Muslim Americans in Public Service is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that coordinates with federal agencies to help Muslims obtain and advance careers in government. To do so, it partners with Islamic organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, that have either condoned terror attacks or have been linked to terrorist organizations.
In addition to CAIR, the nonprofit known as MAPS touts the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations as one of its partners and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and Helping Hand for Relief and Development as two of its sponsors. MAPS has worked with CAIR to host events that bring together MAPS members "across all levels and branches of government." And while it does not disclose its donors, it says it receives "sizable in-kind donations" from its partners, as well as funding from "federal agencies," nonprofits, and state commissions.
MAPS’s affiliation with those groups—all of which have praised or been linked to terrorist organizations—could raise concerns about its efforts to place employees inside the federal bureaucracy. While it's unlikely MAPS will have success placing political appointees in the Trump administration, which has opposed affinity groups that support DEI initiatives in federal agencies and is staunchly at odds with MAPS's criticism of Israel, the group's top members include some career officials entrenched in the federal government.
Formed in 2021, MAPS is led by a board of current and former career federal employees, according to the group’s website and their LinkedIn profiles. Ahmad Maaty, the founding chairman of MAPS, is a senior economist at the Department of Justice. Other board members include Veterans Affairs official Hasan Shanawani, Office of Management and Budget examiner Farrah Pappa, United Nations mission adviser Mariya Ilyas, and White House policy analyst Ameer Abdulrahman, a former official for Democratic Senate candidate Morgan Harper.
While MAPS largely focuses on job-related issues that impact its members, it has weighed in on some political issues. The group criticized the Biden administration over its support for Israel in the war against Hamas, saying that it "disagrees with many of the policy positions taken by the current Administration." It also condemned the 2023 censure of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) over her statements calling for the eradication of Israel and denounced the removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over anti-Semitic remarks.
Since then, MAPS has hosted panels and networking events thanks to support from its terror-tied partners.
Earlier this month, for example, MAPS hosted an event that ICNA and Helping Hand cosponsored. One of its featured speakers, Nicole Fauster-Bradford, is the community advocacy director at CAIR. She spoke alongside Sarah Khasawinah, a senior policy adviser in the Senate.
Former ICNA president Mohsin Ansari has spread anti-Semitic tropes about the "liberal anti Muslim media headed by Jews," according to reports. He has also praised Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a Bangladeshi cleric convicted of war crimes against Hindus, as a "very, very, very special person." Congress has investigated both ICNA and Helping Hand over their alleged links to Jamaat-e-Islami, a Pakistani terrorist group.
CAIR, for its part, was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal Hamas financing case in 2008. The Biden White House distanced itself from the group after its executive director stated he was "happy" about the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.
In addition to the March event, MAPS held an annual networking event in January that ICNA and Helping Hand cosponsored. It featured Ansari as a speaker.
In a statement sent to the Washington Free Beacon, MAPS said it "engages independent organizations with various audiences," like CAIR, ICNA, and Helping Hand, "to increase its civic engagement and reach those with a desire to serve the public." It did not answer questions on CAIR's Oct. 7 rhetoric and the groups' ties to terror organizations.
MAPS thrived during the Biden administration and now boasts thousands of members, including intelligence community officials who hold high-level security clearances, according to Maaty, the group’s chairman.
In 2023, then-transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg recorded a video message praising MAPS, saying that "so many core Islamic values reflect American values." In April 2024, the group hosted an event at the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Agriculture where then-secretary Tom Vilsack spoke in praise of the group. ICNA and Islamic Relief USA, a subsidiary of Islamic Relief Worldwide, which Israeli authorities sanctioned for allegedly funneling money to Hamas. The State Department condemned Islamic Relief Worldwide in 2020 over its leaders’ "vile anti-Semitic vitriol."