Taha Tawil, the imam of the Mother Mosque in Cedar Rapids, explains the mosque’s history on Friday. (Photo: Khue Bui for Yahoo News)

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Taha Tawil, the imam of the oldest mosque in America, insists upon making us cups of fortifying tea before we talk politics.



“Politics is headache,” he says wearily in the basement of the Mother Mosque, a modest two-story building that was built in the 1930s by Syrian immigrants fleeing the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire.

Now a new, far larger wave of Syrian immigration has stoked a political debate about Muslims in the United States. The frontrunner for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, has called for barring all Muslims from entering the country, surveillance of mosques and a special national registry for Muslims. (It’s unclear if the registry would be for all Muslims or just refugees.) Trump’s rivals have also expressed concern about accepting any refugees from Syria for fear that some are affiliated with ISIS, though none have gone as far as the real estate tycoon.

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Despite his dislike of politics, Tawil’s role as an imam in a battleground state has pushed him into this fierce debate. He has met Sen. Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton positively called out his mosque in a stump speech earlier this week, and he has personally invited Trump to stop by the mosque and have a cup of tea with him to chat about his views. (Trump hasn’t replied.)

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Tawil emigrated to Iowa 40 years ago from Israel, to get his master’s degree in comparative religion from the University of Iowa. His childhood as a Palestinian in Jerusalem was tumultuous, and comparatively Iowa felt like a land of peace and prosperity. When he was just 7 years old, he and his family were kicked out of their home and moved to a camp north of Jerusalem. They were never allowed to return home.

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The political rhetoric around tracking and monitoring Muslims reminds Tawil of those days. “It brings fear into my heart,” he said.

“Will we be like the Japanese? Do they want us to be in camps? To show ID or to wear certain things to reflect that you’re a Muslim? Is that democracy?” Tawil asked. “That’s why I [fled] a land that has war in it to come to here where I found my humanity, I found my character, I found my dignity.”

Tawil has been a citizen for 25 years and serves on an interreligious council in Cedar Rapids as well as volunteering as a chaplain for the police department.

“I am serving, and I love the country — this is my country,” he said. “And I don’t know why they point out that, no, I don’t belong.”

If Trump ever took him up on his offer to stop by the mosque, Tawil knows what he would say.

“Welcome, welcome to your neighbors,” he would begin. “I will say, Mr. Trump you are a Catholic, and there is Mafia.” Trump is actually Presbyterian. “Mafia is from the Catholic [community], but I cannot mix. This is a criminal organization and this is a religious community. The same thing with Muslims. ISIS, al-Qaida — that’s a criminal organization. Do not mix it with the Muslim community.”

The Mother Mosque, America’s oldest mosque, as seen at night. (Photo: Khue Bui for Yahoo News)

Cover tile photo: Khue Bui for Yahoo News