NAIT reflects upon its accomplishments
By Saadia Qureshi
Nov/Dec 2023
This year witnesses the North American Islamic Trust’s (NAIT) 50 years of community service, an inspiring story of preservation, resilience, and success of one of this continent’s pioneering and oldest Islamic organizations.
“At this proud moment, we pay tribute to the torch bearers of NAIT whose vision guided us to where we are today; the founding leaders, the former and current board, staff, volunteers — we thank them all for their relentless contributions,” said Maqsood Quadri (executive director, NAIT). “We are also grateful for the support from the community that allowed us to serve for so long. Thank you for your trust. Many of the initial founders have passed away. May Allah have mercy on them and reward them for their service. Ameen.”
Born in 1973 as an Islamic waqf, NAIT sought to revive the Prophet’s (salla Allahu alaihi wa salaams) sunnah by helping to preserve and protect North America’s Islamic institutions.
The Trust has grown into a comprehensive solution provider with 400+ waqf institutions in USA and Canada with three subsidiaries primarily serving Islamic institutions and the community through programs such as halal investing for families, mosques and institutions, halal certification and education, legal services for entrusted institutions, dispute resolution, stock donation liaisonship for institutions, Islamic literature publishing and several other on-campus programs for Hometown, Ill. and neighboring areas.
Some of you may be able to recall that 50 years ago, North America was a very different place for Muslim immigrants. Even though Muslims arrived long before Columbus (Muslim Roots of America murraystate.edu), their migration to North America only reached significant numbers after the U.S. changed its immigration laws in the 1960s. Before then, Muslims were primarily enslaved Muslim Africans and their emancipated descendants. The institutions necessary to shaping and strengthening a Muslim culture had not established a foothold yet. Many of their mosques and Islamic centers were lost or forgotten due to socio-political or financial factors.
Challenges for Muslims in North America
• A highly mobile society. This impacted Muslim communities nationwide. Their assets, both tangible and/or intangible, sometimes became subject to conflicts of ownership after their founders and caretakers moved to take up new jobs or died.
• Lack of financial stability for Islamic work. Despite vigorous fundraising within North America, the growth of Islamic work was outpacing donations to sustain the already scarce institutions. Muslim leaders understood that institutions financed by members and other stakeholders through prudent development and management of funds in investment-driven endowments, like awqaaf, were more likely to succeed than those dependent on a raise-and-spend basis. This latter option only distracted the leadership from its central role: carrying out the mission.
• Need for a waqf. The influx of immigrants in the 1960s and early 1970s led to the rapid increase in mosques and Islamic centers. This revealed the need for an integrated nationwide body to develop, acquire, maintain and protect these centers from being lost again.
NAIT’s Establishment and Role
Several valuable pioneering projects were subsequently reorganized: the Islamic Book Service, the Islamic Supplies Service and the International Graphics Printing Service. This process ended in the formal establishment of NAIT as a nonprofit corporation in 1973. Its provision of free waqf services soon made it a central organization in shaping the Muslim presence in North America. Among the instrumental incorporating leaders were Dr. Hisham Altalib, Mohammed M. Shamma, Dr. Ahmad Sakr (d. 2015), Jamal Al Barzinji (d. 2015) and Dr. Osman Ahmed.
NAIT soon became vital with the responsibilities to act as trustee for the assets of organizations set up for religious, cultural, scientific, educational and charitable purposes; initiate and manage business ventures according to the shariah; support and subsidize projects beneficial to Islam and Muslims; and develop sources of income for these activities.
• Pioneering Halal Investing in America. With the help of Islamic finance experts and scholars, between the late 1970s and early 1990s, NAIT started developing halal investment vehicles. It thus became the pioneer of halal investing in North America.
In 1979, it launched the Islamic Centers’ Cooperative Fund (ICCF), a mosque-focused halal investment tool. The ICCF pools the community’s funds and invests in halal stocks, real estate, properties, leases and other opportunities.
Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi (board member of NAIT and the Fiqh Council of North America) stated, “Centers that have extra money, instead of putting that in interest-bearing savings accounts, deposit that in the ICCF. The money is safe; in the last three decades, no center has lost a penny on their principal. Up to 12-15% of the money in ICCF has been extended in short-term interest-free loans to the entrusted institutions for critical projects.”
According to Salah Obeidallah, president, Allied Asset Advisors (AAA)which was established in 2000 as NAIT’s wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary, ICCF protects the principal through a yield equalization reserve (YER) that consists of a part of the funds’ net gains. Thus, any market decline is borne by the YER instead of the investor. This means that part of yearly gains in profitable years is retained in the YER to shoulder losses during a market decline.
Earlier in 1989, NAIT pioneered the Amana Income Fund to help Muslim families secure their financial future while following Islamic values; however, NAIT is no longer associated with the fund. Later, NAIT also introduced The Dow Jones Islamic Index Fund – a mutual fund. After over a decade’s experience of designing and managing halal financial products, NAIT launched another halal mutual fund in 2000, the AAA-offered Iman Fund, which continues to serve the community.
The Iman Fund is managed by Dr. Bassam Osman, its fund manager and NAIT’s longest serving board member. The Fund continuously monitors the companies for shariah compliance and is supervised by a shariah board. “We are currently exploring to introduce more products in the near future to expand investing options for our community, InshaAllah,” Obeidallah stated.
Media, Halal Certification, and Stocks
In 1979, NAIT established American Trust Publications (ATP) to produce Islamic books for all ages, as well as a scholastic book series. In coordination with NAIT’s oldest division, the Islamic Book Service (IBS), NAIT published and sold over 2,600 book titles. These books are now printed on demand and available through online platforms.
One of NAIT’s big achievements was the first Audio Visual Center, established in 1981 to produce a large inventory of AV materials. In 1983, it set up the world’s largest Muslim-owned commercial audio cassette duplication facility, with a production capacity of 1.2 million cassettes per year. This enabled NAIT to reproduce the tapes required for Quranic albums and Islamic recordings.
In 2020, NAIT established the American Halal Institute (AHI) to offer and help standardize halal certification, provide consumer and business owner education and training, and advocate for halal accessibility.
America’s certified halal food market is poised to grow to $8.7 billion by 2024 (Business Wire. March 15, 2021). Many countries are now requiring this certification on certain imported products. “It’s a tremendous growth opportunity for both Muslim and non-Muslim businesses,” said Qadri Abdallah (director of operations, AHI). “However, the halal process is not standardized. We aim to eventually eliminate that need by helping to develop a transparent, standard criteria according to shariah for all to follow.”
Another problem AHI aims to address is certification fraud. In Illinois and other states, placing a halal logo or certificate falsely on the products or services is now a punishable crime.
Among NAIT’s other notable programs are legal guidance and services, as well as stock donation liaisonship offered free of charge. The Stock Donation Liaison Program, a first of its kind, was launched in 2019 to help Islamic nonprofits incorporate valuable stock donations into their financial strategy and to encourage Islamic institutions to use sustainable fundraising methods.
The Vision Forward
The vision is to connect mosques nationwide in a way they can learn and support each other as a connected body. Part of this vision is to also engage our local community, Muslim or non-Muslim, through the new building complex in Hometown, Ill. We have already launched an on-campus mosque (Hometown Mercy Mosque) with a young, knowledgeable Imam and youth director. It can accommodate up to 1,000 congregants and offers weekly youth halaqas, games, monthly potlucks, women’s programming, spiritual counseling, and other activities.
Expanding on the vision for the next decade, Quadri shared plans of launching a Quran Institute later this year. This institute will teach the Arabic alphabet, reading, memorization, and understanding the Quran to all ages. Other planned on-campus initiatives in the next two years include an Islamic school, a health clinic, and providing services to underserved neighbors via social and entitlement service programs and guidance.
“It is very rewarding when we get calls from coast to coast, from major cities to small towns, commending NAIT’s services,” Quadri said. “It’s a privilege, I say. Preserving our assets for the coming generations is all that matters. May Allah bless all those working to help our communities and accept our service, Ameen.”
Sadia Qureshi is a communications consultant.
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