Early years (1994–2001) CAIR was founded in June 1994. CAIR's first office was located in Washington, D.C., as is its present-day headquarters on
Capitol Hill. Its founding was partly in response to the film
True Lies, which Arab and Muslim groups condemned for its stereotyping of Arab and Muslim villains. The offices opened a month before the film's release. CAIR's first advocacy campaign was in response to an offensive greeting card that used the term "shia" to refer to human excrement. CAIR led a national campaign and used activists to pressure the greeting card company, which eventually withdrew the card from the market. In 1995, CAIR handled its first case of
hijab discrimination, in which a Muslim employee was denied the right to wear the hijab; this type of complaint became one of the most common received by CAIR's civil rights department. CAIR continued its advocacy work in the aftermath of the April 19, 1995
Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. Following the attack, Muslim-Americans were subjected to an upsurge in harassment and discrimination, including a rise in hate crimes nationally; 222 hate crimes against Muslims nationwide were reported in the days immediately following the bombing. The bombing gave CAIR national stature for their efforts to educate the public about Islam and religious bias in America; their report was featured on the front page of
The New York Times on August 28, 1995, and was subsequently mentioned on
ABC World News Tonight. CAIR also held its first
voter registration drive in 1996; CAIR continues to encourage active political participation by American Muslims, for them to address political candidates and elected representatives with greater frequency. In 1996, CAIR published a report
The Usual Suspects regarding its perception of anti-Muslim rhetoric in the media after the crash of
TWA Flight 800. Their research showed 138 uses of the terms "Muslim" and "Arab" in the 48 hours after the crash in
Reuters,
UPI, and
AP articles covering the incident. The official
NTSB report said that the crash was most likely caused by mechanical failure. In 1997, CAIR objected to the production of sneakers made by
Nike with a design on the heel similar to the Arabic word for "Allah". As part of an agreement reached between CAIR officials and Nike representatives, Nike apologized to the Muslim community, recalled the products carrying the design, launched an investigation as to how the logo came about, and built a number of children's playgrounds near some Islamic centers in America. In 1997, as
depictions of Muhammad are seen as
blasphemous by some Muslims, CAIR wrote to United States Supreme Court Chief Justice
William Rehnquist requesting that the sculpted representation of
Muhammad on the north frieze inside the Supreme Court building be removed or sanded down. The court rejected CAIR's request.
Post-9/11 (2001–2006) In October 2001, CAIR opposed the
United States invasion of Afghanistan after the
September 11 attacks. By January 2002, four months after the attacks, the CAIR said that it had received 1,658 reports of discrimination, profiling, harassment, and physical assaults against persons appearing Arab or Muslim, a threefold increase over the prior year. The reports included beatings, death threats, abusive police practices, and employment and airline-related discrimination." A CAIR initiative funded in part by a $500,000 donation from Saudi Prince
Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud sent a set of 18 books and tapes to public libraries written by Muslim and non-Muslim authors on Islamic history and practices, as well as an English translation of the
Quran. In 2005, CAIR coordinated the joint release of a
fatwa by 344 American Muslim organizations, mosques, and imams nationwide that stated: "Islam strictly condemns religious extremism and the use of violence against innocent lives. There is no justification in Islam for extremism or terrorism. Targeting civilians' life and property through
suicide bombings or any other method of attack is
haram or forbidden—and those who commit these barbaric acts are criminals, not
martyrs." The fatwa cited passages from the Quran and hadith that prohibit violence against innocent people and injustice, and was signed by the
Fiqh Council of North America. Also in 2005, following the
Qur'an desecration controversy of 2005 at the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp, CAIR initiated an "Explore the Quran" campaign, aimed at providing free copies of the Quran to any person who requested it. In June 2006, CAIR announced a $50 million project to create a better understanding of Islam and Muslims in the US. ($10 million per year for five years), in a project to be spearheaded by
Paul Findley, a former US Congressman. Also in 2006, CAIR sent a group of representatives to Iraq to urge kidnappers to release American journalist
Jill Carroll. Carroll was eventually released unharmed. In December 2006, California Senator
Barbara Boxer withdrew a "certificate of accomplishment" originally given to former CAIR official
Basim Elkarra after Boxer's staff looked into CAIR, and she became concerned about some of CAIR's past statements and actions, and statements by some law enforcement officials that it provides aid to international terrorist groups.
Holy Land Foundation case (2007) In 2007, CAIR was named, along with 245 others, by U.S. Federal prosecutors in a list of
unindicted co-conspirators or joint venturers in a
Hamas funding case involving the
Holy Land Foundation, which in 2009, caused the
FBI to cease working with CAIR outside of criminal investigations due to its designation. CAIR was never charged with any crime, and it complained that the designation had tarnished its reputation.
