Muslims For America is an advocacy group dedicated to introducing American Muslims into politics and ensuring US foreign policy is "written with an understanding of Islam." [1] According to its website, Muslims For America aims to work with the Republican National Committee, in setting up American Muslim Republican Caucuses within each US state Republican Party, in addition to building relations with the Democratic Party.
The group was founded and is funded by American Muslims of Pakistani and Central Asian descent, Muhammad Ali Hasan, and his mother, Seeme Gull Khan Hasan. Claiming to be bipartisan in nature, Muslims For America believe "the best foreign policy plans can mature from both the Republican Party and Democratic Party". [1]
However, some hold the view that the group is really a partisan Republican lobby organization; one of the group's founders, Seeme Gull Khan Hasan, reportedly having "donated more than $1 million to Bush and Republican causes since the 2000 [US Presidential election] campaign". [2] When announcing the name change from Muslims For Bush, the group stated among its aims, to "create greater friendships between American Muslims and the Republican Party." [3]
During the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict the organization faced conflicting interest between the strong support of Israel by the U.S. government and American politicians, and the general attitude of Muslims toward Israel. [4] [5]
Muslims For America has consistently expressed a zero tolerance policy for any kind of terrorism, "in following the example left by Prophet Muhammad." [1]
In 2010, co-founder Muhammad Ali Hasan announced that he would be leaving the Republican Party citing the party's bigotry against Muslims, undocumented immigrants, and gays. [6] His mother Seeme has also criticized the party for its opposition to the Park51 Muslim community center, claiming that "The past few years in the Republican party has been constant humiliation for Muslims." [7]
The Republican Party, also known as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. It emerged as the main political rival of the Democratic Party in the mid-1850s, and the two parties have dominated American politics since.
Islam is the third largest religion in the United States (1%), behind Christianity and Judaism, equaling Buddhism and Hinduism percentage wise. A 2017 study estimated that 3.45 million Muslims were living in the United States, about 1.1 percent of the total U.S. population. In 2017, 20 states which were mostly in the South and Midwest reported Islam being the largest non-Christian religion. In 2020, the U.S. Religion Census found there to be 4.45 million Muslims in the country, making up 1.3% of the population.
Stephen Scott Emory McInnis is an American politician and lawyer who was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado from 1993 to 2005. In August 2010, McInnis lost his bid to become the Republican nominee for Governor of Colorado after a plagiarism accusation and apology hurt his standing. In November 2014, McInnis was elected a member of the Mesa County Board of County Commissioners—beginning term in office in January 2015.
The Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) is an organization affiliated with the Republican Party which advocates for equal rights for LGBT+ Americans.
The Council for the National Interest ("CNI") is a 501(c)(4) non-profit, non-partisan anti-war advocacy group focused on transparency and accountability about the relationship of Israel and the United States and the impact their alliance has for other nations and individuals in other Middle East countries. Based in the United States and most active during the 2000s decade, the Council has highlighted Israel's disposition towards its neighbors, and how Middle Eastern nations, Palestinian rights and other aspects of Middle East life & relations are impacted by the Israel's policies and its financial, trade, and military relationships with the US. They have focused on popular sentiment and perceptions in the US and the between the two countries. They highlight how these policies have impacted the fate of Palestine and, treatment of Muslims within the US since the 1990s.
Sayyid is an honorific surname of Muslims recognized as descendants of the Islamic prophet Muhammad through his grandsons, Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali, sons of Muhammad's daughter Fatima and his cousin and son-in-law Ali.
There exist a number of perspectives on the relationship of Islam and democracy among Islamic political theorists, the general Muslim public, and Western authors. Today, a number of Muslim-majority countries are Islamic yet secular democracies.
The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaah is a Sunni revivalist movement following the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, and Maturidi and Ashʿari schools of theology with strong Sufi influences and with hundreds of millions of followers. It is a broad Sufi-oriented movement that encompasses a variety of Sufi orders, including the Chistis, Qadiris, Soharwardis and Naqshbandis as well as many other orders and sub-orders of Sufism. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and Deobandi Movement.
