PHILADELPHIA - The national headquarters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has been moved into the perpetual Islamic waqf system, beyond easy reach of any federal asset freeze, through a $10 deed, a shell with no named owner, and a veto held by a trust named beside CAIR in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history. The maneuver began eight days after Texas designated CAIR under its state terrorism laws and finished while Congress weighs freezing CAIR’s assets. CAIR has said nothing. A new Middle East Forum report by Executive Director Gregg Roman, “The Waqf Maneuver: The Secret Restructuring of CAIR’s Real Estate,” documents the transactions for the first time.
On February 13, 2026, the D.C. Recorder of Deeds accepted two instruments for 453 New Jersey Avenue SE, a short walk from the Capitol. The first conveyed 45 percent of the headquarters to the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) for a stated $4,000,000, more than the District values the entire parcel. The second recorded that majority owner Sage Foundation “shall not sell, convey, hypothecate, finance, encumber or otherwise dispose of” its interest without NAIT’s written consent. NAIT’s literature calls waqf property perpetual: it “must not be sold or inherited or given away.”
The November 26, 2025 deed was signed by Eyas Abdeen, treasurer of CAIR Foundation and a director of seller Washington Trust Foundation, formerly named the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It conveyed the entire headquarters to Sage for a recited “Ten Dollars ($10.00) and other good and valuable consideration.” Texas had designated CAIR eight days earlier; CAIR is contesting the designation in federal court. The District taxed the transfer at its full $3,700,450 assessment; no public document discloses the true price.
Sage was incorporated on May 13, 2025, by Abdeen, with CAIR general counsel Lena Masri as registered agent and the headquarters parcel as its address. Its filings list one human, a beneficial owner who appears to be an outside lawyer at his firm’s address; no filing names an actual owner at all. Sage has no federal tax determination published, no Form 990, no stated purpose, and stands Not in Good Standing. The deal traces to a leaseback agreement dated January 26, 2025, 107 days before Sage legally existed and months before any designation existed anywhere.
It caps a 27-year trail of Islamic finance, from the Islamic Development Bank’s $250,000 in 1999 to its $7.77 million for CAIR Plaza two blocks away, while CAIR’s website still tells donors it “does not receive funding from foreign organizations or governments.”
The Forum calls on the D.C. Attorney General to use his subpoena power under D.C. Code § 29-412.20 to test the disposition against the District’s charitable asset and conflict statutes, and on the IRS to examine the transfers under IRC § 4958 and scrutinize the Schedule N disclosure due on Washington Trust’s FY2025 return within months. With H.R. 8236 pending to designate CAIR and freeze its assets, the Forum urges Congress and the Treasury to ask, in the open, whether the restructuring was built to outrun a freeze.
“Charities do not sell their headquarters for $10. They do not sell to shells with no named owner. They do not park their principal asset in a perpetual religious endowment that any federal freeze would struggle to reach,” said Gregg Roman, Executive Director of the Middle East Forum. “Every step sits in the public record. CAIR owes its donors an explanation, and regulators should not wait for one.”
“This report asserts no violation of law. It does not need to,” Roman added. “The recorded facts break every expectation of the charitable bargain: real price, independent buyer, disinterested approval, public accounting. Seven documents would answer every question. All of them sit in drawers. The D.C. Attorney General and the IRS have the power to open them.”
Read the full investigation: https://www.meforum.org/mef-reports/the-waqf-maneuver-the-secret-restructuring-of-cairs-real-estate
About the Middle East Forum
The Middle East Forum is a Philadelphia-based applied policy research organization. The Forum promotes American interests in the Middle East and protects the West from Middle Eastern threats.
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