30 Masjids 🟩

By Aman and Bassam

Dear dedicated readers, we are recuperating these last three days. Bear with us as we are in the process of making our last posts. There are a wealth of stories we couldn’t fit in the blog. Today, we talk about a small and hopeful story about an Islamic center and their generous neighbors.

They knew that there was a church close to them when they were began building the Memphis Islamic Center, they just didn’t know what kind of a church it was.

“We were planning to go by,” Danish Siddiqi, the communications director of the Memphis Islamic Center, says, “they just got to us before we could.”

Within days of the construction starting, the Heartsong Church, the coincidental nieghbors of the mosque, put out a sign.

“We couldn’t believe what it said.” Danish chuckles.

The sign read, “Heartsong Church welcomes the Memphis Islamic Center to the neighborhood.”

The Muslim community was taken aback by the sign. Soon enough, they paid their visit to the pastor of the church.

“Steven Stone is an incredibly generous and hospitable man.” Danish says with excitement.

Dr. Steve Stone is the pastor of the Heartsong Church, affiliated with the United Methodist Church and has been instrumental in being hospitable to his new neighbors.

“Last Ramadan the church had a family day and organized a ‘no pork bbq’ for us.” Danish tells me.

But since it was Ramadan and the Muslims were fasting they couldn’t eat the food, but still appreciated the warm gesture. It was this year, when the relationship between the mosque and the Heartsong Church got even stronger.

The plan was to have the mosque built before the start of Ramadan so they can start holding the special Eid prayers there. Unfortunately, the mosque was behind schedule and it didn’t seem like the construction would be complete for Ramadan. Danish and the board members began to scour and find a place that they could rent.

“We tried all other options, but couldn’t find a big enough space. So that’s when we decided to go ask the pastor.”

Dr. Steve said that he wouldn’t rent the space to them, but instead, would give it to them free for as long as they want.

“Again, we couldn’t believe it. We insisted on paying, but they refused the money.”

The Heartsong Church hosted all 30 days of Ramadan taraweeh, the special night prayer during the month, in their large auditorium. Church members also stood by the door greeting the Muslim congregants that came to pray.

“It’s like the doors miraculously open for us when we come here,” Yasir Qadhi, a prominent Islamic scholar, said to me the day I attended the mosque. For those who don’t know, Yasir Qadhi recently took up a position at the Memphis Islamic Center as the resident scholar.

“Yeah, I never thought I’d end up in Memphis,” Yasir says, “but this place is great.”

Aman and I didn’t get to spend as much time in Memphis as we wish we had, but the time we spent with Chip and Eunice and then at the Heartsong Church gave us a small glimpse on what true interfaith community building looks like.

“This entire episode, makes us scratch our heads. And ask us how much do we even know the nieghbors we live around?” Danish says to me.

Future

The Memphis Islamic Center is stil in the process of being built, but are hoping for the building to be completed fairly soon. In the back, the board members have contemplated creating a baseball field for the youth. Many in the community weren’t sure if there were enough Muslims that play baseball, but Danish begs to differ.

“Sure, right now there are more folks that want to play cricket. But I don’t think that’ll be the case with their kids.” Danish chuckles.

Building a baseball field is not just important for their own community, but Danish sees this as an opportunity to return the kind gesture. The Heartsong Church is in need of a baseball field to host home games and the Memphis Islamic Center is looking to be their home.

By Aman Ali

Dr. Malika Haque is one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever met.

Her family is best friends with mine and she always believed in everything I’ve ever done growing up. When I was in high school and wanted to become a reporter, my parents were supportive but somewhat reserved about how stable the career could be. Growing up in Columbus, there really were no Muslims at the time that had gone into the field, so I was essentially taking a huge risk in their eyes.

My parents no longer live here, so breaking my last fast of this remarkable journey made sense to spend it with one of the aunties in this community that literally helped raise me. During dinner, Malika Aunty reminded me of the speech she gave during my high school graduation party in 2003 that I completely forgot about. It was the speech that helped comfort my parents who were worried about my career choice.

“Do you remember what I said during that speech?” she asked. “I said, ‘You’re going to grow up to be a great journalist and one day I’m going to see you on CNN.’”

She was right.

I’m not bringing this story up to pat myself on the back (yuck!). I am simply the reflection of people like her and her husband Azeez that pioneered the Muslim community here in Columbus. I grew up attending the Islamic Center in downtown Columbus and I laughed hysterically when Azeez Uncle told me the story that I didn’t know about how the mosque was established.

In the 1970s, there was no mosque in Columbus at the time and a group of Muslim families had their eye on a downtown property that cost $55,000. The Muslim families were able to raise about $30,000 and were worried they’d have to take out a loan for the remaining $25,000. Islam forbids Muslims from paying interest and everyone was afraid they’d have to if they took a loan out.

But then, a Kuwaiti student got word of the dilemma and came to a planning meeting for the mosque …. with a briefcase filled with $25,000 in cash.

“That’s one thing the Arab students were good for,” Azeez Uncle said with a chuckle.

That mosque is old but still active. These days though, the shining light of the Muslim community is now the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, the new colossal mosque that the Haque family also helped pioneer. It seems to be the only place in town that can contain the Muslim population that seems to be growing exponentially.

I haven’t seen Malika Aunty in quite some time and wanted to catch up with what she’s been up to. I was completely unaware of a remarkable new endeavor she help spearheaded called The Noor Community Clinic. The clinic is staffed entirely by Muslims and gears its services to anyone uninsured – regardless of religious affiliation. She doesn’t do any of this work for praise, but I’m glad someone like her is getting recognition for something like this.

I’m fascinated by this much needed endeavor she’s taken on but our conversation is pleasantly cut short by the arrival of her daughter Masu and her husband Badr. The couple live in Houston with their two children and Malika Aunty hurried to the door to greet her adorable grandkids. It’s the night before Eid and the family excitement is already reverberating around the house to celebrate the end of another amazing Ramadan. Malika Aunty’s face begins to glow as she sits her granddaughter Rayya down and decorates her hands with henna and outfits her in some fancy clothes.

I want to stay longer, but Bassam and I have to hit the road for our own Eid plans in the morning in Detroit. Before I get into the car, I think about all the places we’ve gone on this 13,000 + mile journey. Then I look at Malika Aunty’s magnetizing smile and remember one of the reasons why I was able to take this trip to begin with.

By Bassam Tariq

Note: Due to certain concerns, the subject of our post has been renamed and is not present in any of the photos. Instead, we present to you his workspace, blue prints and completed designs to help tell his compelling story.

Right now, in the heart of Lexington, Kentucky a white man with a thick southern accent is designing a mosque. He is designing the walls, the arched windows, the domes, and the inevitable trouble that local community members will have with the space.

“I’ve wanted to be an architect since I was a kid.”

This man is Brian and Brian is an architect. He runs his own small architecture firm in Lexington and works on whatever he pleases.

“When I stepped out on my own, my first building project was a mosque.” Brian says, “it’s also around that time that I accepted Islam.”

“It was quite a way to get acclimated into the community.” Laughs Brian.

