America's Oldest Muslim Peace Conference Is This Weekend

The Jalsa Salana USA celebrates its 75th anniversary in Richmond, VA, and this is likely the first you heard about it

In 1948 in Dayton, Ohio, some thirty American Muslim men and women huddled into a small gathering to hold the first national meeting of American Muslims—the Jalsa Salana . Modest in means, size, and platform—the one thing those Americans didn't lack was conviction in their faith as Muslims, and in their identity as Americans. This Fourth of July weekend, that modest gathering celebrates its 75th anniversary—and this might be the first you’ve heard about it.

A photograph from the first Jalsa Salana, held in 1948 in Dayton, Ohio.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA organizes the Jalsa Salana, inviting people of all faiths and no faith to build bridges of understanding, sisterhood and brotherhood, and promote human rights.

In 2025, some 77 years later, each of these goals are exponentially more important. At a time of record highs in anti-Muslim violence and Islamophobia, American Muslims constantly find ourselves answering for our faith and having to "prove" our loyalty to our country. Tragically, 2025 America sees a rising call for Muslims to be deported (including Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani), special legislation that target's Muslims for our faith, and a travel ban that exclusively targets Muslim majority nations.

So, more seven decades later, what has become of the Jalsa Salana ? This Fourth of July weekend in Richmond, Virginia, I will be joining some 10,000 fellow American Muslim women and men at the Richmond Convention Center for the landmark 75th Annual Jalsa Salana. What better way to celebrate freedom than embracing America’s promise of religious freedom for all? Indeed, George Washington famously wrote of his welcoming of Muslim workers. And Thomas Jefferson owned a Qur’an and hosted the first ever White House Iftar.

Historically ballooning to over 12,000 attendees, the Jalsa Salana has become the nation's longest running American Muslim conference. It now annually attracts national civil rights leaders, presidential candidates, senators, governors, and thousands of non-Muslim guests.

Each conference attracts American Muslim delegates from around the country—Lyft and Uber drivers, doctors and lawyers, cashiers and construction workers, engineers and Islamic scholars, artists and scientists, veterans and active duty military—the Jalsa Salana rebuts the myth of an alleged conflict between Islam and America.

Mark Twain famously wrote, "Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." Perhaps this is why it is all the more remarkable that the only thing the Jalsa Salana doesn't seem to attract is nationwide mainstream media coverage. The Jalsa Salana epitomizes everything demanded of Muslims in America. It demonstrates interfaith harmony, service to humanity, gender equality, a condemnation of terrorism, and separation of religion and state. In the days before the Jalsa, volunteers engage in Jalsa Cares events, where we clean up local cemeteries, get trash off of streets, and Red Cross partnerships. Indeed, serving the communities we live in isn’t just a civic responsibility, it is the most important part of Islamic faith.

Yet, after 75 years of this national peace conference—the longest running such conference in the nation—collectively attended by hundreds of thousands of Americans who are Muslim, procuring national media coverage has transformed into an exercise in futility.

Think about it. When was the last time you heard national cable news cover this conference?

Never? Pretty close.

This is one reason I call our public discourse on Islam “Schrödinger's outrage.” Critics constantly demand American Muslims renounce terrorism and integrate to America, while simultaneously ignoring American Muslims who have done exactly that for the better part of a century.

The fact is that Muslims never needed to "integrate" with America because Muslims in America predate the existence of the United States. Historians estimate that up to 30 percent of Africans kidnapped, enslaved, and human trafficked to what is now America—were Muslim.

As fate would have it, the majority of those initial thirty women and men who held our country's first national American Muslim conference were African American—descendants of those noble women and men horrifically enslaved. They were descendants of those noble women and men who built America's economic, agricultural, and infrastructural foundation.

The descendants of those Muslims who built the foundation of America's success began the Jalsa Salana to demonstrate—once again—that no conflict exists between Islam and America.

If you've never heard about this reality, it is not because Muslims aren't speaking up. It is because the powers that be refuse to let you hear. In other words, history is once again repeating itself. And that’s why these conversations, publications, and dialogues are so important. They allow education to expand, understanding to increase, and neighborliness to become further cemented.

The Jalsa Salana is one among many proofs of the great possibilities of this nation—one committed to pluralism, compassion, religious freedom, and interfaith harmony. As we celebrate July 4th this year, we also celebrate and continue to elevate this nation’s promise of religious freedom and equal justice. I doubt I’ll be around to see the 150th Jalsa Salana, but I can only envision what that future might entail. If we are successful in our efforts at this Jalsa, that future will be one further committed to interfaith harmony and peace. And that is certainly worth celebrating.

NOTE: And if you’re in or around the Richmond, VA area this Saturday, you’re most welcome to attend our guest session. Email JALSA2025@AHMADIYYA.US or call (571) 406-8212.

You can also visit the Jalsa online at https://convention.ahmadiyya.us/jalsa.php.