protect the minority, the sacred respect for nature, the importance of doing good deeds, and love of neighbor. Beginning with the immigrant generation of Lebanese founders at the turn of the 20th century, this history will show that the founding families were doggedly determined throughout those long decades to establish their religious identity in America. They wanted their mosque to be seen as equally sacred as the churches and synagogues, and with a place of equal prominence on the American religious landscape. They modeled their mosque on those religious institutions. They set up a democratic administration system, copied fundraising events, imitated the way the churches were used for social purposes, and learned how to write the legal documents of by-laws and constitutions, necessary to legitimize a house of worship in America. This history covers the contributions of the first generation of American-born founders and features the influence of the new immigrant pioneers who joined and built up the community from 1965 onward. Since the first mosque in New England was built by its residents in one of the oldest and most celebrated cities in the country, the City of Presidents, its historical significance could not be more American. The mosque generally relied on elders and recent immigrants for religious guidance. In 1982, Talal Eid became the first imam of the mosque. In 1993, the ICNE opened a sister location in Sharon, Massachusetts, called the Sharon Mosque. The primary function of ICNE is to oversee the operation of the two mosques it owns, located in Quincy and Sharon, Massachusetts. ICNE has about 3,000 members, many from various nations, and including Sunnis and Shias. Leadership controversies A former board director (1982-2005) and imam, Talal Eid, says that in 2005 the ICNE board forced him from his leadership position because of his moderate Islamic teachings. Some news reports accuse several board members who forced him out of having connections to Islamic extremists, including then board president Dr. Abdul-badi Abousamra, a prominent endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital who was also vice president of the Muslim American Society of Boston, which ran the Islamic Society of Boston, a Cambridge mosque. Dr. Abousamra's son, Ahmad Abousamra, is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.[2] The ICNE responded that it was an employment disagreement and that their "teachings fully respect the rule of American law and the sanctity of human life, and we have always unequivocally condemned