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Non-profit

Hejrat Foundation

Website:

hejrat.org/
Location:

West Covina, CA
Tax ID:

95-483735
Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(3)

Type:

Religious Center
Formation:

2000 (gained tax-exempt status in 2005)
Founder:

Sayed Mahmoud Mousavi

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The Hejrat Foundation, also known as the Hejrat Education Center, is a California-based religious center providing spiritual, social, and other support to Muslims in the West Covina region. 1 Its operations include a mosque. 2

The Foundation has been an organized non-profit since 2005, though it has not filed public 990 nonprofit forms since 2014, likely because it is exempt from filing a nonprofit tax return as a religious institution equivalent to a church. 3

Political Engagement

In addition to its everyday religious practices, the Foundation engages in national and international work. In 2007, the United Nations Department of Public Information Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations accepted the Hejrat Foundation a recognized group. 4 In November 2023, the foundation signed a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) and other elected officials urging them to support an armistice and to oppose Israel’s “crimes against humanity” in its war against the terrorist group Hamas. The letter, which was also signed by groups like Council on American-Islamic Relations’ California chapter and American Muslims for Palestine, also claimed that incidents of “Islamophobia” increased after Hamas’s terrorist attacks against Israel in October 2023. 5    

The Hejrat Foundation has signed multiple letters along with other Muslim groups affiliated with the Solidarity for Human Rights of Shia Muslims consortium alleging human rights violations against Shia Muslims around the world. 6 7 8

In 2021, the Hejrat Foundation signed a letter with other Muslim groups urging U.S. protection for Shia, Sunni, and other Muslim sects that were threatened after 58 Shia Muslim children were murdered in Afghanistan. 9 10

A similar letter was signed urging the Pakistani government to stop alleged persecution of Shia Muslims in Pakistan. 11

Praise for Radical Cleric

The Hejrat Foundation called Iranian Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Fazel Lankarani “one of the world’s great religious scholars” after his death in 2007. 12 In 2006, Lankarani was one of several leading Muslim scholars who issued a religious ruling or fatwa, permitting murder for religious reasons of a journalist and an editor who were accused of insulting the Muslim prophet Muhammad. 13 The journalist, Rafiq Tagi, was later stabbed and mortally wounded for reasons that were unknown but which Tagi said may have been related to the fatwa. 14

Founder

The Hejrat Foundation was founded by Sayed Mahmoud Mousavi in 2000. 15 An Iranian who came to the U.S. in the 1980s after being employed as a government interrogator in Iran, Mousavi was convicted in 2008 for lying during U.S. citizenship interviews, filing a false tax return, and other charges. 16 The U.S. Department of Justice also pointed to omissions and false statements about work conducted for Iran-linked companies. 17

Most of Mousavi’s convictions were upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2010. 18 However, the Circuit Court overturned the immigration-related convictions. 19 After his death in 2014, the Islamic Human Rights Commission claimed that Mousavi had been improperly convicted and imprisoned and praised him as founder of both Hejrat and the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. 20

A petition supporting releasing Mousavi noted that his home and the Al-Nabi mosque were raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. 21 Other Muslim individuals and groups as well as left-wing activists accused the U.S. government of generating false charges against Mousavi and treating him inhumanely while in prison. 22 23

Financials

As of 2024, the most recent tax return filed by Hejrat Foundation in 2014 reported $445,166 in revenue. The same year it spent $66,806 and held net assets of $32,613. 24 The IRS generally exempts religious institutions equivalent to churches such as mosques from filing a nonprofit tax return. 25

