By Jay Sanni
Calgary: The Muslim community in Calgary is steadily growing in size as well as interconnectedness, and as such, a number of things have happened in recent times within the community to accommodate their growing size and interconnectedness. For instance, earlier this month, they opened up an Airdrie worship centre so that Muslims in that region could come together to pray.
More recently, the Muslim Council of Calgary began a petition for Alberta to recognize the month of October as Islamic Heritage Month. The petition began a little over a week ago and already has 411 signatures on it. According to the website, Change.org, the community needs about 89 more signatures in order to reach their goal of 500 signatures. 500 signatures is the amount of signatures required in order for the petition to be taken up for consideration in the Alberta Legislative Assembly where it could be accepted or declined. According to Khalil Karbani, a board member of the Muslim Council of Calgary (MCC), the significance of the Islamic heritage month is to “increase public awareness and knowledge about the priniciples and values of Islam, which does not support terrorism” as some, who are ignorant about the religion think. Furthermore, the MCC chose the month of October simply because “Ontario already has the October as their Islamic heritage month so it only makes sense that Alberta’s should be in October as well.”
Further still, “the oldest mosque in Canada is in Alberta,” meaning that Islamic history in Alberta goes way back. So, it is unsurprising that the Muslim community in Alberta feels that it is high time that they, just like other cultural groups within Alberta, had their own heritage month.
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