The Mainstay Foundation is a 501(c)(3) service-oriented, nonprofit organization dedicated to strategic initiatives that serve the advancement of the Muslim community in the United States. Established in 2012, the Foundation was born from the efforts of a collective team of committed individuals with a shared passion for empowering and uplifting their community. With experience across a variety of institutions and organizations nationwide, this founding team brought together their talents and vision to create a sustainable and impactful foundation.

The name “Mainstay” reflects the organization’s purpose: to serve as a vital source of support—an essential pillar in helping the community not only exist but thrive. Believing in the power of collective action, the Foundation focuses on nurturing individual growth and strengthening institutions through organized, collaborative efforts.

The Foundation’s vision is guided by a core philosophy outlined in its evolving document, A Community in Motion, which invites community leaders and members to engage in shaping a stronger, more united Muslim society.

Rooted in the teachings of the Holy Qur’an and the Ahl al-Bayt, as interpreted by qualified jurists during the occultation of the twelfth Imam, the Foundation draws its guiding principles from deep theological and scholarly traditions. These principles affirm the sacred right to life, the importance of preserving human dignity, and the responsibility to safeguard all communities.

Mainstay promotes a strong sense of identity through a firm understanding of Islamic creed and encourages active participation in the wider society. With a local focus, national reach, and global mindset, the Foundation works to ensure that the values of compassion, justice, and coexistence remain integral to the evolving narrative of American Muslim life.

Contacts

Address: The Innovation & Leadership Center, 15170 N. Commerce Dr., Dearborn, MI 48120, USA

Phone: +1 (313) 264 4655

Email: info@mainstay.us

Website: https://www.mainstay.us/

The 47^th American president’s inauguration ceremony saw a group of four Christian clergymen and a Jewish rabbi delivering a benediction to Donald Trump.

Notably absent from the ceremony was Imam Husham Al-Husainy, a Shia Muslim cleric from Dearborn, Michigan, who was set to make history as the first Muslim leader to speak at an American presidential inauguration.

The absence was unexpected, especially considering the fact that Al-Husainy was one of the few Muslim leaders to endorse Trump in the final stretch of the election, when the Muslim electorate was often alienated by the former president’s rhetoric.

This was despite a spokesperson for the inauguration committee having previously confirmed his participation, which was widely viewed as a symbolic gesture, reflecting Donald Trump’s surprising gains among Muslim American voters during the 2024 election.

“I am supporting Donald Trump because he opposes gay marriage and he is the most Christian person in the election,” Al-Husainy stated in a previous interview.

“He will return us to conservative values, and I am a Muslim and I will stand with whoever opposes gay marriage,” he told the Hill.

The inauguration committee has yet to issue a statement explaining why Al-Husainy was removed from the final lineup.

Yet, what is certain is that Al-Husainy’s association with Trump has drawn the ire of some pro-Israel circles.

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), one of the oldest pro-Israel advocacy organisations in the US, was particularly vocal in opposing his inclusion.

Last week, the ZOA released a statement condemning his planned participation, calling him an “anti-Semite and Hezbollah apologist” and warning that keeping Al-Husainy in the program would “send a terrible message” and stain Trump’s administration.

In a statement, the organization’s president Morton A. Klein cited Al-Husainy’s participation in a 2006 pro-Hezbollah rally in Dearborn, where he allegedly held up a photo of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Klein also cited the cleric’s 2007 appearance on the Fox News show “Hannity & Colmes”, in which Al-Husainy allegedly declined to label Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, describing it instead as “a Lebanese organization” and “party of God”.

His statement also pointed to Al-Husainy’s leadership of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center, which organised a 2015 rally where he reportedly wished “death upon Saudi Arabia” and called the Saudis “agents of the Jews” whose “Zionist planes” brought destruction to Yemen.

“Americans—including unprecedented numbers of American Jews—voted for President Trump in the belief that he will once again make antisemitism unacceptable in America – and have long awaited Donald Trump’s return to the presidency on January 20th,” the statement read.

“Don’t mar that day,” it concluded with a warning.

The ZOA, founded in 1897 as the Federation of American Zionists, played a pivotal role in advocating for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, well before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

ZOA has been particularly active in opposing public figures or initiatives it views as hostile to Israel, having called for counter-protests against events critical of Israel’s founding and campaigning against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Source: TRT World

Arab Americans, many (though not all) of whom have historically aligned themselves with the Democratic Party, were relieved for another reason. To them, Biden has been the single-biggest cheerleader of Israel’s punishing and relentless assault on Gaza, which has over nearly 10 months claimed the lives of at least 39,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-led Gaza Health Ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the U.S. and the U.N. While the president has shown deep empathy with Israelis since Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which killed some 1,200 people, he has struggled to convey the same level of sympathy towards Palestinians—and, at one point, even cast doubt on the extent of the Palestinian death toll in Gaza.