Brian keeps thing light and easy. His sarcasm is dry and is realized only by his smirk. Today, he’s wearing a red polo and gray khakis, but admits that he likes to be more casual than this. On zonal hearings, where he’s been spending a lot of his time these days, he’ll wear a tie and suit.

The Hearings

“Zonal hearings suck the life out of you.”

As one may assume, Brian has sat in one-two many zonal hearings where the neighbors of said mosque site will come out in numbers to either respectfully or venomously oppose the mosque construction.

“A lot of people that come are concerned with very normal issues, like lighting, crowding. They don’t care about religion, but Muslims still take offense.”

Brian prides himself in having a thick skin and encourages the Muslim congregnats to not show up.

“But some people will rant about Shariah and terrorism. Stuff that has nothing to do with zonal hearings.”

This example of hatred spewing happened in West Virginia, where the public hearing became contentious very quick.

“If you took the temperature in the room,” Brian says, “you’d think it wouldn’t be approved. All the Muslims were getting so worked up and I just told them to not worry, it will pass.”

And soon enough, the West Virginia City Council approved the plans to build the mosque. Turns out the concerns of the public weren’t relevant, after all, it was about zonal hearing.

“It always happens. The loud ones drown out the rest, and make everyone who oppose the plan seem a little bigoted.”

Brian is thoughtful and considerate, he understands where a lot of the valid concerns come from. He grew up in Kentucky and has quite a few conservative folks in his family. Oddly, this gives him the edge he needs in these hearings to defend the community and the plans.

Building Fun

“Masjids take years. I sometimes outlive my clients!” Brian says laughing.

Brian has learned a lot from designing mosques. His first mosque project was in a rural town in Kentucky and he didn’t know what he was getting into. Not only did he just embrace Islam, but he also embraced a large community and its issues.

“At the time there were less than 12 people in the community and they were building a mosque for 120 people.” Brian remembers.

After the building was completed, he went back to the mosque and saw that the congregation had tripled.

“It was incredibly fulfilling because you feel a part of this,” he says smiling, “It’s not just a beautiful building, but its meaningful work.”

Though mosque building has been rewarding for Brian, it has its fair share of frustrations. When we start talking about difficulties, I ask him to make a list –

Frustration

“Its frustrating when someone from the mosque will say, ‘I just want it to look like a mosque’.” Brian recollects, “which really means, make it look like the mosques from back home. They don’t realize that they aren’t building for themselves, but for their kids.”

I asked what he thought of long minarets and chandeliers…

“I think minarets and chandeliers are beautiful, beautiful waste of money,” he says with his signature wit (poetry to my ears).

Mosque development teams usually consist of those that are putting the majority of the money down – primarily rich doctors and uncles who understandably want a say in everything about the mosque. This sometimes makes the mosque development team an insular group of folks that are not representative of the congregants that attend the mosque. It’s also where you also get the unnecessary extravagances in the building.

“Once, a man pledged to donate $25,000 with the condition that there would be a minaret connected to the mosque.”

“Wait, why did it have to be connected?” I interrupt.

“Long story… but it turned out it would cost more money to build a connected minaret than it would help us in the funding.”

Brian laughs it off. He does that with a lot of the ludicrous stories he shares.

“I just don’t think its virtuous to make your mosque look transplant. It’s important that it has the same vernacular as the rest of the community around it.”

Brian’s first designed and completed mosque in Prestonsberg, KY

Another completed design by Brian in Somerset. Brian takes pride in designing mosques in the south.

Million Dollar Question

But challenging the extravagance or the mosque designs from the Muslim world isn’t the hardest part. The hardest part comes with the million dollar question that he now asks every building committee in their initial meetings.

“It’s my first question to the board,” he says, “where will the women go?”

It’s a tough one. Brian has been trying hard to figure out what the most ideal space for woman is and he can’t seem to find a single answer.

“I’ve seen that the loft solution has worked well. Have women on the top and they can still see the speaker.” Brian pauses to think for a second, “you know, I don’t think there is a single ideal solution for women. It’s always a tough question to answer.”

As we discuss this issue, a girl from the community shows up, Essma Amry, a Muslim interior designer. Brian stops her and asks her what she thinks.

Essma is quick to respond, “well, you know there isn’t a single space that will work for every community.”

Brian interrupts her, “But the question is, will whatever they set up now be sustainable for the future. Are these communities thinking about that?”

Brian poses smart questions. He is less concerned about this generation and is more concerned about his kids’.

“We need to start building with our kids in mind. They won’t be who their parents were.” he says with confidence, “As far as I know, I’m what the future of what Muslim America looks like.

In a perfect world..

Brian may come off as being overly critical about his work, but he is anything but. Like all of us, Brian loves his community and knows it can strive for something greater. I turn the tables on Brian as he started going into theories of architecture and asked him point blank – so what does the ideal mosque in the US look like in Brian’s eyes?

He pauses for a moment –

“The ideal mosque would come out of its place, share the vernacular of its place.”

Brian told me about Shaker Town, Kentucky. Where the entire town was built with God consciousness. There was a specific way light hit the buildings and it evoked certain emotions and feelings that worked incredibly well with where it was.

“And that’s il because the people will change, the weather will change, but the building’s not going to change. The architecture lives on. It lives on to keep telling its story.”

By Aman Ali

Chip Ordman is a reform Jew and his wife Eunice is a Christian. The couple attend mosques in Memphis 2-3 times a month for Friday prayers, potluck dinners and other events.

“The more people get to know each other, the more they’ll get along,” Eunice said.

I first met Chip in April this year for a standup show I did for the Memphis Islamic Center, a ridiculously awesome mosque being built here that we’ll talk about in a coming post. The Ordmans are a part of the Memphis InterReligious Group that encourage Muslims, Christians and Jews to hang out with each other and attend each other’s services. I’ve done a lot of traveling across the country and I’ve never seen an interfaith community like Memphis where a guy like Chip comes to mosques for Friday prayers and chat about the khutbah sermons afterwards with congregants.

“When it comes to visiting mosques, churches and synagogues, I often find that questions I have about one religion are answered by another,” he said.

Chip and Eunice met us to break our fast at the Muslim Society of Memphis, a simple mosque packed with congregants. He was wearing a north African Jewish yarmulke that I initially mistook for a kufi, a hat Muslim men often wear during prayer. Seeing him at the mosque with his hat and fluffy cotton beard made him blend in with just about everyone there.

After dinner, the Ordmans invite us into their home nearby. Their home is actually two condos they combined – one to live in and another to host interfaith gatherings in. Chip’s a goofy guy that loves to tell whacky stories about him and his wife’s travels around the world and points to many of the global souvenirs around the house that they’ve collected.

Chip and I begin talking about religious attire and he’s quick to pull out several items that many orthodox Jews wear during their regular morning prayers.

The Ordmans are actively concerned with the Israeli Palestinian peace issue and regularly got involved in the Muslim community here about 2-3 years ago. At the time, a group of Israelis crashed a peaceful pro-Palestine rally and sprayed protesters with tear gas. In 2008, the Muslim community in Memphis honored the couple with an award that Eunice proudly pulled out of her cloth bag during our conversation with her.

