(iPoster) The American Mosque Project: A New National Dataset

• In Event: Poster Sessions: Religion and Politics & Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries (Post-Soviet)
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Religion and Politics

Abstract

Despite the growing size, diversity, and political relevance of the Muslim population in the United States, systematic data on American mosques remain limited. Existing scholarship has largely relied on surveys, local case studies, or geographically restricted datasets, constraining the ability to study mosque formation, organizational variation, and community embeddedness in a comprehensive way. As a result, core theoretical debates about religious institutions, ethnic organization, and local political development have lacked a robust empirical foundation. This paper introduces a new, publicly accessible dataset documenting nearly all mosques in the United States. The dataset combines original data collection from multiple online sources to identify mosque locations, founding dates, and institutional characteristics. Beyond basic spatial and temporal coverage, the dataset captures key dimensions of mosque organization, including ethnic orientation, sectarian affiliation, and Islamic educational activities. Together, these features will allow researchers to study mosques not only as sites of worship, but as durable social and organizational institutions embedded in local communities. To demonstrate the analytic value of the data, we conduct a series of theory-driven exploratory analyses that speak to longstanding questions in the study of religion, race and ethnicity, and political incorporation in the United States.

Authors

• Mostafa El Sharkawy, University of Michigan

• Hasher Nisar