ABOUT ICN
O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted.
(Al-ḥujurat 49:13).
VISION
To become an epicenter of Islamic knowledge, service and spirituality.
MISSION
To provide welcoming, family friendly, state of the art infrastructures to meet the needs of members and the community.
OUR STORY
In the mid-1970s, there were very few Muslims in Nashville. Only a handful used to offer Jumu’a prayer (weekly Friday congregation) at the Afro House (now known as the Black Cultural Center) of Vanderbilt University.
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As time progressed, attendance in Jumu’a prayer gradually grew from 5 to 40 by 1979. At that time, the Nashville Muslims got together and organized themselves for the first time, paving the way for the formal emergence of the Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN).
With a collection of $30,000 and a generous donation from Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) of England, the ICN purchased an old house in 1979 on the corner of Twelfth Ave. and Sweetbriar Street.
The community continued to use it as a Mosque until 1989 when the old house was demolished and a new Mosque was built.
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It was estimated that the growing muslim population in Nashville at that time was around 3000.
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The Muslim community of Nashville kept growing at a fast rate throughout the 90’s when we were blessed to have an influx of Kurdish and Somalians move to Nashville.
Besides the mosque, ICN’s major achievements include the purchase of land for Muslim graveyard, the purchase of land (10.6 acre land on Charlotte Pike near exit 199 off of I-40 West) in 1995 for Muslim Community Complex for a full-time Islamic school, community center and mosque, the establishment of a full-time Islamic school (founded in 1995) as well as a weekend Islamic school, and the launching of many other social, religious and educational activities.
On December 1, 2008, the first phase of the new school building was completed and opened, from Pre-K thru 6th grades.
In 2019, ICN marked the occasion of it's 40th Ramadan.
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In the same year, ICN completed the construction of the ICN Bellevue Mosque in its Bellevue campus located at 7337 Charlotte Pike, Nashville 37209.
The ICN provides educational opportunities for people of other faiths to learn about Islam. Schools, classes, churches, individuals, institutions, etc. visit our mosque on a weekly basis, as well as our members being regularly invited to speak to groups such as schools, workplace, law enforcement, interfaith, etc. Also, our center prides itself in working towards making our great city of Nashville a better community through community service programs.
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The Muslims in Nashville are well diverse with ethnic representations from more than 40 nations regions. Presently, the greater Nashville community has over 40,000 Muslims and nine major mosques in Nashville (Islamic Center of Nashville (ICN), Islamic Center of Nashville Bellevue Mosque (ICN-BM), Salahadeen Center of Nashville, Masjid Al-Farooq, Islamic Center of Tennessee (ICT), Islamic Center of Williamson County (ICWC), Muslim American Culture Center (MACC), Masjid Al Salam, and Masjid Al-Islam). The greater region includes the Islamic Center of Clarksville, the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, the Islamic Center of Columbia and the Masjid Al-Salam Shelbyville.
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