HISTORY

قُولُوا آمَنَّا بِاللَّهِ وَمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَيْنَا وَمَا أُنزِلَ إِلَىٰ إِبْرَاهِيمَ وَإِسْمَاعِيلَ وَإِسْحَاقَ وَيَعْقُوبَ وَالْأَسْبَاطِ وَمَا أُوتِيَ مُوسَىٰ وَعِيسَىٰ وَمَا أُوتِيَ النَّبِيُّونَ مِن رَّبِّهِمْ لَا نُفَرِّقُ بَيْنَ أَحَدٍ مِّنْهُمْ وَنَحْنُ لَهُ مُسْلِمُونَ

So [you believers], say, ‘We believe in God and in what was sent down to us and what was sent down to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, and what was given to Moses, Jesus, and all the prophets by their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we devote ourselves to Him.’ (Qur'an 2:136)

IMAN's roots trace back to 1989, when a handful of Shia Ithna-asheri Muslim families relocated to Seattle's Eastside to pursue their careers. At the suggestion — and insistence — of Sr. Kaniz Fatima Khaki, these families started a small Sunday school for their children at the Islamic School of Seattle. As the group grew, the school moved to the Khaki family's home in Sammamish, and later to a Kumon Math & Reading Center location in Redmond to accommodate the growing weekly Sunday gatherings, before moving again in 2002–2003 to Bellevue Community College and eventually to IMAN's permanent home at 515 State Street, Kirkland. Alongside the Sunday school, that same small community held Muharram and Ramadhan gatherings in members' homes and organized funeral services when called upon for deceased members of the Muslim community (the majority of whom were aging Iranian diaspora who had connection with their Islamic roots) in the Puget Sound area — the weekly Sunday madrasah, home-based religious gatherings, and communal funeral care together were the roots from which IMAN grew.

By 1997, that informal community had grown enough to organize formally: IMAN — the Ithna-asheri Muslim Association of the Northwest — was incorporated in Washington State on August 5, 1997. The corporation's five Founding Directors were Mohamed Jawad Khaki, Jameel Hyder, Mujib Ahmed, Bashir Dewji, and Iqbal Rizvi, with Br. Sameer Tejani serving as the organization's incorporator and first registered agent; Br. Jawad Khaki went on to lead the young organization as its founding President. Formal bylaws, adopted the following spring on March 30, 1998, set out IMAN's founding mission: to pursue the religious, educational, and cultural life of the Shia Ithna-asheri community, to serve as a center for Shia Ithna-asheri Muslims in Washington State, to assist with religious and social ceremonies such as marriage and funerals, and to perform charitable work for needy families irrespective of their religious beliefs. That first community gathered twice a month on Friday evenings at the Lake Hills Club in Bellevue — prayers, a short lecture, and a chance to be together — with a Ramadhan program and Eid prayers held at the Kirkland Women's Club. Attendance in those earliest days was modest, often no more than twenty people, but the ambition was not: from nearly the beginning, IMAN set out to build a permanent home of its own.

That ambition would take more than a decade to realize. IMAN's first piece of property, later known as "IMAN.1," was purchased in 1998 at 1919 152nd Place NE in Bellevue, near the intersection of Northup Way and Bel-Red Road, not long after incorporation. The community soon followed it with a second, larger purchase — a 4.38-acre parcel known as "IMAN.2," at 1200 173rd Avenue NE in Bellevue's Tam-O-Shanter West and Sutton Place subdivisions — and began planning a purpose-built Islamic Center there, a project the young organization funded largely through its members' own contributions. The path was not straightforward — wetlands on the property and, later, opposition from neighbors repeatedly forced the plans back to the drawing board. Through it all, IMAN kept growing: a Weekend Madrasah for children took shape under Principal Jawad Khaki and a small team of dedicated teachers, a Social Services effort began quietly helping local families, and in the days after September 11, 2001, IMAN's leaders stepped forward into the region's interfaith community, joining the Eastside Interfaith Social Concerns Council and standing publicly alongside neighbors of other faiths.

