Obama Pledges to Help Muslim Americans Fulfill Their Religious Giving Obligations

President Obama this month made a public pledge to help American Muslims give to charity, a move that was applauded by several Islamic charities and civil-rights groups.

During a speech he gave in Cairo to improve relations with the Islamic world, the president said Muslim countries and America must work to preserve freedom of religion, citing philanthropy as an example.

“For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That’s why I’m committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat,” he told an audience at Cairo University.

Zakat is one of the five main tenets of Islam and requires Muslims to donate at least 2.5 percent of their assets to the needy every year. American Islamic charities have said that government scrutiny of their groups has chilled giving.

The White House did not respond to e-mail and phone messages seeking further comment on the president’s pledge.

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Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, a group in San Francisco that trains Islamic charities in financial and management practices, praised Mr. Obama’s statement and said the president should make several policy changes to ease concerns among Muslims.

For example, she would like the administration to rescind a presidential executive order that allows government authorities to freeze a charity’s assets indefinitely and scrap giving guidelines issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. The guidelines are to help ensure that overseas philanthropy to areas like the Palestinian territories and Pakistan does not inadvertently support terrorists. While voluntary, the guidelines are considered too onerous by many nonprofit groups.

“We were very grateful that the president acknowledged this as an issue,” Ms. Khera said about the president’s comments about Muslim giving. “We’re hopeful he’s a man of his word and we’ll see some progress.”