“I don’t think he was as balanced as he could have been, and that was really hurtful to a lot of people,” says Jasmine El-Gamal, an Arab American and former Middle East adviser at the Pentagon.

While many Arab Americans might have anticipated this from Trump, who’s made no secret of his disdain for Palestinians (he notably used their identity as a slur against Biden during their debate last month), El-Gamal says they expected more from the purported “empath-in-chief.” Biden’s failure to treat rising anti-Semitism and rising anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia with an equal sense of urgency left many feeling particularly deflated. “They’re similar threats, and they should be addressed with similar urgency, and I don’t think that was the impression that was coming out of the Biden administration,” El-Gamal says, noting that it made her and others feel “deprioritized as a human being because of your identity.”

That feeling had a tangible impact: Within the first month of the war, Arab American support for Biden and the Democratic Party dropped to the lowest levels ever recorded. Michigan, a critical battleground state that boasts one of the largest Arab American populations in the country, appeared all but lost.

With Biden out of the race, the prevailing question now is: Can Harris win them back? So far, there seems to be a guarded optimism. Several Arab American activists and analysts who spoke with TIME say that their community is still waiting to see what changes, if any, the presumed Democratic nominee will pledge to bring to U.S.’s policy on Gaza should she win in November. Most all of them recognize that Harris has the potential to have a better relationship with Arab Americans than her predecessor—a relatively low bar that shouldn’t be too difficult for Harris to clear. But they don’t want her to take their support for granted, either.

“There’s a sense of hope,” James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute, tells TIME of Biden’s decision to end his reelection bid. His organization’s latest nationwide poll of Arab Americans, conducted in May, found that an overwhelming majority (79%) have an unfavorable view of the president. Although AAI doesn’t yet have polling on views towards Harris, Zogby says that she has largely been seen as more empathetic. “She’s reached out to the community and individuals in different ways to let them know of her concern and her staff have been responsive,” he says, “which is far different than the White House.”

For those who couldn’t countenance a vote for Biden but regard Trump as a threat to the country, the vice president’s candidacy offers a much-needed reprieve. Despite the deep animosity towards Biden, Zogby says AAI’s polling has shown that the Democrats could win back much of support they lost among Arab American voters—many of whom joined the “uncommitted” campaign in a bid to pressure Biden to change tack on Gaza—if there’s a meaningful policy shift.

In the aforementioned poll, 60% of those surveyed said they’d be more likely to vote for Biden in November if he were to demand an immediate ceasefire and unimpeded humanitarian aid into Gaza or if he were to suspend diplomatic support and arms shipments to Israel until they implement a ceasefire and withdraw forces from Gaza. While Biden has unveiled a proposal to end the war that would involve a six-week ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal from populated areas of Gaza, he has been less willing to withhold military aid to Israel, save for only the largest of munitions.

While Harris hasn’t articulated any major policy deviations from Biden when it comes to Gaza—like the president, she has repeatedly pledged support for Israel’s security and self-defense—she hasn’t been seen as driving the administration’s policies on this issue either. Instead, she has offered Americans a rhetorically different approach. In March, she became the first senior administration official to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. She was also quicker than Biden to sound the alarm about the humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged enclave, where scores of Palestinians have been forced to live in inhumane, famine-like conditions, and explicitly laid blame on the Israeli government for its part in creating the crisis.

Unlike Biden, whose longtime devolution to the Jewish state has earned him the reputation of being perhaps most pro-Israel American president in history, Harris has long been regarded as being more evenly empathetic when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians. Hala Rharrit, a former American diplomat and Arabic language spokesperson in the U.S. government who resigned earlier this year in protest of the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, tells TIME that the State Department often relied on her speeches when communicating to the Arab world for this reason.

Some Arab Americans are hopeful that this record could make Harris uniquely suited to mending the divide within the Democratic Party as a result of the war on Gaza. “I think she’s the only one who can unite us,” says Sami Khalidi, the president of the Dearborn Democratic Club and a former 2020 Biden delegate who is due to reprise his role at the upcoming Democratic convention in Chicago. He notes that while Arab Americans in his community still want to wait and see who Harris might pick as her running mate, “they favor her over Trump.”

