Exterior of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota (CSCM), 2017. Photograph by Ibrahim Hirsi.

Mohamud Noor, executive director of the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota (CSCM). Photograph by Ibrahim Hirsi, April 24, 2017.

Participants in a leadership development program gather around Malala Yousafzai (at center, in green) at the Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota, August 2016. Yousafzai, a Nobel Prize winner and Pakistani-born international women’s rights advocate, visited Minneapolis in July of that year to deliver a public address at Target Center.

The adhan (call to prayer) is recited before each prayer. This audio clip includes the adhan recited by Ahmed Jamal at Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Minneapolis on January 8, 2016.

Solidarity event held at Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque on December 14, 2015. Dar Al-Hijrah's main religious leader, Imam Sharif Mohamed, stands with hands clasped at center right. The Islamic Civic Society of America is a civic institution that seeks to demonstrate the compatibility between Islamic principles and the principles of democracy. An example of their work was experienced on a cold winter’s night in December, when ICSA hosted an event to discuss Islamophobia in America. More than a hundred Minnesotans from diverse racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds came to support their Muslim American colleagues, friends, and neighbors, who have faced increasing incidents of prejudice and discrimination in the 2010s. Several elected officials and religious leaders (including imams, rabbis, and pastors) saw Islamophobia as opposing American ideals of freedom and democracy, and vowed to help protect the rights of Muslim Americans. This type of event is one of many hosted by ICSA at Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque.

Somali women pray in the women’s prayer room at Dar Al-Hijrah during the holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, which ends the holy month of Ramadan. Photograph by Mohamud Mumin, 2013.

Interior of Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque during a Friday prayer led by Imam Sharif Mohamed, 2015. The first floor of Dar Al-Hijrah consists of two large rooms covered wall to wall in soft rugs where hundreds of Muslims, mostly Somali and Oromo, come for their daily prayers. Friday afternoons are special prayer days and attract large crowds of worshippers.

Wali Dirie, executive director of the Islamic Civic Society of America and Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque, stands outside their new entrance at 504 Cedar Avenue, 2015.