries, Mariam developed an interest in the death-care sector. For the past 13 years, Mariam has dedicated her time as both a volunteer and care consultant for a number of funeral services, where she performs the funeral rites in accordance with Islamic tradition, provides spiritual and practical care to the grieving, and assists families through the coroner’s court and its processes. She is passionate about providing compassionate support for individuals and families who may be struggling with the loss of a loved one, particularly after a sudden or unexpected death.
Mariam offers workshops on death and dying from an Islamic perspective to health professionals in government and non-government organisations and community groups, in the hope that this may help support staff to develop more informed approaches to culturally appropriate therapy models and coping strategies for Muslim patients and their families.
Mariam also holds a Health Sciences degree (Health Information Management) from the University of Sydney.
Ramia has been active in the Muslim and broader Muslim communities over many years, including participating in community and media based discussions. Ramia dedicates her spare time to mentoring young women, helping them address issues relating to their identity, faith and social involvement.
Professionally, Ramia is a lawyer who operates a busy and successful legal practice in Sydney. She also graduated with Distinction in a Master of Islamic Studies from Charles Sturt University.
Youcef has a career spanning 20 years operating within the New South Wales security industry. He has an extensive career of achievements in supporting all levels of business operations and risk advisory delivering on major service contracts with private and government clients, managing service levels, overseeing finance, and ensuring risk mitigation. Some of these clients include Colliers, AMP, and Sydney Trains.
At a community level, Youcef has been very active in the Muslim and broader Muslim communities over many years, managing and leading local community sporting clubs and events, and actively mentoring young youth, assisting them in becoming constructive rather than destructive citizens of our community.
Professionally, Youcef commenced his security career in 1999 and has worked in multiple operational and strategic roles with major security corporations ever since. Youcef is a very competent risk advisor, leader and manager who is truly client-centric, continuously strives to deliver multi-disciplined and innovative service solutions to customers. He focuses on excellence in service delivery, strategic planning, productivity initiatives and risk management.
Youcef’s qualifications include:
Dr Ijaz stems from an international medical family spanning over four generations. He holds medical qualifications and skills acquired in 3 countries and in 2021 was unanimously appointed by the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners as a member to represent Australia. He began his Australian medical career with the South Western Sydney Area Health Services as a Junior Medical Officer in 2002 where he was awarded the Greg Monaghan Award for Medical Intern of the Year in 2002. He then interposed into the work, health and safety regulatory space with roles as Director of Medical Services for WorkCare Medical, Galen & Gray and as an Injury Management Consultant for the then WorkCover Authority of NSW prior to his current consulting role with InjuryCare in 2010 as the Director of Medical Services.
Dr Ijaz holds professional memberships with the Australian Medical Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the American Board of Independent Medical Examiners, the Australia New Zealand Society of Occupational Medicine, the Australian Society of Aerospace Medicine and the Medical Review Officers Association of Australia.
Professionally, Dr Ijaz holds a wide range of clinical experience including provision of regulator assessments for Transport NSW, CASA, administering Drug and Alcohol Management Programmes for the corporate sector and medicolegal consulting for Clinical Evaluations Pty Ltd. He has advised a diverse quantum of industrial sectors including multi-national corporates, transport, aviation, manufacturing, infrastructure, entertainment, finance, retail, local government, logistics and numerous SME’s. He is a regular surgical assistant on multiple orthopaedic, spinal and neurosurgical teams regularly completing the circle of care for his patients requiring injury management services.
Some of Dr Ijaz’s personal initiatives and achievements include personal and corporate support to SKMH, one of the world’s leading cancer hospitals which provides free cancer treatment to the socio-economically challenged, the provision of a free healthcare clinic and advisory service to economically vulnerable patients in need, the honour of being an invited key note guest speaker with his team to present for the welfare of the people of the Kingdom of Tonga to HRH Princess Angelika Latufuipeka TUKU’AHO and taking on the K2 Base Camp Trek in the Himalayas.
Dr Ijaz counts his parents Dr Qamar and Dr Rao, his wife Taghrid and sons Bilal, Fadi, Isaaq and Zaqaria, his siblings Dr Ambreen, Dr Yasmin and Shaheen, his dear friends Dr Uthum Dias, Dr Naresh Verma, Dr Albert Shafransky, Penni Clark, Dr Jonathan Herald, Dr Jimmy Bui, Dr Shaheen Rasheed, Dr Taimoor Latif Malik, and Syed Raza Ali Shah Gillani as the human blessings that enrich the tapestry of his life.
Dr Nada Ghamra-oui grew up in Sydney and is an educator who has had enriching experiences across various roles in the three educational sectors in Australia. Her experience of thirty years as practitioner, educational leader and researcher have highlighted important issues pertaining to the cultural politics of education; educational leadership scope, possibilities and limitations; and the education of young Muslims in Western contexts.
Her doctoral enquiry into Constructing the Espoused Purpose of Islamic Schools in Australia contributes to evidence-based research to support educational institutions and schools that host Muslim populations and the day-to-day work of their practitioners. The findings offer significant insights into the challenges and struggles of educational leaders in aligning rhetoric with action against a backdrop of neoliberal educational policy and Islamophobia. It offers key strategies for leadership interventions as they negotiate an educational landscape that is oriented towards narrowed interpretations of excellence and racialisation.
Nada combines research with the provisions of educational services and professional development to educational institutions. Nada’s two-fold goal is to support the Muslim and wider Australian community in providing young Muslims with a culturally congruent education for parity of outcomes as well as contribute to scholarship in her area of practice. Her research interests include the cultural politics of education, Islamic schools, educational leadership, school culture and belonging. Nada’s work has been published by renowned peer reviewed international journals, including Leading & Managing and Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs.
Dania has been an active member in the Muslim community for many years and continues to invest in the advocacy for young people to have a voice in the wider community. She is the first female representative in the Alliance of Australian Muslims Preservation of Islamic Identity committee, where the primary objective is to focus on practical solutions that influence the internal and external factors of the Australian youth and new muslims.
In 2019, Dania was the Vice President of the Western Sydney University Muslim Student’s Association and concentrated on empowering the Muslim community in a tertiary setting. Dania dedicates her time to work on journalism projects, leading media based discussions, and writing articles for publication within the Australian media landscape.
Dania has graduated at Western Sydney University with a Bachelor of Communications in Journalism with Distinction. During this time, she was nominated and elected as a student editor for the Western Sydney University Student Newspaper and WSU Publication Committee. She initiated and founded ‘Humans of Western Sydney’ which promotes and showcases a diverse collection of stories shared by students, and this has become a permanent feature of the editorial column.
Dania was also involved in the project Recipes for Ramadan and received the 2021 Premier’s Multicultural Communications Award for Best Use of Digital or Social Media 2021.
