Abstract
This article examines the contested nature of American efforts to expand America’s twentieth century notion of tri-faith idealism—the unity of the three monotheistic faiths of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Judaism—to include Muslims both at home and abroad. It does so through a contextual, historical study of the construction and dedication of the Islamic Center of Washington. The construction of the Islamic Center ultimately proved a lightning rod that electrified competing wings of Protestant Christian nationalism within in the United States—namely “inclusivist ecumenists” and “exclusivist populists.”