[1] Located at 4228 Walnut Street, in a historic building formerly occupied by the Commodore Theatre, the mosque currently serves a large and diverse Muslim population in the neighborhood.

Founded in 1973 by the national Muslim Students Association – an umbrella organization that helps to coordinate Muslim student activities on college and university campuses throughout the United States – NAIT declared on its website in 2019 that it was holding titles to mosques as waqfs in over forty U.S. states, with the goal of ensuring their long-term stability.

Designed by the Ballinger Company, in association with the architects Hoffman & Henon, the edifice reflected the Spanish Revival or Moorish architectural style, which was popular in the 1920s.

[7] As indicated in a photograph from the Urban Archives of Temple University Libraries, the building housed a church called the “Miracle Revival Tabernacle” in 1964.

[8] Historically the Masjid Al-Jamia has had a close relationship with sections of the Muslim community at the University of Pennsylvania, whose campus is located in West Philadelphia.