News

Did you see the Palestinian flag going down the street?

On June 23rd Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson opened Welcoming Ottawa Week (WOW) at City Hall for the second year in a row. WOW is an initiative of the Ottawa Local Immigration Partnership (OLIP) was founded in October 2009 by the City of Ottawa and Local Agencies Serving Immigrants (LASI). The partnership is funded by Citizenship and Immigration Canada with the mandate of improving local capacity to attract, settle and integrate immigrants. Events during the week range from academic lectures about migration to restaurant walking tours in Chinatown. The week ends on Saturday, June 28th with the Community Cup, a city-wide soccer tournament at Brewer Park.

On May 17th, thousands of Muslims attended the second annual I.LEAD Conference. Muslim Link chose to interview a father and daughter to get an intergenerational perspective on the conference whose theme this year was “Muslim Youth Identity”.

Imam Sikander Hashmi is the new imam in Kanata. Born and raised in Montreal, Imam Sikander is also a journalism graduate from Concordia University and a happily married father with two energetic children. He has written for the Toronto Star and Montreal Gazette, and has worked as an Imam in Kingston. 

Is Ottawa a truly welcoming city?” This question is top-of-mind in the run up to Welcoming Ottawa Week (WOW) 2014.

Ottawa does a fairly good job – perhaps, as good a job as most other Canadian cities – but, clearly, more can be done. Evidence suggests Canada’s capital city is not attracting as many immigrants as other Canadian cities.

Like many parents, Michael Milo and Flordeliza Dayrit were often disappointed with the quality and lack of Islamic television entertainment for their children.

Even during a brief stint working in the Muslim world, the pickings were slim.

“Our kids wanted to watch Tom and Jerry,” remembered Dayrit with a laugh. “As a parent, you watch it and are surprised with all the violence.”

So the husband and wife production team, based in Saskatoon with their four children, decided to produce the kind of programming children would enjoy and which would reinforce faith teachings.

For the third year in a row, Give 30 promises to bank on the giving spirit of Ramadan to inspire people of all faiths and backgrounds to help fight hunger.

The campaign, which includes Ottawa for the first time, is a national, grassroots initiative that has already raised $130,000 for food banks in several Canadian cities. This year, nine food banks in five cities have joined the campaign.

Toronto lawyer and social activist Ziyaad Mia is the founder of Give30.ca. He spoke with Muslim Link.

Sarah-Mecca Abdourahman, 15, is preparing to compete in the Ottawa Art Battle Regional Finals, a live painting competition where artists have only 20 minutes to create a masterpiece. Audience members move around their easels as they work and at the end of the round, the audience votes for their favourite painting. Sarah-Mecca will be the youngest artist competing in Ottawa. She is a finalist in the Art Battle she competed in in March, and will be competing as a member of a select group of All-Stars chosen by the event organizers at the regional finals. The artists are competing for a spot in the Art Battle Finals in Toronto this July.

On June 7th, the Muslim Coordinating Council of Ottawa-Carleton (MCC) organized an all candidates’ debate in the provincial riding of Ottawa-South, which has the city’s highest concentration of Muslim residents. Ottawa-South resident Qais Ghanem moderated the session, asking a range of questions from how the candidates would address global warming to how they would address the lack of recognition for foreign credentials.

There are concerns that younger voters might not be very engaged in this year’s Ontario provincial election. Muslim Link has sought out young Muslims in Ontario who are working, volunteering, or running with each major party in the provincial election to get their opinion about why it is important to be engaged in provincial politics. Our second interview is with Samiha Rayeda who is volunteering with New Democratic Party (NDP) Candidate Jennifer Mackenzie who is running in the riding of Ottawa Centre.

There are concerns that younger voters might not be very engaged in this year’s Ontario provincial election. Muslim Link has sought out young Muslims in Ontario who are working, volunteering, or running with each major party in the provincial election to get their opinion about why it is important to be engaged in provincial politics. Our first interview is with Adnan Ali who is volunteering with Progressive Conservative Candidate Jack MacLaren in Carleton-Mississippi Mills in Ottawa.

“Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds. The All-Merciful, the Very-Merciful…You alone do we worship, and from You alone do we seek help...”

(Holy Qur’an, 1, 1:6)

A rainy day in May – it’s cold and grey, the perfect day to stay in with a good book and a cup of coffee. Not so for the ILEAD team of youth volunteers who are responsible of making promo videos for the conference.

Advocating for affordable housing in Ottawa, faith groups from the Jewish, Christian, Unitarian, and Muslim communities took on the pouring rain to participate in this year’s Tulipathon walk.

Hosted by the Multifaith Housing Initiative (MHI), a non-profit coalition in Ottawa, the Tulipathon brings people of all faiths together to walk among tulips and raise awareness and funds for affordable housing in Ottawa.

For the first time in Ottawa, Muslim business women got a chance to come together to network, share ideas and learn about each other. This networking event was organized by the Muslim Women’s Business Network of Ottawa (MWBNO) on Saturday April 12th, 2014. The event was a huge success and was attended by a total of 28 women which consisted of beauticians, lawyers, professional consultants, etc.

The Muslim Women’s Business Network of Ottawa was established in March 2014 by two women entrepreneurs: Jessica Keats and Mahwash Fatima. They wanted to create a platform where Muslim business women could come together to network, mentor, and share their ideas and experiences.

According to the American Mosque Study of 2011, co-commissioned by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), in a little over 30 years, Muslims have established over 2,000 mosques across the US, but only 10% of all American Muslims attend these mosques. Something isn't adding up...

Screened to sold-out audiences across North America, Unmosqued explores why more and more Muslims feel unwelcome at their mosques. On Saturday, May 10th at Carleton University, local Muslims will get a chance to watch and discuss this thought-provoking documentary.

Local Artist Nagat Bahumaid was recently invited to teach a session on Islamic calligraphy at Assunnah Muslim Association's Iqraa Saturday School in Barrhaven, by school principal Dr. Aliaa Dakroury. Muslim Link asked her to reflect on the experience for our readers.

On March 23rd, the Canada-Pakistan Association (CPA) held their annual Jeeway Pakistan (Long Live Pakistan) Mela in honour of Pakistan Day. Pakistan Day is held on March 23rdto commemorate the Lahore Resolution of 1940 by the All-India Muslim League, whose leader at the time was Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Jinnah is sometimes referred to by Pakistanis' as Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader). The Resolution established the boundaries of the state which would become Pakistan after British India gained independence from Britain in 1947.

On Sunday, March 30th, the Thaqalayn Muslim Association (TMA) and the Ahlul Bayt Student Association (ABSA) hosted an interfaith event at the University of Ottawa.

Fostering dialogue between the Christian and Muslim communities, the event, titled Celebrating the life of Jesus, featured keynote addresses from local religion professor and Evangelist Reverend Bassma Dabbour Jaballah and Sheikh Hanif Mohamed of Atlanta, Georgia.

What made the two talks and the ensuing question and answer session even more interesting was the fact that each speaker was a convert from the other's religion.

Each year the Simon Fraser Institute ranks Ontario schools based on their performance on the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) standardized tests for reading, writing and math. Ottawa's Ahlul Bayt Islamic School came in as the second best elementary school in Ottawa and among the top 100 in the province for its Grade 3 and Grade 6 scores from 2012 to 2013. This comes as no surprise to Ahlul Bayt's principal Leila Rahal. “Every year we receive very good results but the Institute only ranks schools that have classes of over 15 students. We don't always have that,” she explained. Mrs. Rahal credits the school's success to strictly following the Canadian curriculum and having the majority of its teachers being graduates of Ontario Teachers' Colleges.

The Ottawa Shia Islamic Association (OSHIA) held its annual Milad-un-Nabi banquet on February 4 at the Ottawa Conference Centre.

The event celebrates the birth anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and strives to unite all Muslim communities. For years, the festivities have been organized with the support of the Honorable Senator Mobina Jaffer. This year, the Muslim Coordinating Council also helped coordinate in order to acquaint Muslims and people of other faiths with the noble example of the Prophet (pbuh).