Minaret of Freedom Institute
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 521850442
- IRS 990 coverage
- 2025–2025
- Official website data refreshed
- Sep 2026
- Forms available
- Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2024
- Location
- Bethesda, MD, United States
- Phone
- 301-907-0947
- Rating
- 57
- Verdict
- MIXED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Public Health Program (Includes General Health and Wellness Promotion Services)
- Affiliation
- Islam
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $62,862
- Expenses
- $20,616
- Assets
- $19,654
- Liabilities
- $1,769
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
6 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Imad Ahmad (President)
- Maliha Sheikh (Vice President)
People named in this filing
- Imad Ahmad (President)
- Maliha Sheikh (Vice President)
- Ramy Osman (Secretary)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
The Minaret of Freedom Institute (founded in 1993) has a dual mission for educating both Muslims and non-Muslims—countering distortions/misconceptions about Islamic beliefs and demonstrating Islamic origins of modern values (rule of law, market economics), and for Muslims to discover/publish the politico-economic policy implications of Islamic law (shari`ah) and expose Muslims to free market thought.
What it reported doing in 2025
Program operations publishing news & analysis aggregations 4-7 times per week and participation or attendance at several workshops and published eight online articles analyzing current events and was interviewed on The Scholars Chair television program on the concept of justice in Islam and answered questions about Islam on the Quora website.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 99% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Cannot be determined from the filing. The filing does not provide enough consistent spending detail to tell whether the nonprofit works directly or through others.
The verdict
MIXED - The filed numbers largely add up and revenue comfortably covers expenses. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 39
- Transparency & Controls: 82
- Accountability: 59
- Sustainability: 60
- Growth: 40
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 22%; rating input score 22
- Program expense ratio: 67.1%; rating input score 67
- Fundraising efficiency: $6.07 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 43; 43rd percentile among comparable filings
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 90.9%; rating input score 91; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Pay-setting controls: Limited
- Foreign activity oversight: Limited
- Grant itemization coverage: Limited
- Major donor itemization: Limited
- Related-party transparency: Limited
Accountability
- Independent voting board: 80%; rating input score 80; 26th percentile among comparable filings
- Governance controls: 2 of 7 controls in place; rating input score 29
- Conflict-of-interest policy: Fail
- Whistleblower policy: Fail
- Document-retention policy: Fail
- CEO compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
- Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
- Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
- Audit committee oversight: Missing
- Independent financial-statement audit: Fail
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 67.2%; rating input score 93; 93rd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.95; rating input score 26; 26th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.09; rating input score 15; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 58; 58th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: 28.3% per year; rating input score 100; 96th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -19% per year; rating input score 0; 8th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- What they do: 1 programs and campaigns described on the official site
- Where the money goes: 22% of revenue deployed · 67.1% of spending went to programs
- Governance: 4 of 5 board members independent · 2 of 7 filing controls reported · 0 of 6 affiliation controls reported
- Programs: 3 filed program accomplishments · $14K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 6 people listed
- Consistency: 40 of 42 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 1 filed money-flow record
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 22/100.
- High — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 6 not reported.
- Moderate — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 43/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 26/100.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Functional expense sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
- Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Part IX FeesForServicesAccounting column sum did not reconcile in the filed values.
- High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 15/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 58/100.