| Rashad Hussain | |
|---|---|
| Rashad Hussain at the UN in Geneva, February 8, 2011 | |
| 2nd United States Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office January 20, 2009 |
|
| President | Barack Obama |
| Preceded by | Sada Cumber |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1978 Wyoming |
| Profession | Lawyer |
| Religion | Islam |
Rashad Hussain (born in 1978), is an American attorney, and U.S. Special Envoy to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an intergovernmental group with 57 member states.[1] Hussain, a Muslim of Indian heritage, has served in the White House Counsel's Office, and in his role as Envoy, has advised the Administration on policy issues related to the Muslim world. He has traveled to numerous countries and international conferences, and has met with foreign leaders and Muslims around the world.[2]
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Hussain was born in Wyoming and was raised in Plano, Texas, the son of Indian-born U.S. citizens. His father, Mohammad Hussain, is a retired mining engineer from Bihar. His mother Ruqaiya and his older sister, Lubna are medical doctors, and his younger brother, Saad, is a medical student.[3]
Hussain is a graduate of Greenhill School in Dallas, Texas. While at Greenhill, Hussain was a member of the school's nationally recognized policy-debate team, partnering with Josh Goldberg to win the Texas state debate championship and a number of national competitions.[4]
Hussain completed a bachelor’s degree in two years, in both philosophy and political science, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. His philosophy thesis was titled "Assessing the Theistic Implications of Big Bang Cosmological Theory."[5] He holds a Masters degree in Arabic & Islamic Studies from Harvard University, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. At Yale, he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.[6]
After college, but before entering law school, he worked as a legislative aide for the House Judiciary Committee, where he reviewed the USA Patriot Act and other bills.[5] He was a 2003 Fellow of the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans.[7]
In August 2008, while working as a law clerk for Damon J. Keith of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Hussain co-authored a paper, "Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy" for the Brookings Institution, that advocates the use of Islam in countering terrorist ideology.[8]
As envoy, Hussain has sought to expand partnerships between the U.S. and the Muslim world and has been outspoken on the need to combat terrorism, stating in a speech to Muslim Foreign Ministers, "It is our duty to eradicate this ideology completely and blaming the foreign policy of any country is not the answer. No policy grievance justifies the slaughter of innocent people."[9]
In January 2009, Hussain was named deputy associate counsel to President Barack Obama. Previously, he has served as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice.[10]
The Washington Post reported that, "After the 2008 election, Hussain was recruited to the White House Counsel's office by Greg Craig and Cassandra Butts, a fellow Tar Heel and Obama's former Harvard Law classmate. He has worked there on national security and new media issues, and helped inform the administration's Muslim outreach efforts.[11] Mr. Hussain also "began advising the president on issues related to Islam after joining the White House counsel’s office in January 2009." [12] Ben Rhodes, Obama's chief foreign policy speechwriter, sought Hussain's counsel last year as he drafted the president's Cairo address."[4]
On February 13, 2010, President Obama appointed Hussain as the United States Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.[13] After the appointment, President Obama said:
As an accomplished lawyer and a close and trusted member of my White House staff, Rashad has played a key role in developing the partnerships I called for in Cairo. And as a Hafiz of the Quran, he is a respected member of the American Muslim community, and I thank him for carrying forward this important work.[1][14]
The Religion News Service said that rather than noting that Hussain has memorized the Qu'ran, "Muslims abroad are more likely to take note of his White House credentials, and access to the Oval Office, as he seeks partnerships in education, health, science and technology."[15]
The previous U.S. Special Envoy to the OIC, Bush appointee Sada Cumber,[16] said that Hussain: "will face the twin challenges of showing the Muslims that Obama’s Cairo speech was more than flowery rhetoric while also demonstrating to the American public that the current administration’s emphasis on soft power is paying concrete dividends.”"[17]
In 2004, while a student at Yale, Hussain attended a Muslim Students Association conference in Chicago and participated in a panel discussion on civil rights. Laila Al-Arian, a daughter of Sami Al-Arian, was also on the panel. During the discussion, Hussain made critical statements about the US terror prosecution of Sami Al-Arian and other Muslim terrorism suspects, such as Chaplain James Yee and Brandon Mayfield.[18] According to recordings obtained by Politico in 2010, Hussain referred to the cases as examples of "politically-motivated prosecutions." [18] He was careful to say that he was not offering an opinion on whether Al-Arian was guilty of the charges that he was a top leader of the U.S. branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization.[18][19] In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and ordered deported following his prison term.[19][20]
Opinions differ on whether the recording shows that Hussain using the term "prosecutions," or "persecutions," and whether he said that the prosecutions were "used to squash political dissent," quotations from a 2004 story that Hussain denied making.[21] After the controversy over the statements, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs expressed continued White House confidence in Hussain.[22]