References

  1. Hejrat Foundation. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://hejrat.org/
  2. Al-Nabi Mosque (Hejrat Foundation). Prayers Connect. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://prayersconnect.com/mosques/84039674-al-nabi-mosque-hejrat-foundation-west-covina-california-united-states
  3. Hejrat Educational Center. Pro Publica. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/954837353
  4. “Department of Public Information Admits 18 Non-Governmental Organizations to Roster, Disassociates 1.” United Nations. December 27, 2024. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://press.un.org/en/2007/ngo628.doc.htm
  5. “Joint Letter from California Muslims to Governor Newsom, U.S. Senators Padilla and Butler, and all Other Congressional Elected Officials: Support a Ceasefire in Gaza.” CAIR Los Angeles. 2023. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://ca.cair.com/losangeles/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/11/Joint-Letter-to-Governor-Newsom-2.pdf
  6. “Letter to US Congress.” Action Network. Accessed April 29, 2024.  https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/letter-to-us-congress/
  7. “President Joe Biden to take firm action against the murderers of Shia Muslim children in Afghanistan.” Action Network. Accessed April 29, 2024. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/president-joe-biden-to-take-firm-action-against-the-murderers-of-shia-children-in-afghanistan.
  8. Consortium. Solidarity for Shia Human Rights. Accessed April 29, 2024. https://sfhrs.com/consortium/
  9. President Joe Biden to take firm action against the murderers of Shia Muslim children in Afghanistan. Action Network. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/president-joe-biden-to-take-firm-action-against-the-murderers-of-shia-children-in-afghanistan
  10. “Afghanistan: ISIS Group Targets Religious Minorities.” Human Rights Watch. September 6, 2022. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/09/06/afghanistan-isis-group-targets-religious-minorities
  11. “Statement Against the Persecution of Shia Muslims in Pakistan.” American Muslim Bar Association. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.ambalegal.org/ambainthenews/q73gtf4ywnpwrqyfi1mgs1xslytbrd
  12. Press Releases. Hejrat Foundation. 2007. Archived from the original October 8, 2013. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20131008114846/http://hejrat.org/?a=news&b=press_releases
  13. “Iranian Cleric Issues Fatwa On Azerbaijani Journalist.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. November 30, 2006. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.rferl.org/a/1073105.html
  14. Rafiq Tagi. Committee to Protect Journalists. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://cpj.org/data/people/rafiq-tagi/
  15. “In Memory of Sayed Mahmoud Mousavi.” IHRC, May 18, 2021. https://www.ihrc.org.uk/in-memory-of-sayed-mahmoud-mousavi/.
  16. United States v. Mousavi (2010). FindLaw.com.  Accessed April 25, 2024. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1522460.html
  17. “Iranian Native Convicted of Violating Trade Embargo, Failing to Report Income and Lying to Authorities.” The United States Attorney’s Office. April 24, 2008. Accessed April 24, 2024. https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/cac/Pressroom/pr2008/048.html
  18. United States v. Mousavi (2010). FindLaw.com.  Accessed April 25, 2024. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1522460.html
  19. Update Alert: USA – Seyed Mousavi wins court appeal. Islamic Human Rights Commission. June 3, 2010. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.ihrc.org.uk/update-alert-usa-seyed-mousavi-wins-court-appeal/
  20. “In Memory of Sayed Mahmoud Mousavi.” Islamic Human Rights Commission. November 14, 2014. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.ihrc.org.uk/in-memory-of-sayed-mahmoud-mousavi/
  21. Rasouli, Zainab. “Free Seyed Mousavi on Bail.” iPetitions. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freemousavi
  22. Ali, Maral. “Inside the Counter-Terrorism Unit: The Case of Seyed Mousavi,” Al-Talib. December 26, 2009. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://al-talib.org/inside-the-counter-terrorism-unit-the-case-of-seyed-mousavi/
  23. Lendman, Stephen. “Seyed Mousavi: Guilty Of Being Muslim In Police State America.” Countercurrents.org. October 24, 2008. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://www.countercurrents.org/lendman241008.htm
  24. Hejrat Educational Center. ProPublica. Accessed April 25, 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/954837353
  25. “Annual Exempt Organization Return: Who Must File.” Internal Revenue Service. Accessed May 23, 2024. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/annual-exempt-organization-return-who-must-file.
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Hejrat Foundation

1505 W. Garvey North
West Covina, CA