Elizabeth Lynne Cheney is an American attorney and politician. She represented Wyoming's at-large congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2017 to 2023, and served as chair of the House Republican Conference—the third-highest position in the House Republican leadership—from 2019 to 2021. Cheney is known for her vocal opposition to former president Donald Trump. As of March 2023, she is a professor of practice at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Pakistani Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from Pakistan. The term may also refer to people who also hold a dual Pakistani and U.S. citizenship. Educational attainment level and household income are much higher in the Pakistani-American diaspora compared to the U.S. population at large. In 2019, there were an estimated 554,202 self-identified Pakistani Americans, representing about 0.187% of the U.S. population, and about 2.50% of Asian Americans; more specifically, around 8% of South Asian Americans.
Asma Gull Hasan is an American writer. Her work includes the book Red, White, and Muslim, a biographical view of growing up as an American Muslim. She is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants, born in Chicago, United States and raised in Pueblo, Colorado.
The 2006 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term. In a political revolution that broke twelve years of Republican rule, the Democratic Party was swept into majorities in Congress, the governorships, and state legislatures across the country. This marked the first and only time either party achieved such a feat since the 1994 elections. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave.
The Iraq Study Group (ISG) also known as the Baker-Hamilton Commission was a ten-person bipartisan panel appointed on March 15, 2006, by the United States Congress, that was charged with assessing the situation in Iraq and the US-led Iraq War and making policy recommendations. The panel was led by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic congressman from Indiana, Lee H. Hamilton and was first proposed by Virginia Republican Representative Frank Wolf.
Douglas Lawrence Lamborn is an American attorney and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Colorado's 5th congressional district since 2007. He is a member of the Republican Party. His district is based in Colorado Springs.
Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim alias Abu Jihad al-Masri was purported by US authorities to operate in Iran as the head of media and propaganda for al-Qaeda, and "may also [have been] the Chief of External Operations for al Qaeda". The name Abu Jihad is an informal or assumed name meaning roughly "father of the struggle", and al-Masri simply means the Egyptian. He was killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan on October 31, 2008.
Suhail A. Khan is the Senior Fellow for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Institute for Global Engagement and Director of External Affairs at Microsoft Corporation. Khan was previously a senior political appointee with the Bush administration, and a conservative political activist in Washington, D.C.
The Virginia jihad network was a group network of Islamist jihadist young men centered in Northern Virginia that were accused of conspiring to train and participate in violence overseas against US forces in Afghanistan and Indian forces in Kashmir. The men, Muhammed Aatique, Hammad Abdur-Raheem, Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Hamdi, Seifullah Chapman, Khwaja Hasan, Masoud Khan, Yong Kwon, Randall Todd Royer and Donald Surratt, were found guilty of various terrorism-related offences.
Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan Khokhar was an Indian politician and monarch. He was born in Pind Dadan Khan, a town in Jhelum district, British India. He was a leading member of the All India Muslim League and a trusted lieutenant of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, serving in the Interim Government of India of 1946 as a Member of the Central Legislative Assembly of India.
The platform of the Republican Party of the United States is generally based on American conservatism, contrasting with the modern liberalism of the Democratic Party. The positions of the Republican Party have evolved over time. Currently, the party's fiscal conservatism includes support for lower taxes, small government conservatism, free market capitalism, free trade, deregulation of corporations, and restrictions on labor unions. The party's social conservatism includes support for gun rights outlined in the Second Amendment, the death penalty, and other traditional values, often with a Christian foundation, including restrictions on abortion. In foreign policy, Republicans usually favor increased military spending, strong national defense, and unilateral action. Other Republican positions include restrictions on immigration, more specifically opposition to illegal immigration, opposition to drug legalization, pornography and affirmative action, and support for school choice and school prayer.