Council on American–Islamic Relations

Based on Wikipedia: Council on American–Islamic Relations

In the summer of 1994, a strange thing happened in Washington. A group of Muslim Americans opened an office on Capitol Hill—not to lobby for a foreign government or push through trade deals, but to complain about a movie that hadn't even come out yet.

The film was True Lies, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arab and Muslim groups had seen early screenings and were furious. The villains were cartoonish Arab terrorists, the kind of one-dimensional bad guys Hollywood had been churning out for decades. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, set up shop a month before the film hit theaters, ready to push back.

Their very first campaign, though, wasn't about Hollywood at all. It was about a greeting card.

Someone had discovered that a card company was selling a product that used the word "shia"—as in Shia Muslims, one of the two main branches of Islam—to refer to human excrement. CAIR mobilized activists across the country, pressured the company, and got the card pulled from shelves. It was a small victory, but it established a template the organization would follow for the next three decades: find the offense, organize the response, apply pressure until something changes.

Building a Civil Rights Machine

The following year, CAIR handled what would become one of their signature issues: hijab discrimination. A Muslim woman was told she couldn't wear her headscarf at work. CAIR took up her case. This type of complaint—employers refusing to accommodate religious head coverings—would become one of the most common grievances landing on CAIR's desk, year after year.

Then came April 19, 1995. Timothy McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Before investigators identified McVeigh—a white American with ties to far-right militia movements—speculation ran wild. Many assumed the attack must have been carried out by Middle Eastern terrorists.

In the days immediately following the bombing, Muslim Americans reported 222 hate crimes nationwide. The backlash was swift and indiscriminate, targeting anyone who looked like they might be from "over there."

CAIR documented the harassment, compiled reports, and worked to educate the public. Their efforts landed them on the front page of The New York Times and a segment on ABC World News Tonight. The Oklahoma City bombing, carried out by a homegrown extremist, paradoxically gave CAIR national prominence as defenders of a community that had nothing to do with the attack.

The Digital Awakening

By 1996, CAIR recognized that the emerging internet could be a powerful organizing tool. They launched CAIR-NET, a read-only email listserv—think of it as a prehistoric newsletter, delivered directly to your inbox. Subscribers received updates about anti-Muslim incidents, hate crimes, and biased media coverage, along with contact information for anyone who wanted to do something about it.

That same year, TWA Flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from New York. All 230 people aboard died. While investigators eventually determined that a mechanical failure caused the center fuel tank to ignite, the immediate aftermath saw a familiar pattern. CAIR documented 138 uses of the words "Muslim" and "Arab" in wire service articles within 48 hours of the crash. The organization published a report titled "The Usual Suspects," highlighting how quickly the media reached for the terrorism narrative.

CAIR also held its first voter registration drive in 1996, encouraging Muslim Americans to engage with the political process. The logic was straightforward: politicians respond to voters. If you want your concerns addressed, you need to show up at the ballot box and make your voice heard to elected representatives.

The Nike Incident and Other Cultural Skirmishes

In 1997, CAIR noticed something peculiar about a new Nike sneaker. The design on the heel bore a striking resemblance to the Arabic word for "Allah"—God. To many Muslims, placing a representation of God's name on the bottom of a shoe, where it would be stepped on and dragged through dirt, was deeply offensive.

CAIR reached out to Nike. The company investigated, apologized, recalled the products, and—in an unusual gesture of goodwill—built children's playgrounds near several Islamic centers across America. It was a textbook example of corporate crisis management meeting religious advocacy.

That same year, CAIR took on a more formidable target: the United States Supreme Court. Inside the court building, a carved frieze depicts great lawgivers throughout history. Among them is a representation of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Some Muslims consider any visual depiction of Muhammad to be blasphemous. CAIR wrote to Chief Justice William Rehnquist asking that the sculpture be removed or at least sanded down to obscure the figure.

The court said no. The frieze remains today, though the court has clarified that the depiction was meant to honor Muhammad as a historical lawgiver, not to represent him in a religious context.

September 11 and Its Aftermath

Everything changed on September 11, 2001. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and reshaped American foreign policy, domestic surveillance, and the daily lives of Muslim Americans in ways that continue to reverberate.

CAIR opposed the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan. It was a controversial stance—polls showed overwhelming American support for military action against the Taliban regime that had harbored al-Qaeda. But CAIR's focus quickly shifted to the domestic front, where Muslim Americans faced a tidal wave of discrimination.

By January 2002, just four months after the attacks, CAIR had received 1,658 reports of discrimination, profiling, harassment, and physical assaults against people who appeared Arab or Muslim. That was three times the number from the previous year. The reports included beatings, death threats, abusive police practices, and discrimination in employment and air travel.

