Walk up Prospect Street from Central Square on a Friday a little before 1 p.m., and you will find students, lab workers and families heading toward the same door. At No. 204 stands a former Knights of Columbus hall that has been, since 1995, the first mosque in Cambridge.

The Mass Halal Journal's daily town series has visited Sharon and Quincy, home to the two centers of the Islamic Center of New England. For our third stop, we cross the river to Cambridge, a city of 118,403 people at the 2020 census, best known for Harvard and MIT. For Muslims in Massachusetts, it is also where a student prayer group grew into one of the largest Islamic organizations in New England.

Students Far From Home

The story starts on campus. According to Mass Moments, a project of Mass Humanities, three Harvard students, an African American, a Sudanese and a Palestinian, organized the Harvard Islamic Society in 1958.

After the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a new wave of Muslim students and professionals arrived from more than 50 countries, according to the Islamic Society of Boston. With no masjid nearby, many took the train and bus all the way to Quincy, where they taught Sunday school and served on the board of the Islamic Center of New England.

In 1981, Muslims at Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, Wentworth Institute, Suffolk and Tufts formed the Islamic Society of Boston, Mass Moments reports. For years the group held lectures, social events and prayers on the MIT campus.

The Masjid on Prospect Street

In 1993, ISB writes, the society bought the Knights of Columbus building at 204 Prospect Street. After renovations, the first mosque in Cambridge opened for prayer in 1995 and quickly filled. Mass Moments says that within a few years about 1,000 worshipers were coming to Friday prayers, with the overflow spreading prayer rugs across the parking lot.

That crowding led ISB to build a much larger home in Roxbury. The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center opened at 100 Malcolm X Boulevard in 2009 and is now the largest mosque in New England. But the society never left Cambridge. ISB says the Prospect Street masjid still serves about 300 people at weekly Jumuah.

ISB Cambridge's posted schedule lists the Friday khutbah at 1 p.m. and the prayer at 1:30 p.m. The masjid is between Central and Inman squares, about a ten-minute walk from Central station on the Red Line. The phone number listed by the Cambridge Office for Tourism is 617-876-3546. Check isbcc.org for current times before you go.

Prayer on Campus

The universities that started it all still have their own prayer spaces. The MIT Muslim Students Association holds Jumuah every Friday at 1:15 p.m. in the MIT Musalla, Room W11-110, with a khutbah followed by the congregational prayer. During the school year, a weekly gathering called Connect meets there on Fridays at 5:30 p.m. with free dinner. The MSA says visiting scholars and community members are always welcome.

At Harvard, Muslim students prayed for decades in a cramped basement room in Canaday Hall. In August 2025, the Harvard Crimson reported, the university designated a permanent musallah on the second floor of the Smith Campus Center, and chaplain Khalil Abdur-Rashid said he planned to add a foot bath for wudu. The Harvard Islamic Society lists the musallah in Room 240 and Jumuah at Lowell Lecture Hall on Fridays at 12:45 p.m. Harvard's chaplaincy notes that a Harvard ID is required for some campus prayer spaces and events.

A Mayor's Iftar and a Lighthouse

Cambridge also made state history. On Jan. 6, 2020, the City Council unanimously elected Sumbul Siddiqui mayor, making her the first Muslim mayor in Massachusetts. Born in Karachi, Pakistan, she grew up in Cambridge public housing and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. The city's website says she is now serving her third term as mayor.

Each Ramadan the mayor's office hosts a Cambridge Community Iftar with the Islamic Society of Boston and city partners. Cambridge Day reported that about 600 people came to the 11th annual iftar this March at the Cambridge Street Upper School, where they broke their fast with dates, halal chicken over rice and knafeh.

In West Cambridge, a group of young Muslims opened Minara, a café and "culture salon" at 361 Huron Avenue, in December 2025. Its name means "lighthouse" in Arabic. Cambridge Day described Yemeni copper lanterns, Tunisian prayer mats, a hand-built mihrab and drinks like Kashmiri kahwa and Sudanese karkade. The building was being sold, and Minara closed after its Eid Mic on March 21. A Cambridge Day essay in July said it was set to reopen later this year. Follow its updates at minaraspace.org.

Where to Eat

Harvard Square has an Egyptian halal café. Luxor Cafe, at 148 Mount Auburn Street in the old Darwin's flagship, says its food is halal and serves hawawshi, kibdah and baklava lattes. Its posted hours run until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Inside MIT's Stratton Student Center, at 84 Massachusetts Avenue, Tawakal Halal serves Somali and Middle Eastern dishes made from family recipes. It says it uses halal-certified meats. It is open weekdays for lunch, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and until 3 p.m. on Fridays.

In East Cambridge, Silk Road Uyghur Cuisine, at 645 Cambridge Street, serves laghman noodles, lamb kebabs and samosas and says all of its menu is halal. Halal status can change, so ask before you order.

Newtowne, Revolution and the River

English Puritans settled Cambridge in 1630 as Newtowne, on a small hill on the north bank of the Charles River, according to the Cambridge Historical Commission. It took the name Cambridge in 1638, two years after Harvard College was founded. George Washington used what is now the Longfellow House on Brattle Street as his headquarters in 1775 and 1776, and the remains of Fort Washington, one of his riverside earthworks, can still be seen in Cambridgeport.

Cambridge became a city in 1846, joining the rival villages of Old Cambridge, Cambridgeport and East Cambridge. Irish families came in the 1840s, followed by Italians, Poles, Portuguese, French Canadians and Russian Jews. The old glass works and brickyards have given way to software and biotech labs.

A City of Students

Cambridge is a place people pass through for a degree or a job, but many stay. The students who once rode the train to Quincy for Jumuah built a masjid of their own on Prospect Street, and the community they started now reaches from Harvard Square to Roxbury.

Tomorrow, our series moves to its next town.

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