I asked the Ordmans how they’ve been received by Muslims as they regularly frequent Islamic events. Chip said he’s been received well but Eunice said she couldn’t say the same.

“Many of the women here will criticize me because I have a few stands of hair showing from my headscarf,” she said. “I’ll be sitting in a chair to the side of the room while they’re praying so clearly they know that I’m not Muslim.”

What I admire about the Ordmans is their passion for building interfaith relations in the community. But all religions embracing each other here is a common trait here, according to one of my friends Danish who lives here.

“The Christians here are very welcoming of Muslims because they actually adhere to what they believe,” he said.

It’s hard to believe, only a few hours away in Murfreesboro, a small town outside of Nashville, a national spotlight has been placed on those Muslims’ struggle to build a mosque amidst community opposition. But Murfreesboro isn’t the only community dealing with mosque opposition in this country, so I asked Chip how Muslims can avoid it.

“Before you build a mosque, you need to start by listening,” he said. “Go out into the community and make clear to everyone that you just want to listen.”

I admire the Ordman’s wholehearted and sincere interest in hanging out with Muslims here in Memphis. I ask him if he thinks Muslims here reciprocate that interest and hang out in churches and temples.

“They do, but I’d like to see more,” he said. “But I understand, many Muslims might feel a little nervous coming to a church because they might not understand the theology. But what I’d like to see is a mosque calling up a church and saying ‘Hi, we’d like to send one of our youth groups to attend one of your church services.”

With all the time the Ordmans spend at mosques, I have to ask if any Muslims have tried to convert them. Chip lets out a chuckle and responds.

“I’m quite happy with my tribe,” he said. “There’s so much mutual understanding and interfaith work that needs to be done. I feel like converting would disqualify myself from doing that.”

Chip is 65 and Eunice is 86. The two married in the 1980s and their chemistry is unmistakable. In just about every conversation, Chip would begin by saying something and Eunice would segway right in and finish his sentence. I love speaking to happy older couples and always have to ask what’s their secret.

“Instead of compromising, in a marriage you each have to give 100 percent,” she said as she grasped her husband’s hand.

Go ahead and say it, “Awwwww.”

By Bassam Tariq

Aziza Igram, a first generation Muslim American, shares a photo of the Mother Mosque, or as it was called back in the 1930’s the “Moslem Temple”

Note: There are many families that have helped build the Cedar Rapids Muslim community. Unfortunately, I was only able to meet with a small portion of them. So please take these small accounts and stories as part of a larger history.

Many mistake the Mother Mosque as being the first mosque in North America, but as we blogged a couple of days ago, Ross, North Dakota was the site of the first mosque in 1929. What makes the Mother Mosque so important though is that it’s the longest standing mosque, established in 1934.

Throughout the 1800′s there were many Muslims that emigrated to the states to work at factories, railroads, etc., but very few of them were able to create sustainable communities. The Mother Mosque is a nationally recognized historic site and is preserved by Imam Taha. Since the Cedar Rapids Muslim community moved to a larger mosque, the Mother Mosque now serves more as a historical landmark and cultural information center.

The Mother Mosque was known by a couple of names: Naadi (club or hangout) by the Arab youth and Moslem Temple by the sign outside.

The basement of the Mother Mosque is lined with photos and news pieces showcasing a rich history covered by the local papers and tv outlets. From the first news clipping and photo of the congregants outside of the mosque to pictures of the aftermath of the drastic Iowa floods that desecrated hundreds of important books, Imam Taha and the community have done a great job preserving the history of the mosque.

The Mother Mosque is now a nationally recognized historic site.

In the basement of the Mother Mosque Imam Taha shows Aman and I a local news story covering the mosque in the early 90’s.

Imam Taha leads a small congregation inside the Mother Mosque. The Mother Mosque is not a functioning mosque, it moved in the 1970’s to a larger building.

The large mosque was built in the 1970s when the congregation grew out of the Mother Mosque.

Unlike most of the Muslim communities in America, Cedar Rapids is home to a large community of third, fourth or even fifth generation American Muslims. Aman and I, both coming from largely first generation Muslim communities, wanted to learn more about these folks.

Today, on a cloudy Labor day, we sit with Fatima Igram, a third generation American Muslim, at her house as she shares some important photos with us from her community. .

Fatima, daughter of Aziza Igram, smiles at the camera as she shows significant photos from the family albums.

A social gathering inside the Mother Mosque in the basement. Fatima sits in the middle, uneasy because the boy to her right always tries to sit next to her.

Her father, Abdullah Igram, was in the military and was stationed in New Guinea during World War II. When he was getting his dog tag made, he was asked to claim his religious affiliation with either a P for Protestant, J for Jewish, or C for Catholic. Abdullah said he was a Muslim and asked for an M to be engraved. The military couldn’t produce an M on the tag, so decided to leave it blank. For Abdullah, the idea of dying abroad and not receiving the right burial was terrifying.

Thankfully, Abdullah safely arrived back to Iowa after the war. A couple of years later he wrote a letter to President Eisenhower persuading him to add the M option on military dog tags. Soon enough, Abdullah received a letter from the President’s secretary thanking him for the suggestion and the M option was added.

Abdullah Igram, a Syrian American, was born in America and became somewhat of an ambassador for the Muslims to the larger community. He was one of the first kids in the community to complete the Quran in Arabic. Afterwards, he taught basic aAabic and Qur’an classes in the basement of the mother mosque.

Abdullah Igram and the Mother Mosque was featured in the Iowan Magazine. Here, he is smiling in front of the Mother Mosque

Qur’an lessons taught by Abdullah Igram and a peer.

Abdullah Igram’s fight for the M option on the dog tag garnered a lot of media attention. Headline reads: “Vet Leads U.S. Moslems In Fight For Recognition.”

Abdullah Igram sits with the local pastor in Cedar Rapids.

Aziza Igram, Abdullah’s wife and Fatima’s mother, came to the US when she was nine years old. She is now 82 and has been working at the Yonkers department store for the last 31 years.

“Uf, I think I’m going to quit soon.” she says to me.

Aziza is a petite Lebanese lady who loves talking about her kids, grandkids and, well, great grandkids. She is a hard worker and Fatima, her daughter, has been trying to convince her for years to leave her job.

Aziza Igram sits with her two daughters, Fatima and Lila, on one of the many Thursday social gatherings at the mosque, circa 1950’s.

Aziza and Fatima Igram, Mother and daughter look over photos from the past together. Present day.

Aziza has a large collection of her husband’s letters and documents. There was one letter written to an official in DC talking about the lack of unity when it comes to moon sightings during the month of Ramadan – the letter was written in 1954. So, yes, ease up fellow Muslim readers, your local uncle was not the pioneer of moon sighting quarrels. We learned it from our forefathers, clearly. 🙂

On our way out of Iowa, we stop at a furniture shop owned by Naji Igram, a third generation Lebanese American Muslim. Back in his day, Naji was a body builder who entered competitions regularly. At one point, he became the third runner up in Mr. Midwest.

“Ahh, I stopped it,” Naji shrugs, “there were more important things for us to spend our time on.”

