Are American Progressives Finally Smelling the Rat at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

American Muslims deserve quality civic representation in the US’ increasingly strained society, where Muslims are often on the receiving end of bigotry and intolerance. One of the major backers of American Muslims are US progressives, an essential ally as the far-right continues to gain ground.

Founded in 1994, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as a defender of the community and cultivator of allies. Unfortunately, a deep leadership crisis at the organization has left the community at a crossroads. Under Nihad Awad’s leadership CAIR has been rife with scandals that undermine CAIR’s progressive credentials – and by extension American Muslims, including a growing crowd of new generation open-minded leaders.

At the start of 2021 came a story that Raseef22 first pubslished: CAIR’s star Florida leader Hassan Shibly had been abusing women, including his own wife – and multiple others. A leading Muslim reporter with National Public Radio later broke the story wide open, revealing in a detailed article how CAIR’s national leadership knew full well about this disturbing misogyny yet took no meaningful action to hold Shibly accountable. Shibly later announced his retirement without condemnation from CAIR.

Another lawsuit has further revealed that Awad himself actively blocked attempts by senior staff to address Shibly’s behavior. One of those former staffers, Lori Saroya went public with emails documenting her failed attempts to get Awad to take meaningful action on Shibly. CAIR sued Saroya for defamation, though as Raseef22 observed after the lawsuit was filed, the case has backfired by exposing Awad’s poor leadership or as news outlet Axios declared in a headline: “CAIR lawsuit offers revelations into organization’s inner workings.”

Now progressives are starting to pay attention to the growing scandals. The latest setback for CAIR is a canceled candidate forum in Seattle, where three aspiring progressive politicians pulled out of the event after learning about the NPR story. What might seem like a small local kerfuffle is actually a bellwether.

First some context: One way CAIR cultivates power is by hosting candidate forums ahead of elections. It raises CAIR’s profile and gives the organization the chance to influence candidates early in their rise from local office to national prominence. The candidates cultivated are mostly progressives, as many centrists and almost all Republicans have spurned CAIR. The alliance between CAIR and progressives intensified with the rise of Donald Trump.