Not all Arab Americans share this view. Indeed, many will be of the belief that Harris’s record, as Biden’s vice president, is inextricable from current U.S. policy. “There’s a genuine and really deep-seated anger and hurt that the Arab American community and the Palestinian American community, in particular, has felt,” Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a U.S. policy fellow at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank and policy network, tells TIME, noting that while these communities may be able to engage with Harris in the way they were unable to with Biden, “There’s still going to be a lot of Palestinian Americans and progressive Americans who are like, ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough of the establishment Democratic Party,’ and this kind of ties into a deeper resentment around electoral politics.” Some “uncommitted” delegates have already signaled that they will withhold their endorsement unless Harris commits to big policy shifts, such as ending military aid to Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington offers an early test of how Harris will approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should she win the presidency. Many Arab Americans and progressive Democrats perturbed by Israel’s conduct in Gaza were cheered by Harris’s decision not to preside over Netanyahu’s speech to Congress—a scheduling conflict, her team said, that many nonetheless regarded as a clear snub. But perhaps the clearest sign of her strategy will be revealed following her meeting with the Israeli premier later today, in which she will reportedly tell him that “it is time for the war to end.”

“I don’t think anyone expects her to drastically announce a shift from Biden, especially when she is running [for the presidential nomination],” Matt Duss, the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and a former chief foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders, tells TIME. “But I think there are things she can say that will indicate a different path.” One option championed by several of Democratic lawmakers is to consistently apply U.S. laws to future military aid to Israel, which prohibits American tax dollars from going to foreign military units suspected of committing human rights violations.

“I’m optimistic, but I’m waiting,” says Tariq Habash, a Palestinian American who earlier this year became the second political appointee to resign over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. He and others tell TIME that while they are realistic about what is possible when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East, they also believe that there is leeway for change. “It is past time for talking points,” Habash says. “You also have to back it up with action.” If Harris does, he says, maybe Arab Americans will too.

Source: Time Magazine

The new holidays would be Diwali, Vaisakhi, `Eid Al-Fitr, `Eid Al-Adha and Lunar New Year.

“These bills embrace the diverse fabric of our state by recognizing various religious and cultural holidays,” House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) said.

“Making these holidays official state holidays will let Michigan’s many communities know that they have a place in our great state and deserve to celebrate their joyous occasions like everyone else.”

Aiyash said official recognition of these holidays would also make it easier for workers and school districts to arrange time off.

“And this is a great first step to begin the conversations of giving folks the opportunity to then discuss with their workplaces, their schools about giving them time off to celebrate their holidays,”

House Bill 4447, sponsored by Aiyash, establishes `Eid Al-Adha and `Eid Al-Fitr as state holidays.

In 2021, Lewiston Maine added the Islamic holidays to the public schools calendar, allowing Muslim students to celebrate their holiday normally.

Also, the Baltimore County Board of Education approved unanimously in November, 2019, to close public schools for students on `Eid holidays when they land on a school day.

The bills are not yet available on the Michigan Legislature website. The legislation would not mandate days off, but school boards, public universities, community colleges and public employers could take those religious celebrations into account when setting academic calendars and in contract bargaining.

A growing number of American school districts have begun to recognize the Muslim holidays.

Source: Michigan Radio

Three candidates — Khalil Refai, Amanda Jaczkowski and Adam Albarmaki — won election to the City Council in Hamtramck last week and will be joining three current members. All six identify as Muslim. Hamtramck, part of the greater Detroit area, also elected its first Muslim mayor, Amer Ghalib, to round out the city’s government.

The Muslim Public Affairs Counsel, a national American Muslim advocacy and public policy organization, said it is the first and only city that they are aware of that has a full Muslim city council and mayor.

The newly elected council members will begin their term in January, and the members say religion will not be a factor in how they govern, reported The Detroit Free Press.

About half of the city’s nearly 29,000 residents is estimated to be Muslim, according to census ancestry data, with many being of Arab and South Asian ethnicity. The city was originally a hub for Polish American immigrants and later became a haven to other immigrants as well, said M. Baqir Mohie El-Deen, policy program manager at the Muslim Public Affairs Council, or MPAC, who is also Michigan native.

Five of the council members are immigrants, and one is a convert to Islam, reported the Free Press.

Source: NBC News

Fadwa Hammoud made history this week when she became the first Muslim Arab American woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hammoud’s appearance was to argue in the case of Brown v. Davenport. The case concerns the 2007 conviction of Ervine Davenport for murder in Michigan. Davenport was shackled for the duration of his trial but, no reason for him being shackled was listed in the court records. His lawyers say his shackling prejudiced the jury against him.

Hammoud’s career has been one of historic firsts. She became the first Arab American Muslim solicitor general in 2019, when Attorney General Dana Nessel appointed Michigan’s 12th solicitor general. She moved to Michigan from Lebanon at age 11, eventually graduating from Fordson High School in Dearborn. The school is also noteworthy for being a public school with a majority-Muslim population. A 2011 NPR report noted that 90% of the school’s population was Muslim.

Source: Religion News

The national Muslim civil rights and advocacy group says that since the start of the year, it has received hundreds of complaints from chapters across the country, and more than 500 at its national headquarters, regarding anti-Muslim hate crimes, discrimination, immigration and travel issues, school bullying incidents and more.

