Just two months shy of the tenth anniversary of a woman-led, mixed-gender congregation Friday prayer in New York City (March 18, 2005), a group of American Muslim women announced that they were planning to hold women-only Friday prayers once a month in a multi-faith synagogue in downtown Los Angeles. The initiative, called The Women’s Mosque of America, describes its goal as follows:

The Women's Mosque of America seeks to uplift the Muslim community by empowering women and girls through more direct access to Islamic scholarship and leadership opportunities. The Women's Mosque of America will provide a safe space for women to feel welcome, respected, and actively engaged within the Muslim Ummah. It will complement existing mosques, offering opportunities for women to grow, learn, and gain inspiration to spread throughout their respective communities.

The first Friday prayer, including a woman calling the congregants to prayer (adhan), a woman offering the Friday sermon (khutbah), and a woman leading the all-female congregation in Friday prayer, took place on January 30, 2015. Approximately one hundred women and children (including boys under twelve) were in attendance. A second prayer was performed on February 20, 2015. The organizers, Sana Muttalib and Hasna Maznavi, claim that it is the only women-only mosque in the United States. Los Angeles is the geographical home of the new initiative, whose name—the Women’s Mosque of America, creates a spatial as well as institutional claim that indicates a program rather than a physical reality. While most would primarily associate the term mosque with physical structure created for the purpose of accommodating Muslim worship practices, the claim to the title for this organization/institution/movement points to fascinating shifts in the way religious institutions and organizations in the United States are created and function within as well as beyond physical form.