Source: The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe published an article on January 17, 1999 about the presence of the Islamic population in the Greater Boston region. The Globe reports that there are an estimated 40,000 Muslims in Massachusetts, with significant clusters in the Shrewsbury-Northborough-Westborough area and in the Natick-Framingham areas. Omar Khalidi of Wayland, an architect and independent scholar at MIT, attributes the growth of the Muslim community in the Metrowest region of Boston to the "availability of jobs in the computer industry and area hospitals, and also because of its good schools." Massachusetts is also home to the only Shi'ite mosque in New England, the Islamic Masumeen Center in Hopkinton, which has a community of 60 families and a mailing list of 250 people in five states.