Naji is a laid back guy who is known for his large hands. In fact, before knowing his names and his accomplishments, I was told about how large his hands are. Though he wouldn’t want me saying it, Naji has been integral in helping the Muslim’s in Cedar Rapids progress.

“Our families didn’t know much about Islam. They just knew the bare basics.” Naji says to me sitting a nice dining table on display, “They came to America as peddlers and grocery store owners, they were busy trying to survive.”

Many of the Lebanese families ran grocery stores in Iowa. Naji himself owned a grocery store, but, like many muslims, left because of the conflict of selling alcohol and lottery.

At the time, the Mother Mosque had a small turnout for Friday prayers, and small lectures on Sundays. There were makeshift arabic and quranic lessons, but nothing substantial was happening.

“That wouldn’t have been enough for our community to survive. We needed more.”

In the 1960′s and early 1970′s, the small Iowan Muslim community found a large number immigrants coming from South Asia for work.

“Many of the Pakistanis would try to correct us, or tell us what to do.” says Naji. A classic example of the clash of Immigrant v. Indigenous.
“but they were kind of right. We didn’t know much and needed to learn more.”

“We had a big divide around then, those that liked the way things were before, and those that were willing to progress in their Islam and their practice.”

According to Naji, those that were okay with the earlier ways of the community left and those that were willing to progress stayed and built the mosque into what it is now.

The Cedar Rapids Muslim community is large and vibrant. Aman and I joined them last night for dinner and were amazed by the diverse congregation we saw. For dinner, we had rice pilaf, tandoori naan, butter chicken, goat with gravy and rice pudding for dessert. It was clearly a Pakistani/Indian menu and a meal the entire congregation seemed to enjoyed.

“I’m optimistic about where our community is going,” Naji says, “our kids, they know more than we do. Actually, our kids’ kids know more than us. And that’s promising.”

By Aman Ali

Sheikh Kaleem grasps my hand and smiles when I ask him what impact his blindness has had on his faith.

“You ask some interesting questions,” he said amidst a crowded room of people at the Islamic Da’wa Center in Milwaukee. “I’ve memorized more verses of Quran while I was blind than I did when I wasn’t. If it meant I could memorize more Quran, I wish I could go through this blindness process at least 10 more times.”

He’s wearing a pearl white turban and hunches foward in the noisy room as I lean towards him to hear better. The sheikh is an active imam in several mosques in the Milwaukee area and has also taught kung fu for over 30 years. During that time, he said his students have never lost a tournament.

Both the sheikh and his wife are blind. The sheikh worked as a visual artist and lost his vision in the early 1990s from excessive exposure to art chemicals. His wife lost hers recently to a battle with sickle cell. But neither of them make much of their blindness.

“I see it as a temporary inconvenience,” he said. “Allah has the ability to give us sight and the ability to take it away. To say being blind is a problem would be denying the will of Allah.”

There are over 15,000 Muslims in Milwaukee today, but when Sheikh Kaleem was a child in the 1960s, there may have been only 3-4 Muslim families in the area and no mosque.

“I still remember being a child and we’d pray Friday prayer inside someone’s living room,” he said.

The Muslim community here is rapidly growing thanks to some of the work the Da’wa Center has been doing. One of the crown jewels of this center is its outreach to prison inmates and transitioning them to a better life once they get out.

“When you’re locked up, a lot of people turn to Islam because it’s a way to survive and avoid getting beaten up by other convicts,” said Ayyub Alamin, one of the center’s founders. “But that’s easy because you’re practicing Islam in isolation. It’s when you get out when the real struggle begins.”

Imam Zakaria is an imam at the mosque and a Muslim chaplain in the state’s correctional facilities. He said one of the ongoing issues for the mosque here is reaching out to ex-cons who begin slipping back into their old habits after they get out of prison.

“I’ll see a brother at the Da’wa Center and a week later I’ll see him locked up again inside one of the prisons,” he said as he shakes his head.

What I like about the Da’wa Center is there are very few people who simply come here to worship. Each of them are plugged into the community trying to better the people around them. A man named Hashim chats with me at length about this subject and how we as Muslims have been neglecting the social service aspect of our religion.

“We spend so much time taking care of minarets and domes on our mosques that we don’t take care of our people on the streets,” he said.

The Da’wa Center’s roots go back to the 1980s when a few Muslims set up an Islamic hotline that anyone could call for answers about Islam. One guy running a grocery store set up a phone line at his job that people around the neighborhood could call with questions about Islam. After work, the calls would be forwarded to his home, sort of like a 24 hour Islamic hotline. In the mid 1990s, the actual Da’wa Center was established and has been growing ever since.

Sheikh Kaleem says he has to run to lead prayer at another mosque. Before he leaves, he puts his hand on my shoulder and asks me to look around the room as everyone was eating dinner.

“What a beautiful community,” he said. “You can just sense the beauty by just walking by these people.”

Sheikh Kaleem grabs his robe and walking stick and gives me his salams. I hand him a 30 Mosques business card and he rubs his fingers over it and smiles.

“I sense there’s something really special about you,” he said as he put the card in his shirt pocket.

I want to ask him what he meant by that, but at this point, he already walked away. I don’t know when will be the next time I’ll see him but that’s only a temporary inconvenience to me. I have a feeling we’ll cross paths sooner rather than later

By Bassam Tariq

Before Break Fast, Reflection

We arrive around 6 PM to Dar Al Hijrah, the local mosque in downtown Minneapolis, and are welcomed by the congregants of the community. A group of elders sit around reciting Qur’an together. They take turns reading the first part of a verse and then everyone recites the last part together. It sounds difficult, but the harmonies are incredible.

Before entering the mosque, I make a point to get permission to shoot photos and video of the community. I speak on the phone with Abdul Qadir, the executive director of the community, and get his permission for taking photos, but told me to be mindful of the congregants as a lot of them are a little weary of people taking photos. People being weary of having photos taken is not unique to the Somalian community, we’ve have been experiencing this since the beginning of the trip. But the level of unrest and uneasiness I felt from the congregation when I took out my camera was new.

Minneapolis is known for its large Somalian community. According to Abdul Qadir, the executive director of Dar ul Hijrah, There are close to 10,000 Somalians in the twin cities. They began to come when the Civil War broke out in Somalia in the 1990s. We’ve found small pockets of Somalians throughout the country, but the community in Minnesota/St. Paul is by far the largest and most well-established.

The Riverside Plaza, a large high-rise apartment complex, is where many of the newly refugees are placed. It is a government subsidized complex that is predominantly East African. Just walking around the street, you will be greeted by women in long flowing abayas and men with kufis. The Somolian community got together and rented a small room in 1998 in a building right next to the housing complex to conduct prayers. In 2006, the entire building came on sale so they decided to buy the entire building. They called this community center Dar Al-Hijrah, the home of Immigrants. Ironically, as the mosque expanded, it also got a next door neighbor, Palmer’s Bar.

I asked Abdul Qadir what the relationship was like with the pub and he said they’ve been very accommodating.

“Sometimes, the music gets a little loud, but we just tell them to kindly put the music down for us to pray. And they are very respectful.”

