Muhammad Ali Mojaradi can’t catch a break.
The Michigan-based educator founded an online learning platform called Persian Poetics in 2018, where he translates and teaches the Persian language and poetry.
But Mojaradi claimed his business has suffered because he has run into issues at various financial institutions due to his ethnic and religious background, including having his account frozen multiple times without warning. In addition, some of his students have stopped taking his courses, he said, because their payments got flagged by the banks to the government, and they were too scared to continue.
A quarter of the American Muslim population has faced hurdles while banking in the United States, according to a report released last week by the Institute of Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), a nonprofit that provides research about American Muslims. Challenges included not being allowed to open an account, having an account suspended or closed, and having payments subjected to extra scrutiny.
The study further found that Muslims were twice as likely as the general population to have issues with business and nonprofit accounts. The holy month of Ramadan, during which Muslims partake in fasting and increased charity, started this week, and Muslim Americans are worried that discrimination from financial institutions could hurt businesses and charities in their community during this critical time.
“It’s important for folks to understand that Islamophobia isn’t just a rude comment at the grocery store,” said Dalia Mogahed, the ISPU’s director of research. “It is inflicted on the community by the state and by institutions, and one form of that that we’re digging into here is financial institutions.”
Mojaradi said his issues with various financial institutions began almost immediately after starting his business. He said students’ PayPal payments to him were often delayed if they included phrases like “Iranian poetry” or “Persian poetry…
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