Will America's Oldest Muslim Community Survive President Trump?

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In 1885, a group of Muslim immigrants settled in Iowa to worship free from persecution – now, once again, they have to prove they're American.

An hour before Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, a week out from signing his immigration ban, the oldest Muslim congregation in the United States had yet to panic. On that Friday afternoon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the faithful removed their shoes in the foyer of the Islamic Center, making small talk about the college basketball teams, or the opaque mist congesting the eastern edge of the state. Yet there was nothing said about the man who had won the executive branch on a platform that included blocking Muslims from entering the U.S., who would soon largely make good on that promise – or at least try.

Hassan Selim, the mosque's leader, is young for an imam. At only 29, he preaches with unseasoned vigor – full of raw, unpolished passion and the intensity of faith. He doesn't mention politics, but his plea for the spiritual rewards of striving for greatness – plus his tendency to slide sideways into a sentence – shares a few notes in common with the new commander in chief's style.

"If you are performing a task, you must perform it to the best of your abilities," he says, switching to English to talk to the congregation after a prayer service in Arabic. "Allah has made it clear that if you do this, you are successful. You move ahead in the crowd. When you speak to the people, speak not as just to regular people but with the best words you can afford. Be excellent even in your speech."

There are about 200 worshippers here today, some born and raised here in Iowa while others, like Selim – who came here from Egypt with his American wife in 2012 – are just settling into the country. Their struggle to find the balance between being a Muslim and an American has taken on a fresh urgency under the Trump administration. "It feels time sensitive now in a way it didn't before," Selim says.

As he often does, Selim ends the day asking for anyone with a spare room to consider renting it out to a new immigrant. There are more people every month.

By all appearances this was just another Friday for these second, third and fourth generation worshippers, no different than the afternoons when their forerunners kneeled, with the possible exception that the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids has only been here since 1971. The original place of worship, the Mother Mosque, was built more than 80 years ago, making it the oldest mosque in all of North America. Yet it usually stands empty two-and-a-half miles southwest of here in an older part of the city, and is now mostly used for community meetings and as an educational center to teach non-Muslims about Islam. Perhaps the only building as influential to Cedar Rapid's development is the Quaker Oats Mill that opened in 1901, which remains one of the city's top employers and is responsible for the smell of roasted cereal that hangs over the town every morning.

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