Under various names it had branches in Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Comoros, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, Tanzania, and the United States,[3] and "at its height" raised between $40 and $50 million a year in contributions worldwide.

[4] On 7 June 2004, the founder and former leader of AHIF, Aqeel Abdulaziz Aqeel al-Aqeel, was listed on an INTERPOL-United Nations Security Council Special Notice for being associated with Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or the Taliban for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts of activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of" Al-Qaeda.

[7][8] The Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation was founded in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 1988 with the aim of religious propagation and charity, but moved its headquarters to Riyadh in 1992.

[10] According to author Jimmy Gurul, the US government had evidence that "AHIF offices and representatives operating throughout Africa, Asia, and Europe provided financial and logistical support" to groups "designated foreign terrorist organizations by the US State Department", including al-Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Jemaah Islamiyah, Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya, Lashkar e-Taibah, and HAMAS.

[13] The foundation also undertook building and supervising mosques, schools, Islamic centers, scholarships for students in poor Muslim countries, organizing Shariah courses, distribution of Ramadan breakfasts and blankets in the winter.

[14] According to the Associated Press, Al-Qaeda provided funds to a suspect in the November 2002 bombing of an Israeli hotel in Kenya, using sympathizers inside Al-Haramain and other Islamic charities.

[4] A wholesale fish business financed with Al-Haramain funds used some of its profits to help the al Qaeda cell behind the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in East Africa.

"[16] The U.S. government accused Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation of Ashland, Oregon of sending $150,000 through Saudi Arabia to fund terrorist activities and support Chechen mujahideen under the guise of humanitarian aid.

[17] It also was accused of receiving money from Osama bin Laden in August 1998 and providing funding to an American imam who attended a training camp run by a terrorist organization in Pakistan.

Three individuals whose conversations were intercepted, Suliman al-Buthe, Wendell Belew and Asim Ghafoor, learned of the eavesdropping when U.S. officials accidentally delivered logs of phone calls to them.

[17] In August 2013, the group filed a petition with a committee of the United Nations Security Council to remove the nonprofit from its list of entities associated with al-Qaida.

[29] On 22 January 2004, in a joint press conference, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow and Adel al-Jubeir, Foreign Affairs Advisor to then Crown Prince Abdullah, called upon the United Nations Sanctions Committee to designate four branch offices of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation as financial supporters of terrorism.