Regardless of the level of respect, Abdul Qadir acknowledges the awkwardness of the proximity.

Breaking fast, sort of

The congregants break their fast with dates and bread. The mosque only provides food on Saturdays and Sundays. Soon after I devour a date, a member of the mosque performs the call to prayer to get everyone together for maghrib, the sunset prayer.

Afterwards, The Party

After breaking their fast, many Somalians go back to the mosque for taraweeh, the night prayer, or, those that are not working, are out socializing. You will find a large number of Somalian brothers at the International Corner on 15th and Nicollette. You can google it, or just follow the loud clanking sounds of the dominoes. The sound of dominoes hitting the table, the constant yelling back and forth meshed with foozball slammery drowns the place — this coffee shop is bursting with energy.

I start taking photos at the pool table, and then head over to the internet hub. I finally make my way to the rowdiest part of the coffee shop, the guys playing dominoes.

As I take photos of the people playing dominoes, I hear a man screaming from two tables away in my direction. He gets up from his seat, points and yells at me. Suddenly, two men grab him and hold him back. The guys playing foozball at the adjacent table come around and start probing me. A group of men surround me.

“What did you do wrong?” says one of them.

Nothing.

I start handing out our yellow 30 mosques business cards hoping to calm people down by showing that I’m a Muslim and not the government. But no one is buying it.

“Are you the FBI? Did the government bring you here?” A brother says to me in my face.

I should note that most of these men tower over me. If I was in need to head butt any of them, I’d need to stand at least on one or two stools.

“Alright, thats enough.” says a Somalian brother, holding the brother back and saving the day.

I am able to get a couple of more photos before another guy playing dominoes gets out of his seat throws the dominoes on the ground and complains to the owner. Ahmad, the owner, calms him down and tells him to leave if he will continue to be loud.

I’m freaked at this point, but everyone around me has started laughing.

“Did I do something wrong?” I ask the guy who saved me.

“Nah. this is just the way we have fun in Somalia.” he replies laughing.

This guy is Eid Ali. He is a cab driver and sits on a leadership board that speaks with the local government about their issues and concerns. Eid is an eloquent, unassuming man. We move towards the computers and begin to talk. After some convincing, he happily lets me join him on the road for a half an hour. .

“Look, don’t take offense.” Eid says to me as we’re driving. “Ever since people from our community left to fight in Somalia, the FBI and the media has been down our throats.”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but make a mental note to Google it later. (LINK)

Soon enough, Eid parks his taxi and I start to take photos. After about 30 minutes, he looks at his watch.

“Am I keeping you from something?” I ask.

“Well, today is Friday, it is a busy day for us cab drivers.”

We exchange numbers and part ways.

The Next Day

On the road to Milwaukee, I place a call to Abdul Qadir, the executive director of the Dar Al-Hijrah, to ask him a question.

“Why is the name of the mosque Dar Al-Hijrah, ‘the home of immigrants?’” I ask.

Abdul Qadir pauses on the phone.

“I don’t really know. I didn’t attend that meeting when they named the masjid.” He says, “but I think it’s kind of a way to attract people. I mean, we’re all immigrants here and we’re just trying to figure out how to get around.”

By Aman Ali

Bassam and I stress over our planned visit to Fargo, North Dakota. We didn’t expect our rental car to break down in Montana and the time it took to fix the car (thank you all for the prayers!) is making us late. It takes 11 hours to get to Fargo and getting there at a reasonable time is simply not going to happen now.

Instead we program our GPS to take us to Ross, North Dakota – a town with a total population of 48 people during the last U.S.Census. When my brother got married, I think there were more people sleeping over at our house that weekend than live in Ross.

Ross is home to the first mosque that was ever built in the United States. A Syrian farmer by the name of Hassan Juma immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Ross in the late 1800s. More Syrians came into town shortly after and the community built a mosque in 1929 after spending years praying in each other’s basements. It was later demolished in the 1970s but there’s a Muslim cemetery nearby where many of the original community members are buried. In 2005, a new mosque was built on the same land as the original mosque.

Bassam and I don’t know anyone who can help us find this place. Google Maps barely even knew. To our luck, a local pastor got us in touch with a woman named Lila who is the caretaker of the place. She can”t meet with us at night to open the mosque but she kindly let us visit it from the outside.

We’re driving through Ross amidst a barren landscape and take a turn down an empty dirt road. We have little idea if we’re going the right way but I keep my eyes peeled intent on finding the place.

About a quarter mile down the dirt road, my jaw drops as we find the place we’re looking for. Standing in front of me is a cube shaped mosque with a helmet dome and mini-minaret pillars on top. My heart is punching in my chest as I begin to walk towards it.

A sign to the left of the door dedicated the building to “Sarah Allie (Omar) Shupe.” I don’t know much about her but I remember reading she was instrumental in making sure this new mosque was built. I think about what she must be like and for some reason, I begin to feel like I’m falling. Fast. It was the same plummeting feeling I got when I was 18 and a skydiving instructor shoved me out of an airplane for the first time.

I don’t know why I’m falling. Maybe it’s because I’m standing in front of a place that’s taking me back in time.

I find the cemetery about a hundred feet from the mosque. I begin reading the names on the tombstones and the birth dates below them. 1882, 1904, 1931. Each of them has a star and crescent symbol at the top of the stone reflecting a Muslim was buried there.

Some of the stones indicate the Muslims buried here were veterans that served this country in armed conflicts like the Korean War. It takes several seconds for my brain to realize tears are spilling down my face. I feel ashamed to have known very little about this place until I got here.

Ross is a small town and we know virtually no one we can stay with for the night. We drive around for miles and can barely find a gas station, let alone a hotel.

We’re told the nearest hotel is about an hour away in Minot, so we head there for the night. I begin to write the post about our visit to Ross but feel I incomplete. We know very little about this enchanted place, so we ask Lila to meet us in the morning to learn some more about it.

####

Lila and her son Greg stand by the mosque as we pull our car through the opened gate the following morning.

She’s an olive skinned woman who bounces her arms along with her cheerful tone. She flashes a radiantly youthful smile and slaps her knees every time she laughs.

Greg opens up the door to the mosque and Bassam and I pray inside to pay our respects to the place. I walk around the stone room and am fixated on how serene and simple the place is.

I walk back outside and again read the name of Sarah Allie (Omar) Shupe. Lila points to the name and pauses.

“That’s my mother,” she said. “She was the driving force for this place.”

This mosque was built in 2005 on the same land the original mosque was built on. I asked her why the original one was demolished in the 1970s.

“Oh, I’m not going to go there,” she said as she looked away. “I wasn’t there at that meeting so I don’t want to get into it.”

I can sense the question is a sensitive subject, so I decide not to pry. Instead, Lila takes me inside and shows me a framed collection of photographs of some of her relatives and family friends who helped pioneer the community here. She points to one of Allay Omar, her father, and one of her mother Sarah.

Allay Omar grew up in a region a part of Syria that is now modern day Lebanon. Waves of Syrians came to this country in the early 1900s once the United States lifted its ban on immigrants from Arab countries. Syria at the time was under control of the Ottomon Empire in Turkey and many Syrians fled to the U.S. to avoid getting drafted in the Turkish army.

