Mohamad Jawad Chirri

The new Islamic Center of America on Ford Road opened its doors in 2005 and marked the 10th anniversary of the passing of the late Imam.

In 1959, Imam Mohamad Jawad Chirri traveled to the United Arab Republic (Egypt) to meet with President Gamal Abdel Nasser to seek financial assistance in building a new mosque in America. Imam Chirri also took the opportunity to meet with Imam Mahmud Shaltut of the Al-Azhar University to discuss similarities between the Sunni and Twelvers Shi’a schools of thought. After the dialogues, Imam Shaltout made an announcement that the Sunni and Shi’a sects are both sound schools of thought, and they both share equal legitimacy in Islam. Imam Chirri was also able to convince President Nasser to help his foundation purchase a parcel of land on Joy Road and Greenfield. With further community donations, three years after his trip to Egypt, the Islamic Center of Detroit (which would later be renamed the Islamic Center of America) opened its doors in 1962.

Imam Mohamad Jawad Chirri was born in Lebanon to a Shi’a Muslim family. He was a graduate of the theological seminary of Najaf in Iraq. He then traveled to the United States of America in 1948 at the request of the then small Muslim community in the Detroit area to "...bring guidance and purpose". The community then was made up of mostly Lebanese immigrants from as early as the turn of the 20th Century and their first- and second-generation offspring. Imam Chirri was able to transform a community that had lived and almost assimilated into a Christian culture into a community that found solidarity under the Islamic Center Foundation Society in Highland Park, Michigan.

Imam Mohamad Jawad Chirri (Arabic: محمد جواد شري; October 1, 1905 – November 10, 1994) was the founder and director of the Islamic Center of America until his death.