Imam Mohammed Badat was born and raised in Toronto, Canada to parents who emigrated from Gujarat, India in the early 1970s. His family grew up near their local masjid in York region. “The masjid was our playground growing up,” he shared. Imam Badat began his Islamic Studies there, memorizing Quran and being tutored by the resident imam.

Australian academic Dr. Scott Flower came to Ottawa on July 25th to discuss his current research on Canadian converts to Islam. He admits that it has been hard to find Canadian converts willing to be interviewed for his current national study of conversion to Islam in Canada, funded through Project Kaniskha, which is managed by Public Safety Canada. And yes, he gets it-“It’s the whole government anti-terrorism connection!”

Salang Kabob House Restaurant, a staple of Ottawa’s Bayshore community located at 2934 Carling Avenue, has a new owner, Pakistani Canadian Ihsan Sandhu.

L’essence salon is the latest entrepreneurial adventure for Turkish Canadian couple Mustafa and Selma Elevli. Muslim Link sat down with the couple to talk about their beauty salon and the lessons they have learned over their years as a business-owning family in Ottawa.

In response to the conversations emerging from opinion pieces we have published on the new Ontario Sex Ed curriculum, Muslim Link is starting a series of interviews with several members of North America’s Muslim communities on sexual education. We’ll be exploring the challenges Muslim Canadians, especially Muslim youth, are facing in relation to sexual health education and morality.

Sobia Faisal-Ali, a PhD researcher who conducted a survey of 403 North American Muslims between the ages of 17 to 35 exploring issues of sexual health education and experiences, shares her findings with us.

Two primary objectives of the residential school system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, “to kill the Indian in the child.” Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country. Prime Minister Stephen Harper, official apology, June 11, 2008

After years of working in community development and youth engagement across Ottawa, Hamid Mousa has been working with the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) since 2008. Currently the OPS Community Development Coordinator, Mousa, a Palestinian Canadian, began as a refugee to this country.

Assma Galuta, aka Asoomii Jay, 25, has been an active YouTuber since 2011 when she began doing hijab tutorials. “I saw a lot of my friends removing their hijab and it made me sad,” she explained, “They were just doing it to fit in with their Canadian friends and they would say ‘I don’t look good in a hijab’ or ‘I don’t feel welcome in a hijab’. I started my YouTube Channel because I wanted to show girls that they could still look pretty and feel pretty and be stylish and wear the hijab.” Her channel became popular internationally with thousands of subscribers on YouTube and tens of thousands of Facebook followers.

Aaida “Mombasa” Mamuji is an amateur boxer who, while studying for her PhD at the University of Ottawa, began a program training Muslim women at the Final Round Boxing Club. Now that she’s left Ottawa for an exciting position at York University, she is happy to see the program continuing with a new trainer, and former participants as coordinators. Muslim Link interviewed Mamuji about what she feels the program has achieved over the last four years.

On April 10, despite being in the middle of exams, students at Carleton University gathered for a candlelight vigil to mourn the murder of 147 students at Garissa University in Kenya.