Lila’s father and other immigrants came to North Dakota because the Homestead Act gave people up to 160 acres of land after taking care of it.

Greg explained tensions would often flare among the Syrians and other immigrants here not over their race, but over resources like land and livestock. As Greg speaks, Lila uses her motherly instincts and sways nearby mosquitos off his arms.

Earlier we had written about Greg saying tensions among immigrant farmers here over resources instead of race. In a follow up conversation with us, Greg said this to clarify, “With the remoteness of this place you had to depend on your neighbors and they had to depend on you. There was no time for racism, as it took a backseat to survival. There were no ambulances, no flight for life helicopters, no telephones.. no electricity or propane for that matter. These brave people learned to live together and learned to ignore the outward appearance of a man because it is the inner man that counts.”

Lila was born and raised in the area and still lives a little over a mile away from the mosque. Her high school graduating class had five people in it. I ask her what that was like, being not only the only Middle Eastern kid, but one of the only minorities in town.

“I knew I was darker skinned than most people, but I never saw it that way,” she said. “I am who I am.”

These days she says it frustrates her about what people think about people in the Middle East being male chauvinists and anti-Semitic.

“They say the men are oppressive towards their women over there and I’m sure that happens,” she said. “But I never had that experience. My father treated us like princesses. My father had Jewish friends and taught us to love them. I have Jewish friends too and I’m always going to have Jewish friends. I was taught to love everyone.”

“I really wish you could have met my father,” she said smiling again. “He was a wonderful man.”

Talking to Lila made me feel like I was meeting him.

Bassam and I look at the time and realize we need to hit the road to our next stop in Minnesota. Lila smiles again and asks me to sign the mosque’s guestbook before I leave.

“I will never forget this place and the contributions you, your family and friends have made,” I write. “And I hope nobody ever does.”

By Bassam Tariq

BAM / Thud / CLUNK. However you describe the sound, Aman and I hear it before we see smoke build up in front of our Chevy Cobalt. Aman panics and pulls to the side.

“I think I hit a large rock.”

A rock, really?

We get out and inspect the car. Things look fine, we wait for the smoke to settle and get back in the car and drive forward. But forward means that we are stuck in first gear moving 10 miles per hour. Cars pass us by, trucks honk their horns. We pray to find the next side lane that’s open and when we do, we park.

Aman isn’t getting any signal on his phone. I’m not either. The car isn’t moving and our GPS says we are about 40 miles south of Bozeman. To top it off, we have an eleven hour drive to Fargo, North Dakota tomorrow. This doesn’t look good.

We wait ten minutes in hopes of a police officer to pass by, but no luck. I start walking towards Bozeman in hopes of getting some reception so I can call AAA to get our car towed. Aman stays back to watch the car, I strap on my camera and start hiking north –the start of another interesting adventure.

On the way through a narrow stretch of the highway, I see a man parked by a stream, putting his fishing gear away in the back of his Nissan pick-up truck. I walk towards him and strike up a small conversation. The fisherman tells me that I wont get any reception until I reach the city and Bozeman is at least 30 miles away north. I start kicking the sand aimlessly and work up the nerve to ask him if he can take me to the nearest city with signal. He thinks for a second and tells me to get in the back of his truck.

On the truck ride over, the fisherman gives me the lowdown on where we are. We’re in Big Sky, Montana, a small town known for its large ski resort. It is located off of highway 191, which is known to get dangerous in the night time. Just when I’m about to ask him why, we find a tow truck guy and the fisherman drops me off there.

After saying goodbye to the fisherman, I head inside the tow truck office and am met by a mustache, er, a man named Ken. I give Ken the lowdown on what happened and how we need a tow truck asap. Ken nods his head and starts typing up a report on his small computer. Soon enough, Ken was getting his flat bed truck ready to pick up Aman and our Cobalt.

“Heh, so I guess we’ll be best of friends by the end of this.” I say to him.

“Ok.” he responds.

Clearly, Ken is a man of few words.

We pick up Aman and the Cobalt, and finally head towards Bozeman.

I plant myself by the side door, while poor Aman gets crammed in the middle between me and the stoic Ken. As we head north on the highway Aman notices the crosses lining the entire highway.

“What are those crosses for?” Aman asks Ken.

“For those that have died on this highway.” Ken responds.

“Wait, how do people die here?”

“In the night time, bears come out. Deers will run around. Slippery roads from the ice. You name it.”

Aman is fixated on Ken’s mustache and begins to chat with him about his facial hair.

“How long have you had that mustache?” Aman asks.

“Going on 41 years,” Ken’s muffled voice says from behind his facial hair.

“How long did it take you to grow?”

“About a year.”

“I consider myself a facial hair aficionado, and I’ve got to say, you have one fine work of art on your face.”

“Thanks, I’m not sure I know how to respond to that.”

I see the sun setting and realize that soon enough we’ll be breaking our fast. And that’s when I realized how tired and exhausted the day had made me. One of the best ways to get through the day fasting is to keep yourself busy and now, finally having a moment to relax, my brain catches up with my stomach and it’s a terrible feeling.

# # #

I wake up to the truck pulling over inside a parking lot. We have arrived in Bozeman and get outside the car. I remember taking a photo of Ken and asking him to smile.

“I am smiling,” he said.

Classic.

We exit the tow truck, take our stuff out of the Cobalt and wait for our host, Ruhul, to pick us up. Aman and I are silent and are dreading the inevitable talk about what we have to do if the auto repair took more than a couple of hours. Then of course, the worst question – What happens if we miss more than one day?

Soon enough, Ruhul, our host, shows up and we are on our way to his house.

Ruhul is one of the oldest members of the Muslim community in Montana. He is a professor in Mechanical Engineering at Montana State University.
According to him, there isn’t a single mosque in the entire state of Montana. Not one. It’s one of the only states in the entire country that doesn’t have a mosque.

I ask him where he prays taraweeh, the Ramadan night prayer.

“The university [Montana State] has given us a prayer room and another space for taraweeh prayers.”

Ruhul likes it in Bozeman, that’s why he’s been here for over 20 years with his two daughters and wife. He’s leading the push to help build the first mosque in the state. But it’s hard to, he says, because most of the Muslims here are transient. They come to the area to attend school at Montana State University but end up leaving after graduation. Ruhul says that makes it hard to build a mosque because there isn’t a longstanding Muslim community here. But once you build a mosque, a community will slowly begin to form around it.

We arrive at his house, break our fast and eat a great meal prepared by his wife. Ruhul tells us there is no access to halal meat whatsoever in the area, so his family has a halal meat company in Iowa regularly send meat via FedEx. Wow.

After eating, we head out to Montana State University, where the community gathers to pray. We enter a small classroom where there are 15 people in the middle of praying the night prayer, Isha. We join in.

Around the room, I see about fifteen students and a couple of faculty members. They all look back at me and smile. I didnt plan on praying with the congregation today, but I felt compelled to. Maybe we will make to North Dakota tomorrow, maybe we wont. Whatever the case, we have to try and that’s all really we can do.

