Zakat Foundation of America

The Zakat Foun­da­tion of Amer­i­ca, found­ed in 2001 and head­quar­tered in Bridgeview, Illi­nois, is a 501(c)(3) human­i­tar­i­an NGO active in over 40 coun­tries, offer­ing aid in areas such as emer­gency relief, edu­ca­tion, and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment. Its founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor, Halil Demir, is a Turk­ish-Amer­i­can with close ties to Turk­ish state insti­tu­tions. Under his lead­er­ship, the foun­da­tion has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Turk­ish gov­ern­men­tal agen­cies such as Diyanet and AFAD, orga­nized state-backed Turk­ish cul­tur­al fes­ti­vals in Chica­go, and main­tained offices in Turkey aligned with Ankara’s inter­na­tion­al out­reach. In addi­tion to these gov­ern­ment links, the foun­da­tion has been fre­quent­ly asso­ci­at­ed with indi­vid­u­als and groups tied to the U.S. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­work. Among the most notable is Safaa Zarzour, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as Gen­er­al Coun­sel and Chief Oper­a­tions Offi­cer of the Zakat Foun­da­tion. Zarzour is a for­mer Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and cur­rent Vice Pres­i­dent of ISNA (Islam­ic Soci­ety of North Amer­i­ca) and CEO of the IQRA Inter­na­tion­al Foundation—both of which are iden­ti­fied by researchers as core com­po­nents of the U.S. Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­work. These affil­i­a­tions place the Zakat Foun­da­tion with­in a broad­er ecosys­tem of orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als who share com­mon ide­o­log­i­cal and insti­tu­tion­al ori­gins, even as the foun­da­tion pub­licly presents itself as an inde­pen­dent, apo­lit­i­cal charity.

Ref­er­ences:

• Zakat Foun­da­tion of Amer­i­ca – Wikipedia

• Zakat Foun­da­tion of Amer­i­ca – InfluenceWatch

• Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s oper­a­tive in the US put on air­line black­list – Nordic Monitor

• Turk­ish Con­sulate in Chica­go works with Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-linked groups – Nordic Monitor

• Turk­ish Pres­i­dent Erdo­gan Meets with Mus­lim Broth­er­hood in the US – Glob­al MB Watch

• Fea­tured: Two Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­den­tial Can­di­dates To Attend 2019 US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Con­fer­ence – Glob­al MB Watch