Airlines became a particular flashpoint. Passengers who looked Middle Eastern were removed from flights based on nothing more than the discomfort of other travelers or crew members. CAIR documented case after case and began filing civil rights complaints.

Books, Fatwas, and the Fight for Narrative

In the years following September 11, CAIR worked to reshape how Americans understood Islam. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal donated $500,000 to fund a program that sent sets of 18 books and tapes to public libraries across America. The materials, written by both Muslim and non-Muslim authors, covered Islamic history and practices and included an English translation of the Quran.

A fatwa, in Islamic jurisprudence, is a legal opinion issued by a qualified religious scholar. The word has taken on sinister connotations in Western media—most people know it only from the fatwa calling for the death of author Salman Rushdie. But fatwas are simply scholarly opinions on religious law, and most address mundane questions about prayer, diet, and daily conduct.

In 2005, CAIR coordinated the release of a fatwa signed by 344 American Muslim organizations, mosques, and religious leaders. It stated unequivocally that "Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives." The document declared that targeting civilians through suicide bombings or any other method was "haram"—forbidden under Islamic law—and that those who commit such acts are "criminals, not martyrs."

The fatwa cited passages from the Quran and hadith, the collected sayings and actions of Muhammad, that prohibit violence against innocent people. Critics noted that the statement didn't explicitly condemn attacks on military targets, leaving some ambiguity about what constituted a legitimate target under Islamic law.

That same year, following reports of Quran desecration at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, CAIR launched an "Explore the Quran" campaign, offering free copies of Islam's holy book to anyone who requested one.

The Holy Land Foundation Case

The most serious challenge to CAIR's reputation came in 2007, when federal prosecutors named the organization—along with 245 others—as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorism financing case.

The case centered on the Holy Land Foundation, which had been the largest Muslim charity in the United States. Prosecutors alleged that the foundation funneled millions of dollars to Hamas, the Palestinian militant organization designated as a terrorist group by the United States, European Union, and other governments.

Being named an unindicted co-conspirator is a peculiar legal status. It doesn't mean you've been charged with a crime. Prosecutors use the designation for various reasons—sometimes because they've granted immunity to a potential witness, sometimes for pragmatic or evidentiary reasons, sometimes simply to establish the scope of a conspiracy without bringing charges against everyone involved.

But the public naming carried enormous stigma. CAIR found itself on a list alongside organizations that had clear operational ties to Hamas. The organization complained that the designation would "forever taint it," even without any criminal charges.

The first Holy Land Foundation trial ended in a mistrial in October 2007. Upon retrial in 2008, all defendants were convicted. During that retrial, FBI Special Agent Lara Burns testified that CAIR was "a front group for Hamas."

The FBI severed its relationship with CAIR. Officials cited the Holy Land Foundation convictions, revelations that CAIR's executive director Nihad Awad had participated in planning meetings with the foundation, and CAIR's failure to provide details about its ties to Hamas. In January 2009, the FBI's Washington headquarters instructed all field offices to cut ties with the organization. The ban continued into the Obama administration.

Congressional Scrutiny

Republican members of Congress took up the cause. In October 2009, four representatives—Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Trent Franks and John Shadegg of Arizona, and Paul Broun of Georgia—wrote to Attorney General Eric Holder expressing concern about CAIR's "relationships with terrorist groups." They asked the Department of Justice to summarize the evidence that led to CAIR's designation as an unindicted co-conspirator.

The same day, they wrote to the House Sergeant at Arms asking him to work with the Judiciary, Homeland Security, and Intelligence Committees to determine whether CAIR had successfully placed interns in congressional offices and whether the organization posed a security threat.

The response from Democrats was swift. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of California called herself "appalled" and urged colleagues to "join me in denouncing this witch hunt." Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the first Muslim elected to Congress, echoed her criticism in a speech that included a statement from the House's Tri-Caucus, a coalition of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

The Republican lawmakers weren't finished. Joined by Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, they wrote to the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner asking that CAIR be investigated for "excessive lobbying"—a violation that could cost the organization its tax-exempt status.

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper welcomed the scrutiny. "We've always stayed within our legal limits for lobbying," he said. "If anything, we don't have enough staff to lobby as much as we legally can."

In 2009, CAIR and two other organizations asked a federal judge to expunge their designation as unindicted co-conspirators. The judge ruled that prosecutors had violated the organizations' due process rights under the Fifth Amendment by publicly releasing the list—it should have been filed under seal. But the judge did not expunge the designation itself. The label remained.

A Complicated Relationship with Law Enforcement

Despite the FBI ban, CAIR continued to position itself as a bridge between Muslim communities and law enforcement. A case in December 2009 illustrated both the potential and the tensions of that role.

