Nihad Awad

Nihad Awad is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

Early life Nihad Awad was born in Amman New Camp, a Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. He studied at Second Amman Preparatory School for Boys, located at the camp and belongs to UNRWA, and at Salaheddine High School in Achrafieh in Jordan. He moved to Italy and later to the United States to pursue his university studies.

Career After studying civil engineering at the University of Minnesota in the 1990s, he worked at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. After the Gulf War, he was the public relations director for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP).

In June 1994, IAP president Omar Ahmad and Rafiq Jaber founded the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Awad was hired as the executive director. In a March 1994 speech at Barry University, the future CAIR executive director said in response to an audience question about the various humanitarian efforts in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, "I am in support of the Hamas movement more than the PLO... there are some [Hamas] radicals; we are not interested in those people." At the time that Awad expressed support for Hamas, the group had not conducted suicide bombings and was not designated a terrorist organization by the US. Awad said in 2006 that he no longer supports the group and has condemned suicide bombings. 225px Nihad Awad (second from right) stands to President Bush's left, when Bush said "Like the good folks standing with me, the American people were appalled and outraged at last Tuesday's attacks [on Sept. 11, 2001]." A few days after the September 11 attacks in 2001, Awad was one of a select group American Muslim leaders invited by the White House to join President George W. Bush in a press conference condemning the attacks and acts of anti-Muslim intolerance that followed.

On October 11, 2023, Awad condemned both the killing of Palestinians and Israelis in the Gaza war and called for a ceasefire. During the same speech, he condemned antisemitism as "real phenomenon, a real evil". He also said that Palestinians, just like Ukrainians, had the right to defend themselves against an occupation, but only via legal means and never via targeting civilians like Hamas did on October 7.

Awards The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre's "500 Most Influential Muslims 2009" Among 100 of the "World's Most Influential Arabs" for 2010 by Arabian Business magazine Recipient of the Phillip Brooks House Association's Robert Coles Call of Service & Lecture Award at Harvard College in 2017. Listed Among "19 of the Most Important Civil Rights Leaders of Today" by USA Today in 2020.