There is a du’a many of us have never had to make: “O Allah, give me somewhere safe to sleep tonight.” For Muslim women across the United States who have fled domestic violence, escaped homelessness, or found themselves without family and without options, that prayer has an answer — one that was built over five decades of sacrifice, faith, and the refusal of one woman to accept that the Muslim community could not do better. Muslimat Al-Nisaa, operating under Inge Benevolent Ministries, is that answer. And the AMCF donors who support their work are part of making it real.
A Nurse, a Prayer, and a House
The story of Muslimat Al-Nisaa begins not in 1987, but a full decade earlier — with a nurse practitioner who saw suffering in her community and refused to look away.
In 1975, Dr. Chaplain Asma Inge-Hanif initiated Al Nisaa Health, Education & Social Services Organization in response to the urgent need for accessible healthcare for uninsured individuals in her community. From that first act of service, a lifetime of service followed.
By 1980, the work had deepened in ways she hadn’t anticipated. Using revenues from her own medical clinic, Dr. Inge-Hanif established a shelter after discovering the presence of Muslim women who were victims of domestic violence and in urgent need of safe refuge. She did not wait for a committee, a grant, or a community mandate. She saw the need and she acted — with her own resources, on her own initiative.
As the demands for shelter services continued to grow beyond what she could sustain through her clinic alone, she began seeking financial support from the community. In 1987, to properly accept donations and provide tax-deductible receipts, she formally incorporated the organization as Muslimat Al-Nisaa — giving a legal structure to what had already been, for over a decade, a living act of faith.
What followed was a journey most people would have abandoned. Years of mosque visits. Repeated rejections. Community skepticism. And through all of it, an unwillingness to close the door on a single woman in need.
Today, Muslimat Al-Nisaa has the distinction of operating one of the first — and today, the largest — independent Muslim women’s shelters in the United States, serving over 5,000 individuals each year.
More Than a Shelter
The phrase on Muslimat Al-Nisaa’s own materials — More Than a Shelter — is not marketing language. It is a precise description of an intentional philosophy.
The Muslimat Al-Nisaa HOME Center was designed to address the problem of homelessness within the Muslim community, seeking to provide shelter, skills training, medical care, employment assistance, and counseling to foster economic self-reliance in its participants.
At the heart of that model is a simple but demanding conviction. The goal is not just to provide a bed — it is to walk alongside each woman until she can stand on her own. Each resident agrees to a self-sufficiency plan and participates in the trainings and classes offered — and in return, the shelter commits to supporting her every step toward regaining independence.
Programs include basic life skills and home economics training, formal education and vocational courses, GED and high school diploma programs, tutoring and ESL classes, certification training in careers like nursing assistant and childcare provider, job readiness workshops covering résumé writing and interview coaching, and an emphasis on connecting women to supportive employment.
And woven through all of it is the thing that mainstream shelters so rarely provide: cultural competence as a cornerstone. The shelter understands the importance of Islamic rituals, modest dress, and familiar dietary needs. Residents pray together five times daily, share halal meals, and support one another in rebuilding their lives.
For many of the women who arrive at Muslimat Al-Nisaa, that cultural sensitivity is not a secondary comfort — it is what makes the difference between a place they can heal and a place they cannot stay.
A Milestone Worth Celebrating
This year, Dr. Chaplain Asma Inge-Hanif completed a journey she began ten years ago: earning her Doctorate degree from Hartford International University of Religion and Peace, graduating on May 14th. Alhamdulillah.
It is a milestone that speaks to the same relentless determination that built Muslimat Al-Nisaa — a refusal to stop, to settle, or to give up on what she set out to accomplish. The AMCF community celebrates Dr. Inge-Hanif not only for this achievement, but for the decades of sacrifice behind it, and the two years of health trials she navigated on her way to the finish line.
In Her Own Words
“I don’t want to answer to my Lord when He says to me, ‘Asma, one of my servants came to you for help, and you turned her away.’ That’s the reason why I do this — because I don’t want to have that conversation with my Lord.”
“I would rather for the Muslim women in the house to be angry with me than to become disheartened with the community. If nothing else, Allah will make it right on the Day of Judgment.”
— Dr. Chaplain Asma Inge-Hanif, DMin, ANP, Executive Director, Muslimat Al-Nisaa Shelter / Inge Benevolent Ministries
Why This Work Matters to the Muslim Philanthropic Ecosystem
The existence of Muslimat Al-Nisaa forces a reckoning that the Muslim community has not always been willing to have: that domestic violence, homelessness, and the isolation of vulnerable women are not problems that exist elsewhere. They exist in our masajids, our neighborhoods, our families. And for decades, women in crisis had nowhere to turn that understood them.
Dr. Inge-Hanif built Muslimat Al-Nisaa because the community hadn’t. She opened her clinic and then her shelter because no one else had. She absorbed rejection after rejection and kept going. She earned a doctorate while running a shelter and recovering from illness. That is not a story about what charity can accomplish — it is a story about what relentless, faith-driven determination looks like when a person refuses to accept the absence of something that should exist.
For AMCF donors, supporting Muslimat Al-Nisaa through a donor-advised fund or giving circle is an act of solidarity with the most vulnerable members of the Muslim community — the women whose struggles are too often hidden and whose needs are too rarely prioritized. Dr. Inge-Hanif has carried this work largely alone for fifty years. It is long past time for the wider community to carry it with her.
Support Muslimat Al-Nisaa Through AMCF
Through your AMCF donor-advised fund, endowment, or giving circle, you can direct your charitable dollars toward Muslimat Al-Nisaa — funding the shelter beds, skills training, halal meals, and culturally competent care that Muslim women in crisis deserve.