Muslim Legal founder Hassan Shibly is representing controversial influencer Milo Yiannopoulos in connection with his recent deportation from the United States, an unlikely legal partnership drawing new attention to Shibly, his firm and an institutional record spanning CAIR, Islamic publishing and international Islamic leadership gatherings.
Yiannopoulos was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on August 27. The Department of Homeland Security said he entered the United States legally in May 2019, overstayed his visa and failed to appear for an immigration hearing, resulting in a final removal order issued July 22. He was deported to the United Kingdom the following day, according to Reuters.
A September 7 preservation letter signed by Shibly says Muslim Legal was retained by Yiannopoulos in connection with civil claims arising from reported statements, communications and conduct concerning his immigration status and alleged efforts to influence government action against him. The letter requests preservation of potentially relevant communications, electronic records and other evidence.
From Deportation to a London Mosque
The relationship quickly became more conspicuous following Yiannopoulos’s return to Britain. Shibly posted photographs of the two together in London and said they had entered a mosque so Yiannopoulos could observe Muslims praying. In his post, Shibly described Yiannopoulos as a former “leading anti-Muslim voice” who had become a friend.
Yiannopoulos separately posted a photograph accompanied by an Islamic hadith. The mosque visit and Islamic imagery prompted online speculation that Yiannopoulos had converted, though neither of the two posts announced a conversion.
The episode marks a striking reversal for a commentator who has long publicly identified as Catholic and argued that Christianity underpins the values of Western civilization.
Shibly’s Controversial Statements on America
Shibly’s own remarks about Muslim life in the United States provide broader context for his ideology. In remarks from 2025 later circulated online, Shibly asked why Muslims were living in the United States and said the answer he considered “excusable and justifiable” was if they were living there to “shift this country’s political direction and spiritual direction together,” while engaging in da’wah, or Islamic religious outreach and proselytizing. A video clip captures the remarks.
CAIR Personnel at Muslim Legal
Muslim Legal carries significant personnel continuity from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The firm’s own biography says Shibly served for a decade as executive director of CAIR-Florida before founding Muslim Legal, while its current team page lists Zanah Ghalawanji as of counsel for employment matters and Kimberly Noe-Lehenbauer as of counsel for civil rights.
Both attorneys previously worked within CAIR’s national legal operation. CAIR identified Noe-Lehenbauer as a “CAIR Civil Rights Attorney” and Legal Defense Fund staff attorney in a press release, while her professional biography says she spent five years as a senior staff attorney at the CAIR National Legal Defense Fund.
CAIR likewise identified Ghalawanji as a “CAIR Staff Attorney” in an announcement. Most clearly, a 2023 federal complaint lists Noe-Lehenbauer and Ghalawanji together under “CAIR NATIONAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND” at CAIR’s Washington headquarters. Muslim Legal’s founder spent a decade leading CAIR-Florida, while two current of-counsel attorneys previously served at the CAIR National Legal Defense Fund.
Shibly’s Publishing House Issued Explicitly Anti-Western Religious Material
Another little-reported element of Shibly’s background is Madania Publications. The Yaqeen Institute identifies Shibly as its founder, while a publishing-industry profile identifies him as “Publisher, Madania Publications.” A Madania edition of The Preservation of Hadith also credited him as production manager.
Among Madania’s releases was a revised U.S. edition of Hijab: The Islamic Commandments of Hijab. The Madania edition advances a sharply hostile view of Western social norms, declaring: “The Christians, Jews and atheists of the West are truly dangerous enemies of Muslims.” It also condemns Western influence over relations between men and women and argues for extensive gender segregation and covering requirements.
Shibly Taught at an Institution Shaped by Syria’s Baathist Religious Establishment
Shibly’s biography contains another underreported chapter in Syria. Yaqeen states that he “has taught courses at the Kuftaro Institution in Damascus, Syria,” an institution closely associated with longtime Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Kuftaro.
A Carnegie study says Kuftaro was the only member of Damascus’s ulama to support the Baath Party candidate in a pivotal 1957 parliamentary contest. He later became grand mufti and gained government favor, while Carnegie describes the Kuftaro Complex as becoming increasingly subordinate to the Syrian regime.
Kuftaro’s record also extended to the Iraq War. In March 2003, he issued a religious edict calling on Muslims to “resist invading forces using any and all means available to them”, explicitly including “martyrdom operations” against invading soldiers, according to contemporary reporting.
From CAIR-Florida to Istanbul’s Muslim Leadership Networks
Shibly’s international record also includes two appearances in Istanbul a decade apart. The official program for the May 2016 Global Donors Forum lists “Hassan Shibly, Executive Director, CAIR Florida, USA” as a discussant in a workshop titled “Confronting Extremism, Cultivating Diversity.”
The program names Qatari Sheikha Aisha Faleh Al-Thani as forum chair and lists Turkish MP Cemalettin Kani Torun, Turkish Red Crescent president Kerem Kınık and South African diplomat Ebrahim Rasool in its conveners and patrons section. It also identifies Ayşe Böhürler as a co-founder of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party and Meryem İlayda Atlas as editor-in-chief of Daily Sabah. Rasool later served as South Africa’s ambassador in Washington before Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared him persona non grata in March 2025, according to the AP.
A decade later, Shibly appeared in Istanbul at the July 13–18, 2026 Prophetic Strategy Summit. Its official speaker roster included Bilal Philips, whom the British government previously excluded from the country after saying he had engaged in “unacceptable behavior” by fomenting and justifying terrorism and seeking to provoke terrorist acts.
The Yiannopoulos case now places that record behind one of the more improbable legal partnerships in recent memory: a controversial influencer deported from the United States, represented by a former CAIR-Florida executive who has spoken openly about shifting America’s political and spiritual direction, founded a publisher that issued explicitly anti-Western religious material, taught at a Damascus institution shaped by Syria’s Baathist religious establishment, and later appeared at an Islamic leadership gatherings in Istanbul.