Yes, Ali opened the Canaanite Temple in Newark in 1913, but it wasn't true Islam, more of an amalgamation of many beliefs. The first orthodox Muslim mosque was in North Dakota in 1929 (as you wrote), founded by Lebanese immigrants.
Thanks...just listened to a chapter about the history of Islam and Africans in the Americas practicing Islam in Manning Marable's book about Malcolm X.That's the best part of the book, actually but it glosses over the Arab slave trade..and makes unsubstantiated claims about other things. Yes,what Ali practiced was not orthodox Islam.
I think that if immigration patterns of Middle Eastern people are traced...there would have to be a record of a building used as a mosque before 1929 though (Obama said it and I just wrote the quote).
If you had a group of 10 or more immigrants from a country where Islam was the main religion, within a year they would be using some standing structure as a mosque...and a year after that an actual mosque would be built or building purchased to be used as mosque.
I'm certain that there existed Roman Catholic churches here before the large wave of Irish immigrants, but surely many more sprung up immediately after that.
1929 sounds too late.
Found a reference that says that the first mosque was in Brooklyn in 1920. Muslim immigration didn't really start until c1878 with a group of Syrians and Lebanese -- the people who eventually started the mosque in North Dakota. Before that, with few exceptions, the only Muslims in America were captured slaves. It is estimated that about 10-15% of African slaves were Muslims, but once enslaved they were forced to stop practicing and most converted.
