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The recent I.LEAD Conference held on March 16 was a great success!  It was a very social way to end the March Break with youth from all over the Ottawa-Gatineau region coming together to make a difference. For a first-time event, I think everyone was amazed by the turnout, with more than 2,500 people attending!  We heard speeches by well known scholars and Imams, including Sheikh Yassir Fazaga, Imam Tahir Anwar and Sheikh Navaid Aziz.

Abraar School has been ranked the best performing elementary school in the city.

The private Islamic school in Ottawa's west side was rated the best performing school for reading, writing and math scores by the Fraser Institute, a public policy think-tank. Abraar scored 9.4 points out 10, putting it in the top 50 schools among over 2,700 schools in Ontario. The provincial average was 6.0.

Great food and good cheer were on offer at an inter-faith potluck held in Kanata on February 26.

Well-attended by over 25 members of the Kanata Muslim Association (KMA) and a comparable number from the St. John's Anglican Church, the first-time event was a huge success.

Members of the KMA had been renting the St. John's church hall for several years for Friday and Ramadan prayers. But when the numbers got too big, the KMA had to move their prayers to the Kanata Recreation Centre.  The potluck was a way for the KMA and the church members to foster and grow the relationship that had already started to blossom from that earlier relationship, explained Amira Elghawaby, a member of the Kanata Sisters women's group who coordinated the event on behalf of the KMA.

As the new coordinator of the Muslim Link, one of the tasks I assigned myself was figuring out the history of the paper that has become an important institution in Ottawa's Muslim community.

Muslim Link was founded in 2002 by Ali Bokhari and his wife Tahira Ismail.  Ali was inspired to create the paper after seeing the success of The Muslim Link in the US. Founded in 1998, the American paper connects Muslims across the Virginia, Maryland, and Metropolitan Washington D.C area.

Ali's other motivation came from the fallout of 9/11 when stereotypes and misinformation about Muslims in Canada became rampant and it was clear that a forum was needed for Muslim Canadians to connect, share information, discuss their common concerns, and see their lives reflected in a positive light.

A Montreal-based Muslim organisation is hoping to inspire a “new definition of manhood” by encouraging men to be more demonstrative of their love for the women in their lives.

In keeping with this year's International Women's Day theme of“Working Together: Engaging Men to End Violence against Women”, Amal Centre, a counselling and referral organisation for Muslim women affected by abuse, is asking men to wear their hearts on their sleeve, and miniature purple bow ties on their lapels in honour of their wives, mothers and sisters.

Ahmad Abdorahman Awatt, faces serious threats to his health because of his immigration status. Awatt, a Kurd originally from Iraq, came to Canada in 1999. Although he lost his refugee case, he cannot be deported because his country of origin is on a moratorium list of unsafe countries that prevents Canada from returning him there.

Babas ”˜n' Babies offers fathers and their young children an opportunity to get together once a month in Ottawa and participate in a unique set of engaging programs.

“Babas ”˜n' Babies is the very first program in Ottawa designed specifically for children and their fathers,” says Omar Mahfoudhi, organizer of the activities. “The goal of the program is to give fathers of young children the opportunity to engage in various fun and interesting activities with their children in a safe, comfortable and supportive environment.”

Initiated early last year, the Babas ”˜n' Babies meet-ups offer fathers and their children a wide range of activities to enjoy together, including cooking sessions, guided nature walks, treasure hunts, gardening, library sessions, guided museum tours and woodcraft workshops.

“Strengthening Relationships with the Muslim Community” is a series of sessions organized by several Muslim organizations in partnership with the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and the Community Police Action Committee (COMPAC).

The first session took place on Thursday, January 24th 2013 at Masjid Assunnah. Chief of Police Charles Bordeleau summed up the purpose of the series as follows: “It's about us as police officers and members of the police service learning more about the Muslim community but it's also about the Muslim community knowing who we are as police officers and what we do, and what the police service is capable of doing to help you.”

It was a defining moment for the growing Muslim community as members of disparate organisations and associations came together to celebrate the achievements of their own.

The Jan. 19 event, hosted by the Muslim Coordinatin

g Council (MCC) and the Ottawa Muslim Association (OMA), honoured 20 Ottawa Muslim recipients of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Award.

“This is the first time in Ottawa that 42 Muslim organizations joined hands in a community-wide celebration of our contributions to Canada,” the MCC said in a statement issued after the event.

For the last two months, a group of youth in the city have been hard at work trying to get advertisements on bus shelters and preparing gift bags to hand out to the public. Their goal ”“ to spread the noble message of Hussain, the blessed grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.

