Masjid Khalid- The Golden Grove Odyssey, Guyana

Masjid Khalid- The Golden Grove Odyssey, Guyana

Habeeb Alli

Nov 23rd 2018

Toronto

I was walking down Water Street near vendors Arcade in Georgetown in 1992. I had just returned from India, with a Masters in Islamic Theology but working in Advertising. A young man in his kufi shouted out Salam alaikum greetings only to share with me the astonishing fact that where he lives in golden Grove ECD is a mosque that was defunct and a pig sty and party house!

That began my odyssey with the rebuilding of the Golden Grove mosque in Guyana.

This was AbdurRaheem Douglas, still a practicing Muslim and current leader of the Muslim community of the predominantly Afro Guyanese village of Golden.

Presently rebuilt by the concerted efforts of many generous Muslims locally and abroad. That started last year 2017 and miraculously, given the lesser known fact of its existence, has completed and now the opening is on Sunday Dec 2^nd 2018. Thanks to Imam Zahir Hussain of London fir his extreme kindness.

However, it was the late contractor Khalid Khan from the Georgetown who took up the initiative to rebuild the mosque in 1992 using materials and man power from Queenstown mosque. The discovery of the mosque sitting idle in the midst of the seawall side in North Golden Grove on the market goes to former Police Commander Omar Glasgow, who had his officers remove cows and animals from the premises then. He was looking for a place to pray Fajr and couldn’t bear the shameful discovery!

We named the mosque Masjid Khalid after he passed away in an accident on his way to build Lethem mosque in 2000.

But how did this place of worship for over fifteen percent of Guyanese ended up in such rut, unnoticed and unsolicited?

The late Imam Hyderali from Logwood mosque relates that this beautiful House of God was built in 1962 and habituated by Muslims in Golden Grove, Cove and John and Clonbrook East Coast Demerara. However, during the 1964 racial riots, before Independence, the East Indians were forced to leave behind their properties and seek safety in places like Enmore, Annandale, Mackenzie, etc. Note that while majority Africans came as Muslims during slavery, the roots of Islam were lost and the indentured Muslims of India that followed were allowed to keep their faith, hence the term Fullaman!

The mosque was fire bombed during the riots and remained roofless during all these years! It was every man's island!

When AbdurRaheem and myself, I lived in nearby Enmore, first visited the august edifice on a Sunday afternoon, we had to fetch water from the nearby trench, with the help of the ever kind neighbor next door, and wash the Azan stand and a spot inside to pray Magrib. The rest of the following nine months was between continuously washing a spot to pray, inviting the people to the awareness of Islam and soliciting assistance from far and wide in the reconstruction of the Mosque. A beautiful community was born!

It was such an awe-inspiring moment when I returned this year during Eid ul Adha to see familiar faces who either took shahada on my hands or whose nikah was conducted by me in the most austere circumstances.

Today the mosque has been rebuilt with equally decent quarters for the sisters, a huge outdoors tent, an Imam’s home, and a beautiful architecture that suits the environment and the friendliness of the community.

Thanks to the newly arrived scholar Imam Luqman, the son of the Musa, a formidable pioneer in the early Dawah, the generosity and knowledge of the community has grown exponentially. Special thanks to our founder AbdurRaheem Douglas and his family Karen who have kept the Faith among the sisters and families alive, despite the remarkable challenges. This family was specially taught by Imam Hyderali before he migrated to Canada.

As the late Haji Hyderali would say during handing over the trusteeship to the late Shafi Foreman that this legacy is meant for Golden Grove and will always be Golden because love and faith were the seeds this mosque was founded on in 1962, watered with blood, sweat and tears!

Salam alaikum! An example of peace building in the Jonestown famous and election frenzy country in South America called Guyana!

Islamic History Pearls

Islamic History Pearls

Habeeb Alli

Nov 16 2018

How beautiful is your necklace?

The pearls set upon each other

Like the Borealis dancing on the Northern sky

Such is my history of Islam, Oh Canada

I’m not referring to the magnificent Kaba in Mecca

Or the grandeur of the Taj Mahal in India

But the likes of Malala and Ilhan Omar, if you know what I mean

Sisters still can’t go to school or join politics without prejudice

Yet we speak of Andalusia and Mali

Forgetting these civilizations came before Enlightenment

And women taught Imam Bukhari and founded Kairouan University in 859

Since all he wanted, on whom be peace, was to free the girls from mental slavery

Canada recognised Oct as the official Islamic History Month

That our diversity is our strength

That Maryam from Afghanistan could be a MP

And the first mosque rose on the brows of Lebanese Christian and Muslims in Edmonton

Why then do we still have Indigenous girls missing?

