Muslim Legal Fund of America

MLFA opposes travel restrictions and terror watchlists that it claims impact Muslims above others. In addition to providing legal education and research to the Muslim nonprofit community, MLFA has provided legal defense to several terrorist sympathizers, and has longstanding ties to the controversial U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO). ² It is vocally opposed to Israeli policies regarding Palestinians, and encourages the U.S. government to curb aid to Israel. ³

Legal Work and Controversies

Muslim Legal Fund of America defends Muslims people and organizations in federal court for criminal, civil, and legal matters on a pro bono basis. As of March 2024, MLFA was managing over 80 active civil cases, over 30 active immigration cases, and over 10 criminal cases. ⁴

Holy Land Foundation Cases

In 1996, 17-year-old American David Boim was shot and killed by Hamas terrorists in Jerusalem. His parents sued several pro-Palestine, American-based nonprofit organizations under the Anti-Terrorism Act, including the Islamic Association for Palestine, the Holy Land Foundation, the American Islamic Society, and the Quranic Literacy Institute. The Boims won a $156 million judgment against these groups in 2004. ⁵

Those entities went out of business shortly thereafter, and in 2017, the Boims sought to collect the civil judgment from the new organization American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). According to the Boims’ attorney, AMP has the same leadership, same mission, and same operations as IAP. In November 2023, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) opened an investigation into AMP’s alleged terrorist ties. ⁶

Since 2017, MLFA has defended AMP against the new lawsuit and succeeded in having the case dismissed twice. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals overturned those dismissals. MLFA defended Muhammed Salah, who served time in Israeli and American prisons for bankrolling terrorism and lying about his ties to Hamas during the Boim lawsuit. Salah spent years on the U.S. “designated terrorist” list before being removed in 2012 and dying from complications from cancer in 2016. ⁷

In 2007, MLFA agreed to defend the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) against federal charges that the group provided “material support” to Hamas. In 2008, five former leaders of HLF were convicted of 108 counts of providing support to terrorism, having funneled $12.4 million to the leaders of Hamas. ⁸ MLFA calls the outcome of this trial “shocking and unjust,” and has decried the government’s naming of over 300 American Muslims and groups as “unindicted co-conspirators.” ⁹

Criminal Defense

MLFA funded the defense of University of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who was convicted in 2006 of providing services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). ¹⁰ It also defended Aafia Siddiqui, who was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for the attempted murder of U.S. nationals in Afghanistan. ¹¹

Harvard Complaint

In January 2024, MLFA filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against Harvard University, alleging on behalf of several Muslim students that their ethnicity and pro-Palestine political opinions subjected them to harassment and assault on campus, and that Harvard did not act to protect those students. According to the filing, students were confronted, verbally assaulted, and had objects thrown on them for wearing the Keffiyeh, or traditional Palestinian printed scarf. ¹²

MLFA further alleges that some students were threatened with loss of educational opportunities when they reported this poor treatment to the Harvard administration. According to MLFA counsel, in response to student complaints, school administrators met with donors and alumni who encouraged them to allow the alleged harassment to continue. On the night of October 7, 2023, more than 30 Harvard student groups posted an open letter holding Israel entirely responsible for the massacre perpetrated by Hamas. According to the MLFA complaint, students in those groups were doxxed, their family members were threatened, and influential business executives reached out to the university asking for the names of those students to blackball them from employment at their firm. ¹³

Notable Supporters

An October 2018 fundraising video for MFLA featured left-wing U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and alleged Hamas sympathizer Dalia Mogahed. ¹⁴

Notable Muslim activists publicly support the work of MLFA, including Linda Sarsour, Palestinian-American activist and co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, a former NBA player who was suspended from the league in 1996 after refusing to stand for the national anthem, also helps raise funds for the group. ¹⁵

A February 2024 “Defending the Defenders” banquet for MLFA was co-hosted by Cornel West, a socialist professor and left-of-center 2024 presidential candidate, and Nina Turner, left-wing activist and former Ohio state senator. ^{16 17}

USCMO

Muslim Legal Fund of America is part of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), an umbrella organization including many prominent Muslim groups in the U.S., some of whom have alleged ties to terrorist organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. ^{2 18 19} USCMO was formed in 2014, and Khalil Meek, co-founder and then-director of MLFA, also helped lead the founding of USCMO and spoke at the organization’s inaugural event. ²⁰

USCMO made a statement regarding Hamas’s massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, saying that it stood in solidarity with the Palestinian people against what it called an Israeli “occupation” and “inhumane siege.” The statement failed to condemn Hamas for its actions and targeted Israel. USCMO also called on the U.S. and international community to pressure Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories. ²¹

In September 2022, USCMO wrote a obituary for Shaykh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who decried 9/11 but was also influential in the Muslim Brotherhood, endorsed suicide bombings against Israelis, and endorsed domestic violence and violence against gays and lesbians. ^{22 23}

Leadership

Hatem Bazian is Chairman of Muslim Legal Fund of America’s Board of Directors. He is also Chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, described by the left-leaning Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League as “the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training in America.” AMP is also the subject of a civil lawsuit from the parents of American terrorism victim David Boim, who claim that AMP is simply the reconstituted version of the Islamic Association for Palestine. ²⁴

Arshia Ali-Khan is MLFA’s Chief Executive Officer. She joined in 2018 as the Chief Development Officer (CDO) and was appointed interim CEO in 2020. Ali-Khan led a project with Indiana University called the Ihsan Standard, to help Muslim and minority-led nonprofits with legal compliance, leadership development, continuing legal education (CLE), and research. ²⁵

Financials

In 2022, Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA) earned $3,259,841 in revenue and spent $3,376,791, ending the year with $1,478,552 in net assets. That year, CEO Arshia Ali-Khan led a merger of MLFA and the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America (CLCMA), and spent the majority of MLFA’s expenses that year ($2,539,026) on CLCMA, including $1,185,000 in grants. ^{26 27}

During the fiscal year 2021 the MLFA reported $3,203,962 in revenue, $2,714,231 in expenses, and $1,216,901 in total assets. ²⁸

Emergent Fund, a left of center grantmaking organization that supports race and gender focused activist groups, named MLFA a distinguished grantee. ²⁹