Controversies Over Mosques and Islamic Centers Across the U.S.

This interactive map shows the locations of 53 proposed mosques and Islamic centers that have encountered community resistance in recent years. Click on a location for a brief overview of the project based on news reports. In many cases, the opposition has centered on neighbors’ concerns about traffic, noise, parking and property values – the same objections that often greet churches and other houses of worship as well as commercial construction projects. In some communities, however, opponents of mosques also have cited fears about Islam, sharia law and terrorism.

While the map shows only projects that have met resistance, many mosques and Islamic centers have been built in recent years with little or no opposition. See, for example, an article in the Chattanooga Free Press about a mosque that opened in August 2012 in Chattanooga, Tenn.

By the end of 2011, there were at least 2,106 mosques in the U.S., according to the U.S. Mosque Study 2011 (PDF), which was sponsored by a variety of research groups and religious organizations. The Mosque Study Project 2000 (PDF), which was conducted a decade earlier using the same methodology, counted 1,209 mosques across the country in 2000. This suggests that more than four-in-ten mosques in the U.S. have opened since 2000.

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