The earliest intentional wave of Muslim immigration into the United States happened in the 1870s, but the first mosques would not be established for many decades. Today’s mosques number in the thousands (2,769 mosques reported in the 2020 U.S. Mosque Survey), the majority of which were built in only the last thirty years.
Because there is no definitive consensus on what defines the earliest mosque, there is no definitive consensus on when and where the first American mosque was built. Nevertheless, these are five important placeholders in the relatively short history of today’s American mosque.