Ahsan Mohyuddin

Abu (Ahsan Mohyuddin), an agribusinessman, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family on October 17th in Asheville, North Carolina at 74 years old, after a resilient 12-year battle with Frontotemporal Dementia.

Abu's Janazah prayer will be held, inshallah, on October 18th at 1:30 PM at the Islamic Center of Asheville (941 Old Fairview Road), followed by a dua at the Green Hills Cemetery (25 New Leicester Hwy).

Ahsan was born in 1948 in Lahore, Pakistan to Abdul Haq and Ashraf Sultana Mohyuddin. He migrated to Saint Louis, Missouri as a young student in 1968, where he attended the University of Missouri St. Louis and received an MBA from the John Cook School of Business at Saint Louis University.

As a visionary and impactful leader in his field, he facilitated initiatives recognized as an impetus to economic development in and between the countries of Pakistan and the United States in North Carolina, Illinois, and Missouri. Some of his notable projects included setting up oil expellers in Pakistan in 1974, introducing Midwestern Peterson Farms chickens to Pakistan in 1984, re-imagining livestock food production and consumption by establishing extruded livestock food, and introducing American midwestern soybean for poultry feed production in 1986 in Pakistan. Understanding evolving global needs with migratory patterns and harnessing all the rural American south had to offer, Ahsan facilitated the import of Boer goat embryos from New Zealand to be harvested in local American mountain goats.

He established the first USDA-inspected Zabiha Halal meat plant in 1992 in Bladenboro, North Carolina that "challenged the meat hegemony of the American South," which was the driving force behind North Carolina legislation on Goat production, education, and study at North Carolina State University and the creation of the American Goat Association. Today, North Carolina is a global leader in goat agriculture.

Ahsan harnessed the evolution of American immigration policies by creating unique workforce development opportunities for local and immigrant communities at his meat processing facilities in Bladenboro, North Carolina, and Perryville, Missouri.

As a service leader, Ahsan served as President of the Bladenboro Rotary Club, and as a mentor, he was kind, helpful, and giving. His family paid this tribute to him, "Ahsan was one of the most social, hospitable, and giving people you could ever meet, and will be remembered for his loyalty to family and friends and commitments to his principles. His resolve in the later years of his life will continue to inspire as he gracefully persevered through his illness."

Those left to cherish his memory include his life companion and wife, Anjum in North Carolina; sister Rehana and brother Sadiq in St. Louis; the children he loved, son Ibrahim and daughter-in-law Sadia, grandsons, Haroon and Humza in Texas; son Yaqoob and daughter-in-law Ayse, granddaughter Anisa and grandson Eesa in Pennsylvania; and daughter Ameena and son-in-law Yaseen, granddaughters Lana, Eva, and Anna in North Carolina.