In the year 2013, for the Islamic month of Ramadan (which fell in most of July and the beginning of August), the Muslim Association of Iceland invited Ismaeel Malik, an American then studying at Umm al-Qura University, to lead the prayers and deliver the Friday sermons.

[6] This delay was 'especially signalled as a possible sign of prejudice against Muslims by the ECRI (European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance) human rights report on Iceland in 2007'.

[9] According to the chair of the Muslim Association of Iceland, Ibrahim Sverrir Agnarsson, "My hope is that the mosque can serve as a statement of liberalism, open to all, a place where a North African laborer can pray next to a U. S.

[12] One independent opinion poll of adults run between September 26 and October 1, 2013 asked ‘hversu fylgjandi eða andvíg(ur) ertu því að eftirfarandi trúfélög fái að byggja trúarbyggingar á Íslandi’ ('how supportive or opposed are you that the following religious groups should get to build a religious building in Iceland?').

[15] In 2015, the Icelandic president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, claimed that Saudi Arabia intended to donate money to the mosque.

[16] Siðmennt, the Icelandic Ethical Humanist Association, issued a statement about it in general terms and did not criticise this particular decision because of the principle of equal treatment.

[20] A positive, fictional account of the building of Reykjavík's first purpose-built mosque appears in Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl's 2009 novel Gæska: Skáldsaga.