Human rights violations by Syrian government forces and rebels are on the rise as fighting spreads across the country, said Paulo Pinheiro, the chief UN rights investigator for Syria.

American-born imams are nearly impossible to find. Ads from mosques seeking imams who are fluent in English are readily found in Muslim-American magazines and newspapers. The North American Imams Federation, an advocacy group founded in 2002, gets more than 100 requests for help every year from mosques seeking religious leaders.

Hossam AlJabri, a former executive director of the Muslim American Society, estimated that about 80 percent of America’s 2,200 mosques were led by immigrant imams, although the majority have been in America for at least 10 years, many much longer.

According to a 2011 report from the Pew Research Center, 63 percent of America’s estimated 2.75 million Muslims are immigrants — with as many as 90,000 new Muslim immigrants arriving each year. Experts say it will be years before the pool of American imams becomes large enough to meet demand from mosques.

While a few Islamic chaplaincy programmes and educational institutes have been established in the last few years in the United States, there are no similar programmes to help newly arrived imams acclimate to America.

American mosques continue to rely on foreign-born imams for their religious knowledge and fluency in Arabic. But they also want Americanized imams who can speak English and serve as competent communicators with an ear for interfaith events, civic engagement and engaging the media.

Because there are so few of these imams and demand for them is so strong, they can ask for salaries as high as $90,000 per year, plus benefits. Imams from abroad generally accept much lower salaries, expecting their income to go further than it will.

Before long, however, many imams find themselves stretched financially and some even get second jobs.

Many communities prefer immigrant imams because of scepticism about imams trained in America. “I found an imam at one Masjid who could hardly speak English, but they have him because he recites good Quran and can lead them in prayers, and that’s all they want,” said Naeem Baig, a spokesman for the Islamic Circle of North America.

“When it comes to religion, they are more accustomed to someone who has had a background being raised and educated Islamically in a Muslim country,” said Imam Mohamed Magid, president of the Islamic Society of North America, an advocacy group, and imam at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in northern Virginia, one of the biggest Islamic centres in the country.

Darul Ihsan Media Desk