Islamic Society of North America (largest Muslim umbrella organization in the United States),
Muslim American Society and
North American Islamic Trust as unindicted co-conspirators or joint venturers, a legal designation that prosecutors can employ for a variety of reasons including grants of
immunity, pragmatic considerations, and evidentiary concerns. While being listed as co-conspirator does not mean that CAIR has been charged with any crime, the organization was concerned that the label will forever taint it. On October 22, 2007, the Holy Land Foundation trial ended in a mistrial. All defendants were convicted upon retrial in 2008. In 2008, the FBI discontinued its long-standing relationship with CAIR. Officials said the decision followed the conviction of the HLF directors for funneling millions of dollars to
Hamas, revelations that Nihal Awad had participated in planning meetings with HLF, and CAIR's failure to provide details of its ties to Hamas. During a 2008 retrial of the HLF case, FBI Special Agent Lara Burns labeled CAIR "a
front group for Hamas". In January 2009, the FBI's DC office instructed all field offices to cut ties with CAIR, as the ban extended into the Obama administration. U.S. Congressmen
Sue Myrick (R-N.C.),
Trent Franks (R-Ariz.),
John Shadegg (R-Ariz.), and
Paul Broun (R-Ga.) wrote
Attorney General Eric Holder on October 21, 2009, that they were concerned about CAIR's relationships with terrorist groups, and requesting that the
Department of Justice (DOJ) provide a summary of DOJ's evidence and findings that led DOJ to name CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism trial. The four Congressmen also wrote
House of Representatives Sergeant at Arms Wilson Livingood a letter the same day asking that he work with members of the House
Judiciary,
Homeland Security, and
Intelligence Committees to determine if CAIR was successful in placing interns in the committees' offices, to review FBI and DOJ evidence regarding CAIR's Hamas ties, and to determine whether CAIR is a security threat. Congresswoman
Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.), "appalled", said "I urge the rest of my colleagues to join me in denouncing this
witch hunt." She was echoed by
Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, in a speech that included a statement by the House's Tri-Caucus. The four Republican Congressmen, joined by Senator
Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Congressman
Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), then wrote
IRS Commissioner Douglas H. Shulman on November 16, 2009, asking that CAIR be investigated for "excessive lobbying". CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper welcomed the scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, and said, "We've always stayed within our legal limits [for lobbying]. If anything, we don't have enough staff to lobby as much as we legally can." The judge ruled that the federal prosecutors should have filed the list of unindicted co-conspirators
under seal, and the organizations'
due process rights under the
Fifth Amendment were violated by the public naming, but did not expunge the designation. CAIR pointed to an arrest of five men in Pakistan on December 10, 2009, as a "success story" In January 2012, CAIR's
Michigan chapter took a stance along with the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in defending four Muslim high school football players accused of attacking a quarterback during a game. The players were allegedly targeted for criminal prosecution over the attack because of their ethnic origin. A judge later dropped the charges after deciding they had no merit. CAIR has opposed proposed United States legislation and executive orders which would have designated the
Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, saying that such a designation would "inevitably be used in a political campaign to attack those same groups and individuals, to marginalize the American Muslim community and to demonize Islam". In 2021 the director of the San Francisco branch of CAIR, Zahra Billoo, gave a speech in which she denounced a
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stated that "We need to pay attention" to the
ADL and
Hillel, "because just because they are your friends today, doesn't mean that they have your back when it comes to human rights." Later on in her speech, Billoo told the audience to "know your enemies". Her remarks prompted
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, to accuse Billoo of promoting
white supremacist rhetoric. On December 11, CAIR supported Billoo's remarks. In October 2025, CAIR-Ohio Director, Khaled Tuurani, participated in an online conference hosted by the Al-Zaytouna Center in Beirut which included
Majed al-Zeer, a Hamas official who was designated by the US government in 2024 as a Specially Designated Terrorist for his role in Hamas fundraising efforts. The two reportedly appeared on separate panels. The title of the event was, "Palestinians Abroad and Regional and International Strategic Transformations in the Light of Al-Aqsa Flood." In the aftermath, some female Somali Americans or female Horner Americans in Minnesota have stated that they've been religiously harassed with comments about their
hijab, and others have been sexually assaulted by members of the U.S.
ICE agency. In response, an official press release by CAIR stated that it condemned Trump's comments about people of Somali descent, referring to the comments as "vile". In late December 2025,
United States Director of National Intelligence,
Tulsi Gabbard referred to a conference that CAIR attended earlier in 2025 that she alleged "issued a call to action to use American legal and political systems to implement Sharia law". == Projects and media ==