Islamic Relief Worldwide

Islamic Relief Worldwide is an international relief and development NGO founded in the United Kingdom in 1984, with its international headquarters in Birmingham and a network of national offices, partners and branches in more than forty countries. ¹ It has been registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales since 1989, and its income in 2024 was £275.6 million. ¹

It was founded in 1984 by Hany El-Banna and fellow students of the University of Birmingham; from a first donation of 20 pence it raised £100,000 for those affected by famine in Sudan. ¹

The charity says it assists more than ten million people a year through emergency response and development programmes in education, health and livelihoods, guided by values it draws from the Qur'an and Sunna (sincerity, excellence, compassion, justice and custodianship), and that it serves people regardless of race, affiliation, gender or belief. ¹ Its seasonal programmes include Ramadan and qurbani food distributions, a winter programme and orphan sponsorship. ¹

Milestones the sources record include: a 1993 appeal with The Independent for Bosnia; in 1994, the first UK government funding to a Muslim NGO, for a training centre in North Kordofan, Sudan; signing the Red Cross and Red Crescent Code of Conduct in 1999; a framework partnership with the European Commission's humanitarian aid department in 2002; the response to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami; and membership of the UK Disasters Emergency Committee from 2005. ¹ In 2014 it signed a memorandum with the Lutheran World Federation, described as the first of its kind between global Islamic and Christian humanitarian organisations. ¹ In August 2015 it launched, with partner organisations, the Islamic Declaration on Climate Change. ¹

The Islamic Relief federation is made up of member offices that raise funds nationally and country offices that run projects; Islamic Relief Worldwide is its international office. ¹ In 2020 it created the International General Assembly, its highest body, which elects the board of trustees. ¹ Its affiliates include TIC International, which runs its charity shops and clothes recycling (1993), the International Waqf Fund (2001) and the Humanitarian Academy for Development (2018). ¹

Awards the sources list include the UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction in Bangladesh as part of a national alliance (2013), Charity of the Year at the British Muslim Awards (2013), Charity of the Year at the Third Sector Awards (2022) and Charity of the Year at the Charity Times Awards (2023). ¹

In June 2014 Israel added the charity to a list of banned organisations, alleging that it funded Hamas; the charity denied it, a KPMG audit in late 2014 found no evidence of any link to terrorism, the Israeli government said its decision rested on information gathered over years, and the charity continues to challenge it in Israeli courts. ¹ In 2014 the United Arab Emirates designated it a terrorist organisation over alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood; the charity denied them and called itself a purely humanitarian organisation. In March 2023 a New Yorker investigation reported that the UAE had hired private investigators to look for such ties, and The New Yorker and the Associated Press linked the campaign to the UAE's rivalry with Qatar. ¹ The German government said in December 2020 that it had stopped funding the charity, and a Dutch minister said in 2021 that it would receive no subsidies. ¹

In July 2020 one of its directors resigned after The Times found antisemitic posts he had written in 2014 and 2015, which the then chief executive called unacceptable; the whole board stood down in August 2020 as part of governance reforms. ¹ In January 2021 the Charity Commission said it was satisfied with the improvements in vetting trustees, and an independent commission chaired by the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve concluded that the views expressed had not compromised the impartiality or integrity of its humanitarian programmes. ¹ In December 2025 GB News paid the charity damages over a claim that it had funded terrorism, after apologising publicly. ¹

In September 2026 the International General Assembly voted unanimously to expel Islamic Relief USA from the federation, after a dispute in which the US body had filed a federal lawsuit in March 2026; Islamic Relief USA called the decision a bad-faith step taken during court-ordered dispute resolution and said it would continue independently. ¹ The charity has Wikipedia articles in twelve languages. ¹

• English Wikipedia, "Islamic Relief", revision 1383866571. ¹
• Wikidata Q239714. ²