The founders of the Islamic Society of Baltimore come from a wave of immigration that occurred after 1965. A small group of these doctors, engineers, and graduate students gathered at apartments on Baltimore's northeast side. About nine or ten of them helped create the Islamic Society of Baltimore in 1969.
They operated for over a decade at Johns Hopkins University, after which they purchased their current land out in the County. Since then, the mosque has grown exponentially, and has become a pillar of the Baltimore-area Muslim community.
As decades pass and the mosque's leadership moves into new hands, many founders and community elders have passed away. The mosque has aged into a multi-generational institution, and is now run by those who grew up with the mosque.
The important role it played in inner-city Baltimore lies undocumented and forgotten. In documenting both the stories of ISB and Islam in America, I interviewed three of those Muslims directly involved in creating ISB in 1969 — Dr. Mohamed Shami, Dr. Ibrahim Syed, and Azim Khan; and spoke with many others, to draw a portrait of the context and stories regarding ISB's founding.
Context
Prior communities
The foundation of the modern American Muslim community, as we know it, dates to demographic shifts that occurred in the wake of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
Immigration from most of Asia — including South Asia and the Middle East — had been banned in 1917. It was not until the 1952 McCarran-Walter Act that immigration from Asia was meaningfully reopened, allowing 100 Asian immigrants per country, per year.
The 1965 Act abolished these quotas entirely, opening the door to large-scale Asian immigration, and with this, the formation of Muslim communities. For this reason, many of the oldest extant Islamic institutions in the U.S., like ISB, date back to the years immediately subsequent.
This was, however, only the third wave of Muslim immigration to the U.S., and while no groups from prior waves have any institutional ties to today's communities, it is important to understand the prior two waves of Muslim arrival to this country.
The second wave occurred among a surge of Ottoman and Arab immigration beginning in the late-19th century, centered on the Midwest. The slew of mosques they built in the '20s and '30s were the first true mosques and Muslim communities in the U.S. They were quickly cut off, however, by WW1-era immigration restrictions, and were quickly dissolved and assimilated.
The first wave of Muslim presence in the U.S. occurred far earlier in history, among a number of African slaves who originated from Muslim kingdoms in Africa. While only a handful of case studies have been recorded, one of the most significant and oldest examples of a Muslim enslaved in the U.S. comes from Maryland's Eastern Shore:
"Upon our Talking and making Signs to him, he wrote a Line or two before us, and when he read it, pronounced the Words Allah and Mahommed; by which, and his refusing a Glass of Wine we offered him, we perceived he was a Mahometan [Muslim], but could not imagine of what Country he was, or how he got thither; for by his affable Carriage, and the easy Composure of his Countenance, we could perceive he was no common Slave." — Description of Ayuba Suleiman Diallo, enslaved in Kent County, Maryland, 1731
Highly-educated
Those Muslim South Asians and Arabs arriving in this third wave were far different from the Arab economic migrants that had arrived decades earlier, and were instead highly-educated professionals — aspiring doctors, engineers, and professors — pursuing graduate degrees from American universities.
They typically arrived as students (F-1 visa) or exchange visitors (J-1 visa), transitioning into permanent residency through employment, and later obtaining green cards. It was those who secured permanent residency who were inclined to build lasting Islamic institutions and mosques.
"Mostly people came as students … So if you are a student you will go back home, you are not interested in the masjid. You study, you get your degree, and you go back home. … So the only people with green cards — the citizens — are interested to build the masjid." — Dr. Syed
Founding
Sarril Road community
By the mid-to-late 1960s, many young Muslim immigrants, along with their spouses and even young children, would have undoubtedly been scattered across the city. Movement was frequent, as immigrants moved following the tides of their education and careers.
Socialization and meetings among acquaintances would have been held here and there, and no doubt small-scale group prayers may have been held in some circles. These early immigrants had nowhere to pray Jumma salat, and Muslims hoping to pray Eid salat drove to Washington, D.C. to do so.
By the late '60s, a handful of about four or five South Asian Muslim families became close neighbors on the same road — Sarril Road — within the Sarril Road Apartments, on Baltimore's northeast side. It was among this particular group that the first seeds for an Islamic organization in Baltimore would be planted.
