Spiritual treasures: America's 7 oldest mosques

There are approximately 3,000 mosques across the United States. While most were built by communities in the mid- to late twentieth century, mosques are not new to the American landscape.

Some suggest that small mosques were built by Muslims who arrived with Spanish colonists in the sixteenth century. Slave accounts, such as those written by Ayyub ibn Sulayman, indicate that enslaved Muslims continued to practice their faith in secret, perhaps gathering in small groups to pray — essentially forming places of worship.

The oldest purpose-built mosques that still exist today were mostly founded by Muslim communities that arrived during nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century mass migrations. Some grew out of Islamic missionary work; others were founded by African Americans who, after emancipation, rediscovered ancestral Islamic roots. Debate continues over which mosque is truly the oldest, but the available historical accounts and documents suggest the following seven are among the oldest in America today.

1. Al-Sadiq Mosque, Chicago, Illinois:

America's oldest mosque was founded in 1922 in Chicago by Ahmadiyya preacher Mufti Muhammad Sadiq as the mission's new U.S. headquarters.

A photograph in the movement's magazine, Sunrise Islamiyya, shows it was initially known as the Ahmadiyya Islamic Mosque and Dar al-Resalah. The mosque occupies a modest two-story building with a mashrabiya (projecting window) and a large dome flanked by two false minarets with fusiform spindles. Today, on the same site, there is a small sandy-colored mosque with a pointed roof and two green minarets. The name "al-Sadiq" likely refers to its founder.

2. Brooklyn Islamic Mosque, New York City:

Also called the Bowers Street Mosque, it is the oldest surviving mosque in New York, located on a quiet street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The building was originally a two-story church from the late nineteenth century, now clad in white wooden slats and topped with an ornate tower and crescent.

Its design reflects the origins of the founders — Tatars from Lithuania, Poland, and Belarus — where mosques once resembled this style. The community purchased the building in 1927, and it remains in their care today, although daily prayers are no longer held there.

3. North Dakota Mosque, Ross, North Dakota:

The North Dakota mosque functions more as a memorial to Syrian and Lebanese Muslims who once prayed at this remote, windy site near the Canadian border than as an active house of worship.

Immigrants from Ottoman-controlled Greater Syria settled here in the nineteenth century and built a substantial rectangular wooden-and-brick structure on the site around 1929. It served both as a place of worship and as a community center. The original building was demolished in 1979; a small square brick structure with four thin false minarets and a small copper dome was erected there in 2005.

4. Mother Mosque, Cedar Rapids, Iowa:

The oldest purpose-built mosque in America, the Mother Mosque of America, is believed to have been constructed by Syrian and Lebanese immigrants from Ottoman Greater Syria.

When it opened in 1934, it was called the Rose of Fraternity Lodge and Islamic Temple and was used for prayer, education, and community activities. Immigrants also stored old Qur'ans brought from their homelands there. Today the local community uses a larger mosque built in the 1970s nearby, and the Mother Mosque mainly serves to educate visitors about America's Islamic heritage.

5. American Islamic Society, Dearborn, Michigan:

The American Islamic Society began in a Dearborn home in 1938 among a group of Lebanese immigrants who moved to the area after the opening of the local Ford Motor Company.

In the 1980s the mosque attracted attention when it became the first in America to receive permission to broadcast the call to prayer publicly via loudspeakers. Today the mosque occupies a large purpose-built facility of about 48,000 square feet and includes an Islamic school and a medical center.

6. Islamic Center of Washington:

When the Islamic Center opened in Washington in 1952, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower called it one of the "most beautiful buildings in Washington" at its inauguration.

The oldest mosque in the U.S. capital was founded by diplomats and local Muslims who created the Washington Mosque Foundation in 1944. They hired Italian architect Mario Rossi because of his experience working on mosques in Egypt. Rossi based his design on the classic Mamluk architectural style of Egypt.

7. Muhammad Mosque, Washington, D.C.:

The Muhammad Mosque began as Temple No. 4 of the Nation of Islam in 1960, a project that involved Malcolm X, and was widely regarded as the first mosque built in the U.S. capital by descendants of enslaved African Americans.

The mosque transitioned to mainstream Sunni Islam in 1975 when Warith Deen Mohammed, one of Elijah Muhammad's sons, appointed a Sunni imam, renamed it the Washington Mosque, removed the benches, and reoriented the prayer direction toward Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Since the 1980s it has been known as the Muhammad Mosque.