Five young men from the Washington, D.C. area left for Karachi, Pakistan on November 28. Their families discovered an extremist videotape and grew worried. They contacted CAIR, which arranged a meeting with the FBI on December 1. The families shared their sons' computers and electronic devices with agents. Pakistani authorities arrested the five men on December 10.

A U.S. law enforcement official described the families as "models of cooperation." CAIR hoped the incident would ease what it described as "strained" relations between American Muslims and the FBI. Here was proof that Muslim community organizations could be partners in preventing terrorism, not obstacles to it.

The Work Continues

Beyond the headlines about terrorism and national security, CAIR's day-to-day work has always focused on more mundane forms of discrimination. Workplace cases make up one of the largest categories: Muslim Americans fired or denied jobs because of their religion, police officers told they can't wear beards for religious reasons, hospital workers facing harassment from colleagues.

In 2015, CAIR filed an amicus brief—a "friend of the court" document offering relevant expertise—in a case that reached the Supreme Court. A young woman named Samantha Elauf had applied for a job at Abercrombie and Fitch. She wore a hijab to the interview. The company didn't hire her, later admitting that the headscarf conflicted with its "Look Policy."

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that refusing to hire someone because they might wear religious attire at work amounts to religious discrimination. It didn't matter that Elauf hadn't explicitly requested an accommodation. The company knew, or at least suspected, that she wore the hijab for religious reasons, and that was enough to trigger the obligation not to discriminate.

CAIR has also fought land use discrimination. In 2012, the city council of St. Anthony, Minnesota, voted 4-1 to reject a building plan for the Abu-Huraira Islamic Center. CAIR began legal proceedings and urged federal investigation under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a law that prevents local governments from imposing discriminatory zoning restrictions on religious institutions. By 2014, the city had agreed to a settlement, and the Islamic center began holding services.

Controversies and Criticism

CAIR has never been without critics, and not all the criticism comes from the political right.

In 2006, California Senator Barbara Boxer—a Democrat—withdrew a "certificate of accomplishment" she had given to CAIR official Basim Elkarra. Her staff had looked into the organization and raised concerns about past statements, as well as claims from some law enforcement officials that CAIR provides aid to international terrorist groups.

In 2021, the director of CAIR's San Francisco branch, Zahra Billoo, gave a speech that drew sharp criticism. She denounced a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a position that puts her at odds with decades of American foreign policy consensus. More controversially, she warned the audience to "pay attention" to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Hillel, a Jewish campus organization, saying "just because they are your friends today, doesn't mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights."

Later in the speech, Billoo told the audience to "know your enemies."

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, accused Billoo of promoting rhetoric that echoed white supremacist talking points about Jewish organizations. CAIR's national office defended Billoo's remarks.

The incident highlighted a tension that runs through CAIR's work. The organization positions itself as a civil rights group fighting discrimination against Muslims. But some of its positions on Israel and Palestine, and its willingness to criticize mainstream Jewish organizations, have led critics to argue that CAIR sometimes strays from civil rights advocacy into more polarizing political territory.

The Present Day

CAIR remains headquartered on Capitol Hill, with regional offices across the country. It continues to handle discrimination complaints, issue press releases condemning anti-Muslim incidents, and push back against what it sees as unfair media coverage.

In October 2025, CAIR's Ohio director participated in an online conference hosted by a research center in Beirut. The event included, on a separate panel, a Hamas official who had been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist the previous year. The title of the conference referenced "Al-Aqsa Flood"—Hamas's name for its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

In December 2025, following anti-Somali comments by President Donald Trump—who called Somalis "garbage" and said he wanted all Somalis deported—CAIR issued a statement condemning the remarks as "vile." Female Somali Americans in Minnesota reported religious harassment and, in some cases, sexual assault by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed that a conference CAIR attended earlier in 2025 had "issued a call to action to use American legal and political systems to implement Sharia law."

The allegations and counter-allegations continue the pattern established over three decades. CAIR insists it is simply a civil rights organization defending Muslim Americans from discrimination and bigotry. Critics argue it has ties to extremist organizations and promotes views that go beyond civil rights advocacy. The FBI maintains its distance. Congressional Republicans remain suspicious. And Muslim Americans continue to report discrimination, harassment, and hate crimes at rates that suggest the work CAIR set out to do in 1994—changing how America sees and treats its Muslim citizens—remains unfinished.

What started as a response to a Schwarzenegger action movie has become one of the most controversial and consequential Muslim organizations in America. Whether you see CAIR as a vital defender of civil liberties or a problematic organization with troubling associations depends largely on which facts you emphasize and which you downplay. The full picture, as is usually the case, contains elements of both.