The exact date when the first Muslim came to Bozeman is not known. From the recollections of the current Muslims living in Bozeman and from others who left this community recently, it is estimated that Muslims were living in Bozeman during the early 1970s. We know a Muslim sister who now lives in California was born in Bozeman while her father was a graduate student at Montana State University (MSU) during the early seventies. This is the earliest first hand estimate that we have regarding the Muslim inhabitants in Bozeman.
Bozeman is a small college town where the largest employer is MSU and as such historically most of the Muslims have been associated with the university. Among the Muslims in this town the majority of them are students. To the best of our knowledge, the first organized group for Muslims was formed in the mid 1980s by the students at MSU. During the late 1980s some of the bachelor Muslims at MSU rented a house close to campus. They used the upstairs of the house as their living space and donated the downstairs to be used as a musalla. They used to have many Islamic activities in that musalla on a regular basis throughout the year. This included weekly halaqa, publishing weekly newsletter as a reminder of our Islamic responsibilities, organizing Islamic awareness week, etc. Alhamdulillah even today, this group of students remains the most excellent example for all the Muslims in this town. Unfortunately, those students left Bozeman after graduation one after another and that musalla in Bozeman ceased to exist in the early 1990s. Since then Muslims students at MSU have been organizing Friday prayers and other Islamic activities at various places on campus and sometimes off campus.
Alhamdulillah the Muslim population in the Bozeman area has been growing steadily for the last several years. Therefore, it was high time to establish a permanent mosque that should be the center place for all the Islamic activities in Bozeman and the surrounding areas. With this intention, Islamic Center of Bozeman (ICB) was formed and it became a registered organization in the State of Montana in June 2005. The Muslim students at MSU continues to be a part of ICB and all our activities are held jointly. Alhamdulillah in the summer of 2015 we have established our mosque in Bozeman.