At the time, Olajuwon was vice president of the mosque — which was named after him — and provided more than three-quarters of its money. Olajuwon heads the separate foundation that now controls the Islamic Da'Wah Center.

All the donations came before the government designated the Holy Land Foundation and the Islamic African Relief Agency as terrorist fronts. Vipul Worah, an accountant for Olajuwon's charities, said U.S. authorities have never asked about the contributions.

Olajuwon, who is married with four daughters, became a Muslim during his professional career and was known for playing in key games while observing dawn-to-dusk fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Tax returns for Olajuwon's Islamic Da'Wah Center show it gave the Islamic African Relief Agency $61,250 in 2000 and $20,000 in 2002.

Those donations accounted for 2.2 percent of the $2.8 million the Islamic African Relief Agency received during 2000 and 1.4 percent of the $1.4 million it raised in 2002, records show.

Olajuwon said the donations came after fund-raisers from the Islamic African Relief Agency visited Houston. He said the group told him donations would help the needy in Africa.

"They came and approached us and everything was legitimate. I had no knowledge of their activity," Olajuwon said.

The Treasury Department alleged in October that several top officials of the group's branches overseas are al-Qaida members or associates and the group gave bin Laden hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1999.

The federal government says the Sudan-based Islamic African Relief Agency's U.S. branch is IARA-USA, based in Columbia, Mo. That group has challenged the terrorist designation in court, saying it is separate from the Sudanese group.

Shereef Akeel, a lawyer for IARA-USA, acknowledged the U.S. group and the Sudanese group "may be in a partnership together" and some people with links to IARA-USA have terrorist associations.

"Just because someone traveled in the same circles, just because one employee was at the same conference as someone who supported terrorism, doesn't mean the organization sponsors or condones acts of terrorism," Akeel said.

The Holy Land Foundation was shut down in December 2001. Federal authorities say it was the main U.S. fund-raiser for Hamas and sent $12.4 million to the Palestinian terrorist group from 1995 to 2001. Hamas has claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide bombings in Israel that have killed scores of people, including Americans.