Regent Park is currently home to approximately 12,000 people.  Many of the residents are of the Muslim faith. A mosque is a house of worship for Muslims. It is also a place to gather for special events.  It could also be used as a community centre.

The Omar Bin Khattab Mosque, located on 232 Parliament Street between Dundas Street and Shuter Street, serves all these purposes above and is a safe place where Regent Park Muslims could come together and celebrate their faith.  

Imam Said Rageah who is a prayer leader at the Sakinah community centre and a volunteer at the Omar Bin Khattab Mosque, sat down with us to talk about the importance of this mosque in the Regent Park community and the history of mosques in Canada.

According to Said, the Omar Bin Khattab Mosque was established by a diverse group of Muslim men in 1992, to fill the needs of a masjid (Arabic word for mosque) in the community in response to the rising number of Muslims settling in the Regent Park area between the late 80s and early 90s. Even though it is officially a place of worship this mosque acts as much more. This mosque serves as a place of worship, a place to bring community members together while strengthening their faiths, and providing services such as grief, education, and marriage counseling. They also support a large amount of youth in the Regent Park community by providing daily programs and services. These efforts are shown through programs such as Big Akhi Big Ukhti ( BABU) which is a mentorship and leadership program for troubled Muslim youth in the community.

In our interview with Imam Said Rageah, we talked about the history of mosques in Canada.  Said informs me that the first mosque built in Canada is located in Edmonton Alberta. The Al-Rashid Mosque opened its doors on December 12, 1938, through the leadership of Hilwie Hamdon who was born in current day Lebanon in 1905 and who immigrated to Edmonton, Alberta where she raised her family.  At the time there was 700 Muslims living in the City when Hilwie Hamdon approached Edmonton Mayor John Fry, requesting that the city provide land. Hilwie then led the efforts to organize the funding and building of the mosque. Hamdon died in Edmonton in 1988. In 2017, Edmonton officials named a new grade school, the Hilwie Hamdon School, in her honor.

This was a truly insightful talk with Imam Said Ragaeh, if you have access to the video you should definitely watch it as it goes into more details about the importance of mosques in the Muslim community.

By: Jamelia Parnell
(Jamelia Parnell is a summer journalist with the  FOCUS Media Arts Centre)