Syrian Canadian Mohammad Dourou, the owner and publisher of Muslim Link, was honoured with a Community Builder Award by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) on October 26th at their annual fundraising dinner. Other recipients included Somali Canadian Hawa Shafi Mohamed for her work advocating for Muslims in prisons and South African Canadian Khadija Haffajee, an NCCM Board Member. for her life-time of leadership within North America's Muslim communities.

On Saturday May 10th, close to 200 members of Ottawa’s Muslim community attended a screening of the documentary UnMosqued at Carleton University and stayed for the discussion that followed. Exploring the ways in which Muslim women, converts to Islam, Muslims from various racial background, and youth in their teens and twenties often feel unwelcome and alienated from their local mosques, the film asks critical questions about the future of the mosque as an institution in North American Muslim communities.

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.

For the first time, Muslim Link ran a photo contest for its Eid Issue. We hope to continue running themed photo contests in future issues. We were struck by the diversity of approaches people took to their photos.

Over forty people attended the Muslim Link's 10th anniversary celebration held at Saint Paul University on March 31.

While the crowd was small, the sentiments of support were strong from contributors and readers alike. After a short slide show chronicling the paper's evolution from a simple two-page newsletter to the 12-16 page newspaper it is today, a broad panel of contributors and observers discussed the paper's importance as it enters a second decade.

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.