Celebrating Islamic History Month with the Muslims in Canada Archives

Written by Institute of Islamic Studies

Published in News

The Muslims in Canada Archives (MiCA) is a project of the Institute of Islamic Studies that addresses critical gaps in our understanding of Islam and Muslims in Canada.

This Islamic History Month, join MiCA in celebrating the rich histories of Muslim communities across the country. Throughout October, MiCA is sharing posts and stories highlighting ‘what we learn when we archive’. From young learners to journalists to community elders, from educators to history enthusiasts and everyone in between, this project demonstrates the ways that archives offer important research tools to better understand Muslim history.

The missing history of Muslims in Canada

Muslims presence on the lands known today as Canada predates confederation. But what is known about that history is limited – much of this history has yet to be researched on and written about. At present, the documentary heritage of Muslims in Canada preserved barely goes back 100 years. The Muslims in Canada Archives (MiCA) aims to help fill this gap.

MiCA expands our knowledge of Muslim life in Canada

Items held in MiCA’s growing collection shed light on people, places and events through primary sources – through words, images and material objects. The items force us to think about, for example, the individuals or institutions involved in the creation of a record, their intended audience, the social and political context, its format, and the way it’s presented. Taken together, the answers to these questions add crucial details and assist in the telling of stories about Islam in Canada.

The learnings we gain and the new questions that arise

Since MiCA is very young – in fact, we are one of the newest archives in Canada, our collections are far from complete and therefore not fully representative of the plurality of Muslims in Canada. Though this is true of all archives, many of these gaps are the result of structural biases from which archival theory and practice is also not immune. It is up to us – all sectors of society – to attune to what is missing and confront systemic absences.

To this point, MiCA provides a central repository that organizes, preserves and makes accessible items that are no longer in regular use created by institutions that may no longer exist. Some questions users may ask while navigating the archives include: Why don’t these institutions exist anymore? What happened to them and to the work they were doing? And among the institutions, events and publications that continue to exist, how have they evolved and what are the factors that have caused these shifts? What lessons might current and future generations of Muslims in Canada derive from the past as we imagine our future in Canada?

Thanks to large material donations from Mr. Naseer (Irfan) Syed and the Sahin Family, the Muslims in Canada Archives holds over thirty local Muslim publications produced from Windsor to Montreal from the 1970s onwards. Far from complete, these collections nevertheless are an important start, representing 50 years of Muslim print culture and a slice of the community’s literary heritage in Canada that is not preserved in any public library, post-secondary institution, regional or national memory institution.

Utilizing MiCA’s reserach tools

The newly launched Muslims in Canada Archives database includes hundreds of digitized records documenting Muslim life in Canada. Explore the website, form your own research questions and reflect on what we can learn through the archives.