Drive south from Boston on Interstate 95, turn off toward Lake Massapoag, and you reach a town that looks like a New England postcard: white steeples, stone walls, and wooded hills. Turn onto Chase Drive and you find something else Sharon is known for. For more than three decades, this town of about 18,000 people has been home to one of the best-known Muslim communities in Massachusetts.

This is the first story in a new Mass Halal Journal series. Each day we will visit one Massachusetts town with a notable Muslim community, and look at both the masjid down the road and the town around it. We begin in Sharon.

A Masjid on an Old Horse Farm

The Islamic Center of New England (ICNE) is one of the oldest Muslim communities in New England. According to the center, it grew out of gatherings in family homes and bought its first building in Quincy in 1964. Those early Quincy families included Lebanese immigrants who worked in the area's shipyards.

By the 1980s and early 1990s, more Muslim families were settling on the South Shore, and the Quincy building could not hold everyone. After an earlier plan to buy land in Milton fell through amid local opposition, the community looked to Sharon. The Pluralism Project at Harvard notes that Sharon already had a substantial Muslim population and that leaders of many of the town's houses of worship wrote letters supporting the new center.

On April 2, 1993, ground was broken on 55 acres that had once been a horse farm. More than twenty priests, pastors and rabbis from Greater Boston took part, according to the Pluralism Project. The New York Times covered the ceremony under a white tent in the rain. It described a master of ceremonies who was a doctor from Kashmir, a call to prayer from a welder from Trinidad, and building plans drawn by an architect from Turkey. State Senator William R. Keating, who then represented Sharon, joked about the rain: "In this world we are all under one tent."

Today, ICNE runs two centers: the original one at 470 South Street in Quincy and the Sharon center at 74 Chase Drive.

Learning on Chase Drive

Education has been part of the Sharon campus almost from the start. In September 1996, ICNE opened a full-time day school, the Islamic Academy of New England, at the Sharon center. According to the school's parent handbook, 84 students enrolled that first year.

The school is now known as Al-Noor Academy. Its Sharon campus at 84-86 Chase Drive serves the youngest students, from pre-K through the early elementary grades, while older students attend a campus at 20 Church Street in Mansfield. ICNE says Al-Noor is an accredited member of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Federal private-school data for the 2023-24 school year counted about 180 students on the Sharon campus.

On weekends the campus fills again. ICNE runs Saturday and Sunday schools in Sharon with classes in Quran, tajweed, Islamic studies and history. Registration usually opens on the second Saturday of September.

Imam, Halaqas and Everyday Life

The Sharon center's imam and resident scholar is Imam Abdur Rahman Ahmad. According to ICNE, he taught Arabic, hadith and fiqh in Karachi, served as imam of Masjid As-Saaffaat in Trenton, New Jersey, from 2008 to 2015, and co-founded the Nakhlah Institute with his wife, Ustadhah Nadia Salma, in 2013.

This fall he is leading a free weekly Ruh Halaqa for young adults and young professionals on Wednesdays between Maghrib and Isha. It began September 30, and registration is required. The center also handles nikah ceremonies and rents its hall for weddings, and regularly hosts community gatherings. This Sunday, October 18, there is a sisters-only potluck at ICNE Sharon from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Where to Eat

Sharon is a small town, and its halal options are modest. Angel's Cafe at 3 Post Office Square, in the town center, serves Middle Eastern dishes such as falafel wraps and hummus platters along with American breakfast. If halal meat matters to you, ask about it before you order. We could not confirm the cafe's halal status. Many families shop and eat in nearby towns along Route 1 in Norwood and Walpole, where delivery apps list several halal restaurants.

The Town Itself

Sharon has a long history. British settlers arrived in 1637. The area became the Second Precinct of Stoughton in 1740, was incorporated as Stoughtonham in 1765, and took the name Sharon in 1783. During the Revolution, the town says, local farmers and craftsmen made cannonballs for the Continental Army.

Sharon's best-known resident is Deborah Sampson. She disguised herself as a man to fight in the Revolutionary War, then married farmer Benjamin Gannett in 1785 and spent the rest of her life in Sharon. Paul Revere visited her farm in 1804 and wrote to Congress backing her request for a pension. She died in 1827 and is buried in Rock Ridge Cemetery. In 1983 the state named her the official State Heroine of Massachusetts. Her statue stands in front of the Sharon Public Library.

Things to Do

From the 1800s into the 1940s, Sharon was a summer resort. City families came to stay at inns around Lake Massapoag, which covers about 400 acres. The lake is still the center of town life, with swimming at Memorial Beach, fishing, concerts and fireworks.

The town also has a lot of green space. Mass Audubon's Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary covers about 2,250 acres, and the town says roughly 60 percent of Borderland State Park lies within Sharon. In all, the town counts more than 5,000 acres of protected open space. That means fall walks are close at hand for families leaving Jummah or weekend school.

To get there, Sharon is about 20 miles south of downtown Boston and has its own stop on the MBTA Providence/Stoughton commuter rail line.

A Town Under One Tent

When people talk about Sharon, they often mention its many faiths: churches, synagogues and a masjid in the same small town. The story of ICNE Sharon begins with neighbors who wrote letters of support and clergy who stood together in the rain. Thirty-three years later, children still head to class on Chase Drive and families still gather for prayer, and that welcome is still part of the town.

Tomorrow, our series moves to its next town.