Cultivating thoughtful, confident Shiite leadership through education and community.
إِنَّ الْعِلْمَ حَيَاةُ الْقُلُوب
Misbah Trust believes that Education is one of the most powerful tools a young person can possess. For Shiite communities, excellence in study and professional life is about securing the respect and influence our community needs to thrive across generations.
When a student excels in their field, whether in law, medicine, engineering or business, they earn the standing and authority needed to represent their community with dignity and to speak with weight in institutions that shape policy, opportunity and public life. Misbah Trust’s vision is a future where Shiite youth can visibly impact Western societies without sacrificing their faith, heritage and obligations to their families and community.
University years should be a time to deepen knowledge, refine judgment, build enduring professional networks and prepare for serious responsibility. Integration means staying true to who you are. It is about mastering the systems around you while preserving the values, traditions and moral clarity that define our community.
Every student supported by Misbah Trust is part of a larger effort to strengthen our collective position for the future. The goal is to help young people become the kind of graduates who command respect and create opportunities for others.
Our Values
Education unlocks doors and expands what is possible for individuals and the community.
Mentors and experienced professionals walk alongside students, offering direction through complex systems so they navigate with confidence rather than in isolation.
Networks of students, alumni and mentors create shared strength, where one person’s success supports and lifts many others.
Cultural and religious heritage are treated as sources of resilience, ensuring ambition is always grounded in the depth of tradition.
Ali Reza Kamali founded Misbah Trust because he understands what it means to build a future when the starting point offers little.
Ali grew up in Shush, a working‑class neighborhood in South Tehran where most families were focused on paying rent and keeping food on the table. His father worked long hours in a modest job, his mother took on sewing and small tasks from home and Ali shared a crowded apartment with his siblings where privacy was rare and money was always counted twice before it was spent. Life was stable enough to be grateful for, but there was little margin and even less talk of opportunities beyond the neighborhood.
At school, Ali was one of the students who sat close to the front, not because anyone pushed him, but because he was genuinely drawn to books and numbers. One day a teacher showed the class a faded brochure and an old newspaper clipping about an Iranian student who had gone on to study in America and later returned to work on major projects back home. The story was simple, but it stayed with him; on the bus ride back to Shush, Ali kept thinking that if someone from an ordinary background could reach that level through study, then hard work in the classroom might be his way to change his own circumstances.
He spent the next years working odd jobs, saving what he could and studying English in the evenings while applying to universities abroad. After many rejections and setbacks, he finally secured a place at the University of Texas at Austin to study business, helped by a few small scholarships, personal loans and the quiet support of people who believed in his effort even when he had little else to offer.
He arrived in Texas with almost nothing; no money, no connections and no idea how the system worked. He spent his university years working double shifts at diners and cleaning offices just to pay tuition and rent. It was a grind that almost broke him more than once. But in his very first week of classes, he met Shirin, a student from Lebanon who was just as lost and determined as he was. That connection changed everything. They didn’t just study together; they became each other’s anchor in a foreign world. They got married right after graduation, proving that having someone who gets it, who understands your culture and your struggle, is the secret weapon for survival.
Over the next 40 years, Ali and Shirin built a life that would have seemed impossible back in Shush. Ali’s business took off, expanding from real estate projects in Texas to major investments across Europe and the US. He built his reputation by taking on complex commercial and industrial sites that others overlooked. Ali made many early, quietly structured investments to steadily build the capital base he needed for his long-term plans. The kinds of large-scale urban projects he was drawn to include landmark redevelopments like AllianceTexas in Fort Worth, TX, Pacific Park in Brooklyn, NY and Euroméditerranéen in Marseille, France. It was high-pressure work that demanded total precision and integrity. He navigated decades of market shifts by focusing on fundamentals, managing capital efficiently and building real relationships rather than chasing quick wins. Success didn’t come from a single breakthrough, but from forty years of showing up, delivering promises and providing steady, reliable results in a competitive industry.
Ali started Misbah Trust because he believes luck shouldn’t determine your future. He wants every talented Shiite student, no matter where they start, to have the scholarship, the mentorship and the community that he and Shirin had to build for themselves.
Why Our Work Matters
For too long, our community has had to navigate a quiet tension: the pressure to succeed in Western institutions versus the pull to stay true to their roots. Misbah Trust is here to change that.