回答
This is not a piece of advice to you I'm talking to myself for my practice of writing skills.
divide the question sentence into two sentences then.
Fans and industry insiders have praised the move,
Fans and industry insiders have been saying it's important that young Pakistanis and Muslims have empowering virtual role models such as Khan that inspire them.
please verify there is no difference in meaning between question sentence and modified sentences. the subject (noun phrase) are overlapped in the two sentences. so reduce the redundant using gerund clause. the word 'saying' is the progressive form at first, but after reducing the sentence I suppose it'd become gerund in the gerund clause.
:Saying sentence example.
https://sentence.yourdictionary.com/saying
:Gerund Phrase.
https://www.k12reader.com/term/gerund-phrase/
:Are these infinitive and gerund clauses?.
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/144578/are-these-infinitive-and-gerund-clauses
:Reducing Noun Clauses to Gerunds Part 2.
https://www.coursera.org/lecture/noun-clauses-conditionals/reducing-noun-clauses-to-gerunds-part-2-f62oG