Stories

Recently, Black Muslim Canadian Spoken Word poet Key Ballah wrote a piece for Love, Inshallah about her experience in a predominantly Pakistani mosque in Toronto where she was interrupted during prayer and told that “This is an Urdu-speaking mosque” and “There is another mosque where you can go not too far from here. There are more people like you there.” In the piece, she reflected on the need to honestly and openly address anti-Black racism in the Canadian Muslim community. Muslim Link invited Key to speak more in depth about what she thinks needs to be done to address anti-Black racism.

After working for three years as a reporter with CBC Ottawa, Pakistani-Canadian Kamil Karamali has returned to his hometown of Vancouver. Muslim Link interviewed Kamil about his career and what advice he has for aspiring journalists.

Ottawa high school teacher Idil Abdulkadir offers advice to Muslim students in the wake of tragedies such as the recent Paris Attacks.

Nazima Khan, 34, and Riyad Khan, 35, married young in the hopes of starting a family early. Born and raised in Toronto to South Asian parents, Nazima works as a registered nurse in a labour and delivery ward and Riyad works as a teacher. They are the proud parents of three young children. There is very little that distinguishes them from your average Muslim Canadian professional family. Except that they adopted their children from the Children’s Aid Society (CAS).

Pakistani Canadian Jawad Ali Khan came to Canada in the early 1980s to work in the field of IT. Now a senior, he has decided to get fit in order to help him manage his Type 2 Diabetes and maintain his independence.

Syrian Canadian Sara Imadi studies Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa and currently works at a Community Health Centre in Ottawa South. She lives with Type 1 Diabetes.

Somali Canadian Mahdi Hassan studies Biomedical Sciences at the University of Ottawa. He plans to pursue a career in pediatric medicine. In his teens, he was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

Palestinian Canadian Registered Dietitian Rawan Suleiman discusses the health benefits of returning to homemade ethnic food.

Ihsaan Gardee is the Executive Director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) based in Ottawa. He was honoured with the Civic Courage Award at Mississauga’s MuslimFest in August of this year for his service to Canada’s Muslim community.

When Korean Canadian Caroline Sohn decided she wanted to leave the corporate world to become her own boss, she discovered Eye Level, a supplementary education franchise developed in South Korea which teaches over 2 million students worldwide. A graduate of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management’s MBA Program, Caroline has taken up the challenge of opening Ottawa’s first Eye Level Learning Centre, located in Barrhaven.

When I woke up this morning, I felt different. Today, there was a distinct difference in what it meant to be Muslim in Canada than it did yesterday.

What do women who wear the niqab and women who choose to go topless in Canada have in common? Both make a lot of people very uncomfortable. Both have had their rights upheld by Canadian courts. And, both may be overreacting against real or perceived attitudes towards female sexuality.

There has been a great deal of controversy raised as the right of Zunera Ishaq to wear the niqab during her citizenship ceremony has become an election issue. Muslim Link received this letter to the editor in response to politician's statements and media coverage of this issue.

When one thinks of the word “hijabi”, it is not often followed by the word motorcyclist. Except that in my case, it is.

Spoken Word poet Nasim Asgari recently successfully crowdfunded to raise enough money to publish her first book of poetry before her 18th birthday.

Last federal election, 58.5% of all Canadian eligible voters went to the polls to vote. Of that 58.5% who voted, 39.6% voted for a Conservative candidate.

This means that 23.97% of all eligible voters picked the current government.

Sudanese Canadian Spoken Word poet Roua Aljied, 19, has become well-known in Ottawa as an artist willing to tackle controversial topics such as the rights of Palestinians during last year’s Gaza War with her poem “We are Still Here” to challenging rape culture with her poem “Looking Over Her Shoulder” which was performed at Ottawa City Hall for the launch of last year’s 16 Days Against Gender Violence.

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!”

Two members of Ottawa's Muslim community, both converts to Islam, wrote into Muslim Link discussing their experiences during Ramadan.