"There were very instrumental, about four, five people on the same road." — Dr. Mohamed Shami
Of this group which would found ISB, many first arrived to the US via Baltimore, while for others, it was their second or third residences in the country. The earliest was Azim Khan, who settled in Baltimore about '65 after first arriving in D.C. in '62. Most arrived in the one to two years prior to the turn of the decade. The last, Dr. Syed, moved to the Apartments in the summer of 1969.
The events here have never been formally documented until now, and as such, in attempting to gather a timeline of events based solely on oral recollections after an almost sixty year lapse of time, various disconnected anecdotes were collected. The finer details — involving specific dates or people present at meetings — should be taken with a grain of salt.
Azim Khan remembers how they met at Sunday hour-long halaqa-like meetings, where they recited and explained verses of the Qur'an. Muslim families living in the surrounding areas were invited.
"We used to meet at the other people house on Sunday for an hour and we do recitation and explanation of Quran ayat." — Azim Khan
Azim Khan, who did not live on Sarril Road, but in the adjacent Amberwood Apartments, would walk to reach the meetings. He recalls a maximum of ten to fifteen families present, including the core group of four or five that lived on Sarril Road.
Assimilation
As Muslim immigrants became acquainted with one another and gathered, many sought to formalize their connections. With no Islamic institutions or mosques, assimilation was a real concern, especially with regards to their children who would grow up here.
Dr. Awad, ISB's first president, would relate the sentiment of Muslims of the period:
"For the moment the main concern of Dr. Awad and other Muslims in this country … is to maintain their religion for themselves and to pass on their Islamic heritage to their children in the face of strong pressures toward assimilation." — Dr. Mohamed Awad, 1978
The origins of ISB
It was during these Sarril Road gatherings that the idea for an Islamic institution developed. Members explain how it was an evolutionary process — the contributions of many people.
"Many of them [are] living on the same street. But some live a little bit far, but we get together for functions, and they get together here and there. ... So that was the evolutionary process. Yes. So that's the way — when people got together, they plan that 'We should have our own place', 'We need to raise money' ... We were only 4, 5 people, there was another guy, his name was Dr. Khattak and Azim Khan. These two people, Azim Khan was very active. Very active." — Dr. Shami
Dr. Ahmad H. Sakr, from Chicago
The story differs slightly in one uncorroborated account provided by Dr. Syed.
Dr. Syed relates the contributions of a well-known traveling scholar, Dr. Ahmed Sakr. According to him, there was a formative meeting at the Apartments involving four of the Muslim residents of Sarril Road — Dr. Mohamed Shami, Dr. Tarique Firozvi, Dr. Javaid Shafi, and himself — and a fifth, Dr. Sakr. It was at this meeting, he relates, that Dr. Sakr initiated the idea for the Islamic Society of Baltimore.
"Actually, it was initiated by Dr. Ahmad Sakr. Do you know him? I have not heard of his name. I don't think he's in the community anymore. No, no. He came from Chicago. He was a biochemist from Lebanon. And he gathered 4 of us. So 5 people are the founders of the Islamic Society of Baltimore." — Dr. Syed
The others do, in fact, recall that Dr. Sakr had visited the formative group at the Apartments. However, the notion of such a pivotal role was not corroborated by anyone else.
"He did come to my home once long ago but I don't remember we talked about this project." — Dr. Shami
Dr. Sakr established the Muslim Students Association (a precursor to ISNA) in Chicago in 1963. He was a pioneer of Islamic work in the U.S., and remains a household name among older members of the American Muslim community.
He was almost certainly staying in Baltimore to help with establishing chapters of his MSA, particularly the one at Johns Hopkins University. In the process, he had somehow gotten in touch with the Muslims here on Sarril Road.a
The notion of Dr. Sakr spearheading ISB while organizing JHU's MSA is somewhat corroborated simply by the dates on which each organization first enters the public record. The JHU MSA first appears in a Johns Hopkins News-Letter article dated September 26, 1969; ISB had been formally registered on September 2 of that year.
That is as much as can be surmised on the matter of Dr. Sakr. While it is certain that his prior experience in establishing Islamic organizations would have been highly useful to the members on Sarril Road, the extent of his role remains a mystery.
