In their mailboxes and at the mosques, Muslims continually hear the pleas: donate to feed the starved children in Afghanistan, to aid refugees from Chechnya, to help widows and children of Palestinian “martyrs.”
Giving to the destitute is an obligatory part of Islam, and Chicago is a major center for Muslim fundraising. But an intensifying federal probe into Islamic charities since the Sept. 11 attacks has made many of the nation’s 6 million Muslims fearful about sending their usual donations.
Federal authorities say some relief organizations have funneled money to terrorist groups. Three Islamic charities that have been under federal scrutiny have offices in the southwest suburbs, home to a sizable Arab community and to several Muslim advocacy groups.
Now, many Muslims worry that with little oversight of relief agencies’ spending for charitable causes, aid intended for humanitarian groups may fall into the hands of militants. Muslim donors with peaceful intentions fear that at some point they too may be the target of a federal investigation.
Ziad Ramadan, a native of Lebanon who runs a computer software company outside Boston, said he no longer knows where to send his money.
“It’s really so tough these days,” Ramadan said. “I want to help people because there are so many poor people in the world, [but] I don’t want any part of my money to go to killing people.”
Hundreds of Muslim charities operate across the world in areas ravaged by war or natural disasters. U.S.-based Muslim charities raise millions in America for dozens of operations sprawled across the Islamic world that help Bosnians rebuild their homes, provide ambulances for hospitals in Gaza and feed bread and lentils to the hungry in Afghanistan.
Charitable giving, or zakat, is one of five pillars of Islam, along with the belief in one God and Muhammad as a prophet, five daily prayers, fasting during the holy month of Ramadan and pilgrimage to Mecca. Muslims must give 2.5 percent of their annual income to the needy.
“For Muslims this is an area of grave concern,” said Kareem Irfan, chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago. “Charitable giving is a fundamental obligation of Islam. Muslims have to give and give regularly. Now there’s this concern which charities are being investigated and there are some people who have expressed concern that by giving without knowing what type of association a charity has, they may be personally investigated.”
Donations decrease
U.S. Treasury Department officials said last week that they will come after only those who knowingly give to a terrorist cause. But despite such assurances, many Islamic charities are already seeing donations drop.
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Last week, as part of its financial assault against terrorism, the Bush administration said it planned to target charities that pose as fronts for groups like Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.
“Just to show you how insidious these terrorist organizations are, they oftentimes use nice-sounding non-governmental organizations as fronts for their activities,” Bush said in announcing a freeze on the assets of 27 entities, including three charities.
Previous efforts by U.S. prosecutors to prove such allegations have yielded no criminal charges.
Federal authorities have looked into at least two large Muslim charities in the U.S., Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and Global Relief Foundation, for links to terrorists. Neither was on the list that Bush announced last week.
Holy Land, which is based in Richardson, Texas, and has an office in Bridgeview, collected about $13 million last year. It was banned in Israel because of its alleged fundraising for Hamas, a militant Islamic group. Last year, Holy Land and another Muslim charity, Islamic American Relief Agency of Columbia, Mo., were removed from a roster of relief organizations eligible to obtain funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development because of national security concerns.
This month, federal authorities probing a Richardson, Texas, Internet service provider issued subpoenas for records to some of its clients, including Holy Land and the Islamic Association for Palestine, a non-profit information group based in Palos Hills. Infocom operates Web sites for Islamic groups in the U.S. and the Middle East.
Holy Land officials have denied aiding terrorists. Islamic American Relief Agency, which raised $4 million as of June 2000, has also denied ties to terrorist organizations.
But Holy Land’s tax filings offer some evidence of ties between a Hamas leader and the charity. In the early 1990s, Holy Land received a $210,000 contribution from Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, tax records show. U.S. authorities later deported Marzook to Jordan after a federal judge found probable cause that he oversaw Hamas when its operatives committed 10 terrorist attacks in Israel. Marzook reportedly now lives in Syria.
At about the same time as Marzook made the $210,000 contribution to Holy Land Foundation, his wife Nadia Elashi Marzook invested $250,000 in Infocom Corp., the Richardson, Texas, Internet provider raided by FBI agents five days before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Infocom Corp.’s owner, Bayan Elashi, is Nadia Marzook’s cousin. He is also a founder and board member of the Holy Land Foundation. Infocom hosts Holy Land’s Web site, and their offices sit kitty-corner in a suburban industrial park. Federal authorities have issued subpoenas for records to some of Infocom’s clients, including Holy Land and the Islamic Association for Palestine, a Palos Hills-based group that sponsors conferences and publications.
Elashi said in a telephone interview that “we have no clue” why an FBI terrorism task force raided Infocom’s offices on Sept. 6.
He said his company and the Holy Land Foundation had “no connection” to terrorism. “If you are a Muslim, you are questioned,” Elashi said. He turned down a Tribune request to examine records showing precisely how Holy Land funds are spent.
Global Relief, based in Bridgeview, took in more than $5 million last year. Ashraf Nubani, an attorney for the charity, said FBI agents interviewed the group’s executive director last year and contacted the organization again after the hijackings.
But Nubani said federal authorities have found no evidence that money was used to help terrorist causes. Nubani denied a Tribune request to examine Global Relief’s records on how its funds are spent but said he would reconsider the request at a later date.
Other charities used
Evidence compiled in several anti-terrorist cases point to the use of other charities to aid attacks against civilians.
For example, in the New York trial of four men convicted last year of bombing U.S. embassies in East Africa, one of the men, said he helped run a Nairobi-based charity called Help Africa that allegedly was a front for terrorists involved in the bombings.
In Chicago, authorities have seized $1.4 million in assets of the Quranic Literacy Institute, a group that translates Islamic texts, and Mohammad Salah, who claimed to work for the group. According to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Chicago in a pending civil case, Salah laundered money for Hamas that ended up being used to purchase weapons for terrorist attacks in Israel. Salah and the institute have denied any wrongdoing or tie to Hamas.
Many Muslims say they need to know which U.S.-based Islamic charities are sending money to fund terrorist activities so they can cut off their donations. They say it’s the federal government’s job to monitor charities more closely.
“We have no control over where that money ends up,” said Azra Haque, an Oak Brook physician, who donates more than $20,000 a year to Muslim causes. “These are tax-exempt organizations. The oversight should be that of the government, not the donor and whatever they find, it should be made available to us, so we don’t get in trouble.”
Phil Beasley, a spokesman for the IRS in Dallas, said the agency doesn’t have adequate resources to do annual audits of each tax-exempt organization, though the IRS does pursue groups that receive public complaints.
Safer choices
Because of doubts about some Muslim charities, Mohammed M. Arain, a surgeon who works at Hinsdale Hospital, said he only donates medical supplies to many Islamic charities.
“Under the circumstances, I want to make sure an organization is in no way, intentionally or unintentionally, directing money into something it’s not supposed to,” Arain said.
As for Ramadan, who made donations in the last two years to Global Relief and Holy Land, he won’t send his charity overseas this year. His money will go to a local Islamic school.
“I know exactly what it’s going for,” he said.
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