“Who is Hussain” is an initiative that began in the UK that has spread across the world; arriving in Canada's capital. The campaign aims to familiarise the public with Hussain, may Allah be pleased with him, who alongside his closest companions and members of his young family, was killed for standing up against injustice and oppression.

Like most great ideas, this one started modestly enough.A few eager Ottawa residents thought it would be neat to invite a popular Canadian Muslim scholar to launch a new book on Islam in the nation's capital.

So they got together with a formal group of Muslim organizations to plan a conference which would bring Dr. Jamal Badawi to Ottawa, as well as other scholars to discuss important faith issues.

That was in 2011. Two years later, that modest idea has grown into a major youth conference scheduled for March 16, 2013 which aims to support young Muslims in every facet of their lives. Organizers are also thrilled that the conference also marks one of the most significant collaborations between Muslim organizations and youth groups ever to happen in Ottawa.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him said “An intelligent person is one who is constantly thinking about and preparing for death.“ (Tirmidhi)

Ottawa Muslims now have a cemetery to call their own. The Ottawa Muslim Cemetery officially opened on Jan. 4 2013.

The project is the result of almost two decades of effort on the part of a small but determined group of Ottawa Muslims who saw the need back in 1994 for a cemetery for Muslims run by Muslims.

A visionary group of Canadian Somali youth has been providing their peers with inspiration and guidance as part of the Somali Canadian Youth Mentorship Program. It's a program that aims to connect young people with successful professionals and university students in Ottawa. Ifrah Hassan spoke with the Muslim Link's Amira Elghawaby about the initiative.  

Kandahar-The Fighting Season is a new exhibit that is sure to garner a lot of attention from those with an interest in Afghanistan.

The exhibition at the War Museum features sixteen intense, some even haunting photographs taken between 2006 and 2001, during the war in Afghanistan.

Award-winning photographer Louie Palu accompanied Canadian soldiers to Kandahar Province in Southern Afghanistan. He captured their world of firefights and exhausting patrols in some of the most dangerous districts of Kandahar (said to be the heartland of the insurgency).

Too many times I hear people say “youth are not engaged enough in the community''. For young community leaders like Ahmed Sadiq, the chairman and head of the  Assalam Mosque Youth Department, that undoubtedly is not the case. 

When Ahmed saw a need for a program focused on Ottawa's young Muslims, he sprang into action. In December 2011, Assalam Mosque's Youth Department, along with a group of young, dedicated volunteers, including myself, organized the first annual “Go Halal or Go Home'' Youth Winter Conference.

This year, I was back for more, trekking all the way from the west-end to the east-end to commit my time to a “for youth by youth” initiative that I feel recognizes the real needs of Muslim youth like  myself, who in our teens and early twenties, are struggling to balance the pressures of our daily lives with our deen.

The Yemeni journalist and human rights activist Tawakkol Karman charmed several audiences during a visit to Ottawa on November 21 and 22 while touring across Canada.

Before landing in the nation's capital, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate had been in Edmonton, where she received an honourary doctorate of Laws from the University of Alberta. There, she also participated in the Festival of Ideas.

The Canadian Association of Muslims with Disabilities launched their fourth annual khutbah (Firday sermon)awareness campaign at the beginning of December.

The Ottawa Police is inviting all Muslim residents to attend a community information session at Masjid Dar Assunnah on Jan. 24, 2013.  The event, organised in partnership with several Ottawa Muslim organizations, is aimed at strengthening relations between the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and local Muslims.

On Dec. 1, the Montreal Muslim Ball Hockey Tournament celebrated its 20th anniversary with its 35th tournament held at John Abbott College in Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue.

The mainly bi-annual tournament is a volunteer-driven, non-profit event that has been a longstanding tradition for Montreal's Muslim community. It began in 1992 with five teams at the NDG YMCA and has continued to grow, now regularly attracting up to 20 teams and around 200 Muslim youth and adults, typically aged 15 to 45, from across Quebec, Ontario, as well as Canada and the United States.

The fifth annual Expressions of Muslim Women (EMW) took place on Saturday, November 17 at the Centrepointe Studio Theatre. The sold-out event raised funds for local charities like Sadaqa Food Bank and Nelson House, a shelter for women and children fleeing abuse.

The title of this year's event was “Strength in Sisterhood”, a theme which ran through several of the performances that evening. The theme was also embodied by the commitment of the event organizers, a group of women who have volunteered to make EMW an artistic celebration for women to look forward to each year.