Cedar Rapids, Iowa (CNN)The small white building is inconspicuous except for its shuttered windows adorned with painted mint-green domes. A silver crescent catches the sun above the door as men with beards and women with their bodies covered from head to toe enter. It's a mosque, nestled in the most unlikeliest of places, in the heartland of America, not far from emblematic cornfields that make this city the largest producer of ethanol in the world. Built in 1932 with hard-earned money scraped together during the Great Depression, Mother Mosque has given sanctuary to Syrian immigrants who came from places like Damascus and the Bekaa Valley. They arrived not yesterday, but a century ago....
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