By Bassam Tariq

Sitting in a hallway at Montana State University — with a broken car and draining laptop battery — I feel like it’s a good time to look back at some of the best moments and photos of our first 15 days on the road.

Day 1: Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood – A brother eats the break fast meal in a hurry since the adhaan, the call to prayer, was right around the corner.

Day 1: Ground Zero Mosque – Bored security guard reluctantly poses for the camera.

Day 2: Augusta, ME – Two young men spend the hour before break fast memorizing the Quran.

Day 2: Portland, ME – A Southern Sudanese boy stares me down in the playground.

Day 7: Charlotte, NC – The summer school program bulletin board displays the best artwork for different kids.

Day 8: En Route to Jacksonville, Fl – The welcoming Confederate man.

Day 9: Jacksonville, Fl – A kid jumps off the slide.

Day 9: Mobile, Alabama – After getting kicked out of the Islamic Society of Mobile, we all come to this nice restaraunt. Ayan, a 13 year old Kurd, breaks his fast at his family restaurant with Kurdish Biryani.

Day 10: New Orleans – AbdulRahman Zeitoun calls his son from the ladies section of the mosque

Day 11: Masjid Al Mu’mineen [ Houston, TX ] – Unfortunately, we had visited this mosque, but didn’t have time to write a story about our experiences there. We’ll get to it, one day.

Day 12: Oklahoma City, OK – Sarah goes down the slide in the playground near the mosque.

Day 14: Denver, Colorado – The brilliant Shaikh Abu Omar gets irritated by how close my camera is to his face and sticks his tongue out in hopes of ruining the photo. If only he knew how he saved it.

Day 15: Santa Fe, New Mexico – Rashid prepares a morning meal for Aman and I at the Taha Mosque. He spent the night at the mosque when he found out we’d be staying there.

Note: We apologize in the delay in getting up this post. If you look at our map, you can see this leg of our trip is making us do 8+ hours of driving a day. But we’ll try our hardest to get these stories to you guys in a timely fashion.

By Aman Ali

Faraz has been married to a Mormon woman for a little over a month. But he has known his wife Erika for almost 10 years so I asked him the reasoning behind why it took a decade to tie the knot.

“That’s because it took some time to convince her family,” he said with a chuckle.

Enter Utah, where roughly 62 percent of the people here follow The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It’s a Christian church followed by the Mormons who believe after Jesus, a man by the name of Joseph Smith was also given a book of revelation from God in the 1800s in upstate New York.

Faraz spent most of his life in Utah and easily stood out in school as not just the only Muslim in school, but only minority.

“In middle school, here I was, this big 5’10 Pakistani dude in Salt Lake City,” he said laughing again.

Faraz is a brawny guy who speaks with an intriguing twang. He’s the kind of person who likes to strike up a conversation with anyone. We met him at the Utah Islamic Center, a mosque inside of a shopping center in the Salt Lake City area that’s home to a few dozen families who congregate here. Bassam and I didn’t know a lot about the Muslim community in Utah prior to arriving and Faraz graciously helped us out getting us connected to the people we should meet before leaving.

Salt Lake City is a growing community with over 20,000 Muslims. Muslims first began coming here in waves in the early 1980s and now the city has a significant population of Muslim refugees that have recently come from places like Burma, Bosnia and Somalia. But from what I understand, there aren’t as many Muslim women here as Muslim men. It’s not an uncommon sight for Muslim men to have Mormon wives, considering how many Mormon women there are instead of Muslim ones.

Wedding photo provided to us by Faraz

Islam doesn’t prohibit Muslim men from marrying Christian women, but many cultures that follow Islam see it as some kind of unwritten taboo (in my opinion). Faraz doesn’t want to sensationalize the adversity the Muslim community here gave him for marrying a non-Muslim white woman, but it was definitely there to some extent.

“I’d show up to Friday prayer and I’d never see any of my friends anymore,” he said. “I’d want to hang out and everyone said they were busy. I guess we’ve all been too busy for each other lately.”

Faraz said his wife isn’t a strict Mormon but it took her mother and stepfather an extensive amount of time to warm up to him, not because of who he was personally, but were understandably concerned that his wife would lose her Mormon identity.

“There are many things I disagree with about the Mormon way of life and I’ve made it very clear to her that I would like her to someday convert,” he said. “We’ve also agreed that our children will be raised Muslim. Things like that, you need to agree upon those things beforehand otherwise they can become problems down the road.”

But what made it easy through the years was Faraz’s family was always on his side. Before getting engaged, Faraz made the Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia with his family. There, his father asked him to pray to Allah if Erika was meant for him. Months later, he got married.

Faraz said it might have been a little awkward at the wedding, everyone enjoyed themselves. But he takes his entire journey in stride, because at the end of the day, there is still plenty of love all around both families. He said his mom and Erika have begun to bond over cooking. Erika, he said, is quickly becoming an expert at South Asian cuisine.

The Mormons

Faraz tells us that Salt Lake City is home to the Mormon’s most holy temple so we decide to check out the place. It’s a colossal complex where many Mormons from all over the world come to volunteer their time as missionaries. Across the street from it is the church’s just as impressive looking conference center.

We were greeted at the temple’s entrance by Sisters Todd (from Pennyslvania), Sister Han (from China) and Sister Aslam (from Pakistan). On their own dime, they traveled to Salt Lake City to volunteer for the church and welcome tourists like us checking out the temple. Each of them were happy-go-lucky missionaries eager to tell us more about their religion and learn about our 30 Mosques project too. But our conversation came to a close when two church security officers asked Bassam to delete all the pictures of the missionaries from his camera.

At first, I thought about how amusing it was that this is the second time on this trip that we’ve been basically kicked out of a place of worship. But it made me think more so about the fact that Bassam and I need to be more sensitive to people during the places we visit. I don’t know what the reasons why the security guards asked us to delete the photos, but I’m sure it had a lot to do out of respectful concerns for the church’s women. We Muslims would (and should!) have similar concerns if some random stranger started furiously snapping pictures of our women. Not because women are incapable of handling themselves, but we as Muslim men need to demand our women always be respected.

I don’t know any Muslims that would drop everything they’re doing to fly across the globe to welcome people to the holy Kabah in Saudi Arabia. But these Mormons have demonstrated it’s definitely possible for the human body to be capable of loving their religion this much. It makes me wonder, about myself most importantly, why we don’t have the same kind of love for Islam.

By Bassam Tariq

Imam Fahrudin stands in the parking lot of the Islamic Community of Bosniaks in Boise. Fahruddin, 21, was playing soccer at a nearby field before arriving at the mosque.

Note: Due to car troubles and long drive time, this post has been made a day late. Please accept our apologies as we are trying to stay on schedule with our route.

During the Ethnic Cleansings in the 1990′s, the US government helped bring thousands of Bosnian families to America. Like most refugees, they were settled in quieter parts of America, areas that are less crowded and more affordable. And that’s how many Bosnian families ended up in Boise, Idaho. But unlike many of the other refugee communities that were brought to Boise, the Bosnians decided to stay in the city. Many of the Somalian, Burmese and Afghan refugees that were stationed to Boise fled to different parts of the country where there were more people from their ethnic backgrounds.