In November 2004, IMAN purchased a building in Kirkland — the site that remains its home today; the two Bellevue parcels were sold, at appreciated prices, in the years that followed. It was a turning point. Over the next several years, under a remodeling effort led by Br. Samad Faghih and Br. Hamed Esfahani, the community transformed that building into a proper Islamic Center: new mechanical and electrical systems, an expanded prayer hall, and dedicated classroom space. When construction wrapped up just in time for Ramadhan in September 2008, the report marking the occasion called it simply "a significant milestone in the history of IMAN" — eleven years, almost to the day, after the community had first set out to build a home of its own. More than a hundred guests, including Kirkland's mayor and local interfaith leaders, joined the celebration that followed.

The years since have been a story of steady growth alongside deepening service to the broader community. IMAN's Sunday School grew from a few dozen children meeting in borrowed space to a program serving well over a hundred students at its peak, with dozens of volunteer teachers. In 2001, IMAN joined an interfaith coalition of churches, synagogues, and mosques to build homes with Habitat for Humanity — a partnership called "Together We Build" that has channeled community giving into disaster relief worldwide and affordable housing on the Eastside. As waves of refugees arrived in the Pacific Northwest from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the 2010s, IMAN's Social Services committee grew alongside the need, expanding its support to families from many different countries of origin.

Leadership passed through a natural cycle in these years, much as the founders had planned. Br. Jawad Khaki stepped down as President in 2011, and Br. Hamed Esfahani led the organization for the next several years. In 2017 — IMAN's 20th anniversary — Br. Khaki returned to the Presidency, a role he has held since, and that same year the community began what has become one of its longest-running local partnerships: a monthly community dinner with Kirkland's St. John's Episcopal Church that continues today.

When the COVID-19 pandemic reached Washington State in March 2020, IMAN's Executive Committee made the difficult call to close the Center's doors to in-person gatherings for the first time in its history. What followed was a rapid reinvention: Friday prayers, Sunday School, and holiday programs all moved online, a newly formalized IMAN Youth Committee gave teenagers a real leadership role in the community, and Social Services pivoted to meet an urgent local need — delivering meals to homeless encampments and shelters and channeling emergency grants to Eastside food banks and support networks. On October 15, 2022, with the pandemic's worst behind it, IMAN marked its 25th anniversary alongside a celebration of the Prophet Muhammad's ﷺ birthday, a fitting pairing for a community whose faith and service have always moved together.

Today, IMAN is preparing for its next chapter. Architect Paul Wu began designing an expansion of IMAN's Kirkland home — a new multipurpose hall, an expanded prayer space, and facilities to better support the Center's growing programs — and has graciously continued to offer his services pro bono; in 2026, the architecture firm MG2 took up the project to carry that design forward. Meanwhile, IMAN's Social Services committee continues to respond to crises near and far, from supporting disaster relief in various parts of the world to humanitarian aid for displaced families in Gaza, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. As the founding generation that built IMAN from a handful of families into an established Eastside institution now looks toward the future, the community has begun deliberately investing in the next generation of leadership — a recognition that the same spirit of quiet, patient community-building that started with a few dozen people at the Lake Hills Club nearly thirty years ago is what will carry IMAN forward for decades to come.

Key milestones

1989 — A handful of Shia Muslim families on Seattle's Eastside start a weekly Sunday school for their children, at Sr. Kaniz Fatima Khaki's urging — the informal beginning of what becomes IMAN's Sunday Madrasah, alongside home-based Muharram and Ramadhan gatherings and community funeral services.
August 5, 1997 — IMAN is formally incorporated in Washington State. Its five Founding Directors are Mohamed Jawad Khaki, Jameel Hyder, Mujib Ahmed, Bashir Dewji, and Iqbal Rizvi, with Sameer Tejani serving as incorporator; Br. Jawad Khaki becomes IMAN's founding President, and bylaws are adopted the following March.
1998 — IMAN purchases its first property, "IMAN.1," at 1919 152nd Place NE in Bellevue.
1999 — IMAN purchases a second, larger Bellevue parcel, "IMAN.2" (4.38 acres, at 1200 173rd Avenue NE), with plans to build a permanent Islamic Center there.
2001 — Joins the interfaith "Together We Build" coalition with Habitat for Humanity, and stands with the broader Eastside interfaith community after September 11.
November 2004 — Purchases the building in Kirkland that remains IMAN's home today.
September 2008 — Completes a major remodel of the Kirkland center, eleven years after first setting out to build a permanent home.