CAIR also has a branch in Michigan and has taken on major and often high-profile legal cases involving discrimination against the state’s large Muslim population.

In April, CAIR released its civil rights report documenting more than 6,000 complaints nationwide last year, most of which were related to discrimination. In 2019, CAIR released a report documenting more than 10,000 anti- Muslim bias incidents from 2014-2019.

The new report shows major trends over the last seven months based on the incidents reported to CAIR. It also highlights 38 of the most severe cases of anti-Muslim hate during that period, including hate crimes, harassment, school bullying, discrimination, hate speech and anti-mosque incidents.

“Our belief is that these cases can provide the public a glimpse of the day-to-day lives of Muslims in America who continue to face the deadly threat of Islamophobia,” the report says. Significantly, CAIR says it saw an increase in these incidents during Israel’s assault on Gaza this year.

This spike in cases in May and June involved cases of vandalism and an attempted stabbing, and several physical assaults targeting Muslim women wearing the hijab. It also observes the intensification of anti-Muslim hate acts in Canada, noting 11 reports in the media documenting violent anti-Muslim crimes in Canada during the first seven months of 2021.

The majority of these reports took place following the June 7, London, Ontario anti-Muslim terrorist attack that killed three generations of a Canadian Muslim family, leaving a 9-year-old child orphaned.

Source: The Arab American News

The mosque filed a Wayne County Circuit Court lawsuit in May against the cemetery’s owner, Midwest Memorial Group, accusing the limited liability company of breach of contract and violating state law.

This week, the American Human Rights Council added its voice to the conflict.

The mosque’s attorney, Steven Cohen, counters no such clause exists and that position is a pretense to negotiate a new contract — and inflate the price of the grave spaces…The mosque also argues that this is “particularly egregious” because the Muslim community is “extraordinarily tight-knit” and “places a high premium on having loved ones buried in close proximity” to each other and their mosque.

Source: Detroit Free Press

Two Muslim women from the Midwest were elected to the House of Representatives on Tuesday, making history as the first females of their faith to serve in Congress. The candidates secured their wins by running on a socially progressive platforms.

Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, will represent Michigan, and Ilhan Omar, once a Somali refugee in Kenya, will represent Minnesota. Both received an overwhelming majority of the vote in their respective districts on Tuesday and join a surge of Democratic women coming to the new Congress.

The women align with the left wing of the Democratic Party which focused its campaigns on vows to extend Medicare health coverage to all Americans and increase the minimum wage to $15. In 2016, Ms. Tlaib was arrested for disrupting a speech from then-candidate Donald Trump in Detroit, where she shouted at him that “our kids deserve better,” a move that cemented her progressive political credentials for some supporters.

Both Ms. Tlaib, 42, and Ms. Omar, 37, have made comments that are critical of Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was not a central campaign issue for either candidate, but their views on the matter could test Democrats in a narrow House majority. The party typically draws widespread support from Jewish voters and donors. Seventy-one percent of American Jews voted for the Democrats, as did 80% of Muslims, according to AP VoteCast, a pre-election and Election Day survey of about 90,000 people who said they voted in the midterms or intended to do so.

Ms. Tlaib has said she would vote against bills that include aid to Israel; Ms. Omar has drawn criticism for a 2012 tweet in which she says that “Israel has hypnotized the world” with its “evil doings.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

The congressman from Indiana spoke as Muslim communities across the US voice fears of a growing climate of Islamophobia under the US president. Carson criticized Trump in an interview with the Guardian, adding that while there is “no easy answer”, misconceptions over the Islamic faith perpetuated by the administration should serve as motivation for more Muslims to engage in the political process.

Carson made the comments as Guardian Films publishes a film examining community relations in Dearborn, Michigan, which is home to the biggest mosque in North America. The film features five citizens from different backgrounds, from Muslims to Christians, citizen militias and young university graduates, and explores how they see American identity, and grapple with questions of religion, race and class.

While there is not comprehensive data to provide a number of Muslims who currently hold elected office in local and state bodies around the US, religious discrimination and an increase in hate crimes has spurred more Muslims to explore politics, according to some groups that focus on representing Muslims in the government. Informal surveys indicate New Jersey leading the way, with at least 14 Muslim Americans currently in public office.

After Trump signed an executive order seeking to ban immigrants from certain Muslim-majority countries, one advocacy group, Jetpac, launched a formal campaign designed to encourage more Muslims to run for local office and adopt a more active role in community organizing.

American Muslims in Michigan have gained significant success in running for elected office, and Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit health commissioner, recently announced a run for governor in 2018.

El-Sayed, who would become America’s first Muslim governor if elected, said: “The vote for the current president was not a vote of inspiration. It was a vote of fear and cynicism. We have to believe in the unifying idea of us – the people.”

Source: The Guardian