“It’s a lot like home here,” Merzeen, a construction project manager who came to Idaho 12 years ago from Bosnia, says, “the climate, the outdoors.” The Bosnians, like Merzeen, had no issue embracing Boise as home.

Soon enough, the Boise Bosnians were growing in numbers (approx. 2,000), but there still wasn’t a community space big enough to accommodate them. The small 1500 sq ft makeshift house they prayed the Friday prayers in wasn’t enough for their growing community and they needed a larger space.

It took 12 years for the Bosnian community to come together and build a mosque. The community bought out an abandoned church and built a mosque with their own hands. Everything from the wall plaster to the electric wiring was done by the community members.

On July 4th 2010, the Islamic Community of Bosniacs in Boise officially opened its doors. It was a joyous and emotional occasion with food, riveting speeches and, of course, fireworks. The completion of the mosque was a long and labor intensive road. Thankfully, Denis, the de facto historian of the community, has been taking photos of the center since the first community meeting at the abandoned church.

The following moments are taken from Denis’ extensive collection of photos that can be found in the Boise mosque, tucked away in the bookshelves binded neatly inside five white large photo albums.

The first meeting held at the abandoned church right after the purchase of the property was finalized.

The community bought the church for a half million dollars.

During the construction, at any given point, there would be close to 40 community members helping out.

Community members take out theseats from the church hall to make space for prayer. The prayer area of the mosque, musala, was completed within two weeks of the construction.

Many photographers in the community have meticulously captured every step in the building this mosque.

Since many of the Boise Bosnians are construction workers or electricians, the community didn’t feel the need to hire any outside laborers.

After all the construction inside was complete, the last step was to put up mosque sign.

The community members climb to the top of the mosque in celebration of the mosque construction being completed.

In celebration of the mosque’s opening and Independence Day, the community held a fireworks show on July 4th.

As the congregants enter the completed mosque for the first time, a young man tries to hold himself together.

By Bassam Tariq

Amanullah has been working in casinos for over 29 years.

“Nobody enjoys this work,” he tells me as he sips on a cup of chai. “But we do it because we want a better life for our kids.”

Amanullah oversees slot machines at the MGM Grand Casino and is a board member of the Jamia Masjid, a mosque in downtown Las Vegas just minutes away from The Strip, the city’s infamous road of casinos and hotels.

Gambling is prohibited in Islam, but Muslims working in casinos is somewhat common here.

Amanullah smiles with an almost cotton-like beard as he talks about the spiritually grueling lifestyle he lives, so that he can make a better life for his kids. He’s an active person at the mosque and I can only imagine the type of criticism he gets from his fellow Muslims for working in casinos.

“They may not say it to me directly, but oftentimes I can feel it,” he said as he nods his head and blinks slowly.

He grew up in Afghanistan and came to the United States in the 1980s when the Soviet Union invaded. He settled in Las Vegas because he had an uncle that lived there that was all alone. He took a casino job because he desperately needed money to support his family and send home to relatives oversees.

“I had no money,” he said. “I used to walk my daughter to school and I would have no money to even buy her milk. I was only making enough to cover rent.”

Many of the people who work in casinos are immigrants from foreign countries like Bosnia, Afghanistan, Morocco, the Philippines and Somalia. Most of them came to Las Vegas because they had friends or family already living here.

Amanullah says he’s never enjoyed working in casinos and it eats at him inside working at institutions that center on indulgence and extravagance.

“In all my years I’ve never gambled or sipped a drop of alcohol,” he said. “I’ve never enjoyed seeing any of this around me and as I get older it becomes more and more difficult to stand this. The only thing that gives me peace is my family and the masjid.”

I stared into Amanullah’s eyes and began thinking about my father. My father travelled 5-6 days a week on the road for a baking company and never enjoyed a single moment of it. But like Amanullah, he did it for his kids. The bags under Amanullah’s eyes remind me of my dad’s as he came home from a long week of work too exhausted to do anything but collapse on the couch.

There’s something many people don’t understand about the need for a man to provide for his family on his own, and what lengths he’s willing to go to in order to make that happen. Amanullah tells me he’d rather do this than rely on welfare or other forms of governmental assistance to feed himself. As much as he hates working in casinos, it helped put his daughter through college.

I spoke with several Muslims at the Jamia mosque who work in casinos. Each of them have their own stories about how they got into the business but none of them enjoy it.

“Look, this life is pathetic,” said Bilal, who recently got laid off from a casino. “The management has so much control over you that you can’t do anything. You can’t even move around without someone watching you.”

I asked him why go through the torment then?

“The money,” he said. “A manager can make somewhere around $85,000. But you’re like a robot at work and all you can think about is your family.”

Bassam and I walked through the Aria Casino on The Strip that many Muslims are starting to work at since it opened in December. I walk past countless rows of slot machines as my ears begin to rattle from the clanging slots that gulp up coins like a vacuum cleaner. My stomach begins to churn as I’m smothered by the smell of cheap cigars and Axe Body spray from tourists trying their luck against the casino card dealers.

I think to myself, “This is the life these Muslims deal with every day, so that their family doesn’t have to.”

As we’re getting to leave the Aria casino, Bassam and I speak with Kariuki (pronounced Karaoke). He’s a Christian man from Kenya who’s been shining shoes in a casino bathroom for three months. He said working here has good days and bad days so we asked him what a good day entails.

“A good day, ha!” he said with a chuckle. “A good day is when I get money. There is no life here. The only thing we do in life is work and sleep. When I go out with someone, all I think about is ‘Is this going to make me late for work?”

Dr. Aslam Abdullah is the director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, the group that runs the mosque and is editor of the Muslim Observer, a publication based in Dearborn, Michigan. Before we left Las Vegas, we chatted about this whole Muslims in casinos issue and the complications surrounding it. He said before we point fingers at Muslims for working in casinos, we really should point fingers at ourselves.

“This is the failure of our leadership and institutions to provide for the social and economic well being of our community,” he said. “I talk about this in the khutbahs (Friday sermons) a lot and I tell people ‘Before you look down on them, find them an alternative.’”

He explained most of the Muslims who work in casinos are immigrants who take the jobs because it’s unskilled labor that pays well. It’s our failure as Muslims, he says, to help them integrate into society and help them find a way of life that doesn’t go against Islamic guidelines. Rather than condemn them and reject them, it’s our obligation as Muslims to help them.

“We’ve developed this ‘holier than thou’ attitude where we look down on people who don’t memorize as many surahs (chapters) of Qur’an as us,” he said. “But what good is memorizing 30 surahs compared to 10 surahs, if you don’t understand or follow any of it?”

Make no bones about it, no Muslim in their right mind will condone the concept of working at a casino. It’s tough to make it in this country, and many of these Muslims will go through morally compromising situations if it means that their children can live a life where they won’t have to. Simply slamming Muslims who works in casinos is too easy and basically pours gasoline on the flames that burn the bridges between us.

Bassam explains, “We pulled up to the exit of the Islamic Society of Nevada in Las Vegas and were blocked by three kids daring one to jump over the chain. The kid fell a couple of times, but the times he leaped successfully were poetic.”