Why so many of our sisters are incarcerated?

Why Black brothers are going to prison?

And wars are fought on the streets of Dixon?

Because we have forgotten our identity

And the loss of a people begins in the erasing of their language

But in Canada you could be anything and read Atwood and Ruksana in the same library

Iqra was Malcolm X passport to freedom and that’s the Sunnah to read that’s missing!

On whom be peace

So let’s face it!

Only in Canada can you have an officer in hijab uniform

Only in Toronto could you embrace 190 ethnic forms

You could order poutine and ask for butter chicken as topping!

Toronto hosts Power of Love conference!

Parliament of World Religions held in Toronto: the world class Interfaith city

Power of love!

Habeeb Ali

Nov 11^th 2018

We remember!

I had the honor of presenting for the second time at the Parliament- a 100-year-old Interfaith Institution- on my work as a Chaplain as well as my community engagement work with Toronto’s interfaith bodies. It was indeed a satisfying experience given that Toronto was host to such a global family of some 80 countries from 220 spiritual paths.

One of the many intriguing wisdom shared by my fellow panelists was the strong sense of peace each faith provides to its followers- the Swami from Hollywood whose Vedanta teachings has impacted thousands of lives and so has the Buddhist Monk Dr. Saranpala from Toronto Mindfulness program and the Satya Sai spiritualist from India influence of love by Dr. Redding. Islam itself means peace and from that derives Salam which means peace. Not always is this the story. Our deliberate efforts over the past decades to share the beauty of our faith in Toronto’s 190 ethnicities makes this world class city unique.

From right inset are Interfaith Panelists Dr. Bhante Saranpala, Imam Habeeb Alli, Swami Sarvadevananda, Dr. Narendranath Reddy, and Anupom Ganguli.

It so happened that the 7500 attendees at the conference weren’t only treated to the wisdoms and music of the many spiritual and religious persuasions but concrete ways communities have engaged in peace building. That weekend Nov 1^st to 7^th thousands joined hands in creating Rings of Peace around synagogues after the Pittsburgh terror attack by a white supremacist. The Ring of Protection was actually started by a group of us- Imams, Rabbis and Pastors when the same brutal fate was meted out to six worshippers at the Quebec Mosque last year.

Among the dynamic speakers that represented Toronto are Dr. Hamid Slimi for his on going work with Rabbis and Pastors in seeing to the creation of a better world, Dr. AbueLaish Ezzeldin for winning the peace prize after he forgave the killer of his two daughters in Palestine, Dr. Shabbir Ally for his work with the city synagogues,and churches in Interfaith dialogue, Shaikh Imran Ally and Dr AbdulHai Patel for their historic work at the Ontario Multi-faith Council and Margaret Atwood for her unapologetic attitude towards the deniers of social justice and climate change.

When we look at how Toronto sits on the lands of the First Nations and we inherit a land of treaty and occupiers we cannot help admire how much  a strong and respectful presence the elders and youths of the Indigenous people  were afforded at the Parliament- including keynotes and smudge ceremonies and accountability of the Truths and Reconciliation commission. I was touched that the stories shared by young change makers on their journey from trauma to making a better world reminds me as a new immigrant to Canada that I must not sit idle in ignorance whilst enjoying the fruits of our ancestors and not contributing positively towards the alleviation of the First Peoples’ suffering. I was had actually invited Elders to do the smudging ceremony in our One Love Galas more than once and invited  the leader of the Missing Aboriginal Women of Manitoba to address our Ramadan dinner last year because building bridges between Muslims and First Nations is crucial.

Back to where we started- the seven-days convention at Metro Convention Centre ended with plenaries and the beautiful dance of one of the many persons I met during the blessed Langar- the Sikhs provided daily free lunches.  The Parliament was the meeting of many faces, many hugs, many traditions, and many more Holi colors but like a dance executed with refinement- we are all just one family living together on mother Earth and Peace is our only glue or we will perish!

As Rumi said: Leave the Circle of Time and Enter the Circle of Love!