Dar Al-Hijrah was founded in 1998 in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in Minneapolis and is the oldest Somali mosque in Minnesota. It signals the latest of many phases of immigration to the state, from Scandinavians and other Europeans in the nineteenth century to East Africans in the 1990s and 2000s. The congregation has a unique commitment to civic education and advocates for the idea that Islam is compatible with democracy through its sister organization, the Islamic Civic Society of America.
Sample plan of a stave church layout, similar to the Hopperstad. Typical elements of stave churches include a walkway (sval), nave (midtrom), chancel (kor), and apse (apsis). Image by Wikimedia Commons user Hȧkon Andreas Christie.
The interior of the original Hopperstad Church in Vik, Norway, July 13, 2010. Note the canopy of the baldachin, six staves, structural St. Andrew’s crosses, and small windows in the clerestory.
View of the leper’s window and part of the choir screen separating the chancel from the nave inside the Hopperstad Stave Church replica, April 2, 2017. Photographed by Kaci Johnson.