One of the largest donors to a pop-up super PAC supporting Muslim or pro-Palestinian candidates is the president of an Islamic organization that collects obligatory religious donations mandated by Sharia law.
Nazar Khan, the president of New York Zakat Inc, has donated $250,000 so far to an anti-Israel fundraising committee called American Priorities, placing him among the Palestinian-aligned PAC’s top 10 individual donors to date.
Zakat, a central pillar of Islam, refers to compulsory almsgiving that requires Muslims to donate at least 2.5% of their income annually to eligible causes. According to some Sharia law analysts, interest groups and terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda have historically imposed zakat as a form of taxation on Muslims in order to extract money from Islam’s followers under the guise of religious obligation.
New York Zakat Inc, doing business as the Zakat Fund of New York, is a tax-exempt Islamic charity collecting zakat and distributing the alms-tax’s proceeds as unrestricted direct cash assistance to “zakat-eligible” individuals in the New York City metropolitan area.
All donations are tax-deductible and can be made through its online zakat-giving portal, which accepts recurring and one-time payments as high as $10,000 or amounts of one’s choosing.
Raising $1.8 million in revenue in fiscal 2024, New York Zakat Inc says it sees zakat as “equitable wealth redistribution.” Its stated mission is to “facilitate the redistribution of wealth” in the “Islamic tradition of giving within our community.”
While the organization says most of its beneficiaries receiving the zakat allocations are “community members in need,” the Washington Examiner previously reported on zakat’s rising influence in the electoral process, particularly providing funding for critical 2026 races featuring Muslim or anti-Israel candidates.
A leading authority on Islamic jurisprudence, the Fiqh Council of North America, issued a religious ruling earlier this election year authorizing Muslims across the United States to turn portions of their annual Islamic dues into campaign contributions.
FCNA, the continent’s most prominent and influential Islamic legal body, ruled that zakat can be used to financially support Muslim candidates or allies of the Muslim voting base.
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The council concluded that dispensing zakat funds “even to the wealthy, to non-Muslims, or to those of questionable personal character [is justifiable], when that secures a general benefit for the Muslim community.”
FCNA’s decree, issued in January, was framed as an emergency countereffort to pro-Israel lobbying groups that have successfully pushed for U.S. intervention in the Israel-Palestine conflict. The council urged the Muslim diaspora in America to accordingly develop its own lobbying infrastructure that will work to further the Palestinian cause.
Less than a month later, American Priorities was created in February with the intention of rivaling the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the country’s largest pro-Israel advocacy organization, in the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections.
American Priorities, a single-issue super PAC, pledged to spend over $10 million on political marketing in support of progressive challengers critical of Israel and against incumbents “taking AIPAC money.”
It has since deployed about $6.1 million on digital ad buys and voter-outreach campaigns, including mass-media messaging boosting New York congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, a pro-Palestinian activist, and Abdul el Sayed, the Muslim Democrat running for Senate in Michigan.
Hannah Fertig, the PAC’s director of independent expenditures, told Semafor that American Priorities was formed to fill “a huge gap in the progressive spending ecosystem.”
“We simply want to make sure that someone’s there to protect candidates who question these [pro-Israel] policies,” said Fertig, a left-wing strategist who previously worked on Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign.
Rise of the Muslim donor class
American Priorities was designed to serve as the “financial force” for the pro-Palestine movement, and it has indeed emerged as a fundraising juggernaut, even outraising other anti-Israel groups such as Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption.
Within only eight months of its creation, American Priorities already raised more than $6.3 million, due in large part to Muslim philanthropists.
The top 10 individual donors to American Priorities, cutting six-figure checks, are all Muslim. Many of the Muslim donors hold senior leadership positions at various Muslim advocacy organizations, but list their day jobs in tech and finance as their sole occupation on the campaign contribution forms.
Khan, when donating to American Priorities, identified himself as the Minneapolis-based cofounder of TeraWulf, a bitcoin mining company. New York Zakat Inc’s tax filings, meanwhile, show that Khan has served as its president since at least 2020.
The telephone number appearing on the zakat collection agency’s tax forms is the same New York number listed in TeraWulf’s public disclosure filings, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records, as belonging to Khan.
New York Zakat Inc told the IRS that, for the past six years, Khan has been its chief financial officer “who possesses the organization’s books and records.”
He was featured by New York Community Trust in a 2024 donor profile of New York Zakat Inc board members. New York Zakat Inc financially supports nonprofit groups through a donor-advised fund at New York Community Trust. Through their relationship, New York Zakat Inc benefits from the services of a professional grant-making staff of one of the largest philanthropic organizations in New York City.
Khan is also the treasurer of the Islamic Learning Center of New York City, a school that teaches grade-school children to follow the Quran and embrace “Islam as a way of life,” and on the board of Emgage Action, the political advocacy arm of Emgage PAC, a fundraising committee similar to American Priorities that focuses on mobilizing Muslim voters in swing states.
Nasser Barghouti, who is slightly leading Khan in large-dollar donations to American Priorities, simply stated that he is retired and residing in Dallas.
Barghouti is a board member of the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian foreign policy group located in California. A co-founder of Seismic Software, a San Diego-based software development company, Barghouti has also served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union’s San Diego branch and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, a Palestinian aid organization suspected of financing the armed resistance in Gaza, has honored Barghouti with its annual “humanitarian award” for his activism work, including as a member of the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights’ steering committee.
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Mehak Jamil, another major donor to American Priorities, also stated that she is retired and living in Albany. But her LinkedIn profile indicates that Jamil, a young financial risk officer, remains an active part of the Albany Muslim Advocacy Coalition, which she co-founded. AMAC circulates resources for Albany-area Muslims, such as an instructional brochure on what to do if ICE tries to arrest them.
Muslim businessman Hussain “Sam” Mahrouq, the third-largest American Priorities supporter with a total of $625,000 donated, reported on the campaign funding receipts that he is the CEO of MEI Group USA, a firm headquartered in Arlington, Texas.
Mahrouq, a member of the Arlington Mayor’s Muslim Advisory Council, says he is opposed to “excessive special-interest influence.”
As he detailed in a podcast appearance, Mahrouq was born in a Palestinian refugee camp before immigrating to the U.S. While attending the University of Texas at Arlington, he began exporting cars to the Middle East. He has since built a business empire spanning the automotive, real estate, and insurance industries. His portfolio includes about a dozen pre-owned car dealerships across North Texas, luxury hotels in the Bahamas and Turkey, and lending services.
The Washington Examiner contacted Khan and American Priorities for comment.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
