American Islamic Forum For Democracy

Programs: Aifd's public engagement projects continue to include numerous daily media appearances, publications, and public forums. Domestic national security threats from radical islamist groups and the growing instability across the middle east, most notably in syria, and across muslim majority nations has solidified aifd's public role as a subject matter expert. Aifd is sought after by public policy experts, governments, and universities, as well as domestic and foreign community networks for its expertise in national security, religious freedom, political islam, and islamist terrorism. Our public engagement program continues to increase our media opportunities at a sustained and exponential rate with almost five times the number of media appearances as in previous years. Aifd has reached over ten billion media "impressions", with a total audience size of over 5,000,000,000 people. Aifd's writings have been published by a variety of national leading publications. Our office has also responded to thousands of phone calls, emails, and postings from people across the country.

aifd has continued to lead diverse american and western muslim leaders in establishing a voice for reform and against islamism. The american islamic leadership coalition (ailc), part of this collaborative project of western muslim leaders, has continued but aifd has also broadened the project beyond the coalition to include even more diverse voices in the united states, canada, and europe. Ailc's mission is dedicated to defending the us constitution, upholding religious pluralism, protecting american security, and cherishing diversity in the practice of islam. These networks of reform-minded muslim leaders continue to gain momentum in their work as each leader publicizes their individual work and the collective comes together to serve as an alternative to the domestic and global network of islamist organizations such as the council on american-islamic relations, islamic society of north america, and the muslim public affairs council. We continue to seek out other like-minded muslim leaders to join in our fight for muslim reform. The growing network of diverse leaders, led by aifd, continues to cooperate in meetings, papers, public position statements, and media appearances, in the promotion of our ideas for muslim reform against islamism and to aid public counterterrorism efforts against radical islamists. Currently the coalition is planning a large (200+ member) conference of like-minded muslims, which will result in concrete policy recommendations, publications, and networking.

the muslim liberty project (mlp) is our community and leadership building initiative among young muslims age 15-30. We empower future young american muslim leaders who align with our work of reform against islamist ideas and who advocate for the importance and duty of establishing a balanced american and muslim identity. Mlp youth engage in discussions and community projects that balance their american and muslim identities. These projects include interfaith collaborative efforts, the development of university chapters, town-halls and forums to openly discuss current events that impact them and the u. S. Finally, we provide community service opportunities that bring awareness to the plight in various communities and demonstrate how american muslims can make a difference. This year, a number of programs were completed aiding the humanitarian efforts in syria and the global refugee crisis. Our mlp ambassador program represents 12 states, and has now hosted five successful networking and strategic retreats for like-minded youth.