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This is a historic picture here dating back through 1936.

You can say the first Quran school in all of North America,

Abdullah Ajaram, Abdullah Igram, 12 and Hussein Sharonix 7 are shown in the picture

all the copies of the Quran

from which they have learned to read in the Arabic language and they memorized the Quran

back in the 1930s.

Al-Salam al-a'am ala'amu.

It is my distinct privilege and honor to be standing in one of the oldest mosques, in fact,

the oldest standing mosque in America, in all of North America.

This is in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and we are standing in the first called the Mother Mosque.

And I'm very privileged and honored to be meeting some of our elders who were raised in this particular community.

This mosque, it was purchased for the Muslim community exactly 100 years ago.

1925 is when they purchased this land and it took a while for them to construct the building that we're standing in.

It was constructed around 1935, 36 and we're standing in the original building.

A group of Muslims, a group of Arabs from Lebanon came to this region in order to have hardware

stores open their commercial businesses and also to have farmland.

And so one person called others, their family, their friends, and before you knew it, we

had around 50, 60 people people here and some of them are

al-h-h-h-h-l-h-homaks now they were born and raised so frankly this is in my own

travels and experiences to over 400 communities north America I have never met

you know fourth generation Muslims we are standing with people who are now in their

...