As for Mr. Bayyari, he did not last long at Roosevelt, instead learning the fast-food industry at McDonald’s Hamburger University, running franchises in Los Angeles and Hawaii, then picking up construction skills during four years with a conglomerate in Bahrain. He and his wife decided to move back to the United States to raise a family, and she had fond memories of Arkansas from childhood vacations.

The Boston Jew and the West Bank Muslim experienced similar isolation at the start. A circuit-riding rabbi came through Fayetteville just one Shabbat a month. The nearest synagogue was 60 miles away in Fort Smith, and the closest kosher meat was two and a half hours west in Tulsa. Mr. Bayyari worshiped in rented rooms with a small group of Muslim students from abroad and had to drive 12 hours to Chicago for a halal butcher.

Isolation, though, was not tantamount to prejudice. With his thriving construction business, Mr. Bayyari wound up serving on a regional planning board, joining the Rotary Club and even having an elementary school in nearby Springdale named for him. While he heard one accusatory comment after the Oklahoma City bombing, in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, he said, he received many calls from friends making sure he had not been insulted or attacked.

Partly because it is a university town, partly because it sits 15 miles from Wal-Mart’s world headquarters, Fayetteville itself has grown into a surprisingly cosmopolitan place. Yes, the football fans still scream “Pig, sooooey!” and, yes, the annual motorcycle rally is called “Bikes, Blues and BBQ.” But Thai and Mexican restaurants flourish, educational levels stand high in national rankings and magazines like Forbes rate Fayetteville a highly desirable place to live.

With the growth in its membership from about 15 families in 1981 to nearly 60 early this decade, Temple Shalom resolved two years ago to buy or build its own sanctuary, rather than to keep renting space. The congregation’s effort to buy a locally famous home ran into opposition from neighbors, who said they objected to having more traffic in a residential area.

While the city zoning commission was wrestling with the case, Mr. Bayyari heard about it from one of his Rotary Club buddies, Ralph Nesson, a member of Temple Shalom. In solidarity, Mr. Bayyari attended several zoning meetings to support the temple’s plan.

By last fall, Mr. Feldman and other leaders had decided to withdraw the application rather than prolong the controversy. Attention then turned to a plot of land on Sang Road and a prospective capital campaign of $2.2 million. The congregation had a bequest of $500,000 from a member, Miriam Alford, and has been able to raise about $450,000 more, leaving a gap of $1.3 million for construction and programming.