A historic ground-breaking for new Red Deer Islamic Centre

Since the very early 1990s, the only mosque has been a structure not much larger than a small house, on Douglas Avenue in Deer Park, which holds about 110 people. The new one will welcome somewhere between 500 and 600 at once, says Iqbal.

“It’s not just about having a place of worship. A mosque is a place for gathering, socializing, and believe it or not, potluck parties. During Ramadan, we have the breaking of the fast, and kids have weekend educational programs,” says Iqbal.

(Central Alberta Islamic Cultural Association)

“It’s a multipurpose place, and with the increase in population over many years, it has created a big demand to accomodate the community’s needs.”

Iqbal says not having a larger mosque can force Muslim families to reconsider living in a certain place.

He points out the multiple mosques in Calgary and Edmonton, which again is something attractive to growing families.

In a year’s time, Iqbal says, the facility will have a preliminary structure finished, with more work to continue over the following one or two years.

“There are still a couple families locally who were part of building the first mosque, and their kids have grown up here, raised in our current mosque. Others, like myself, don’t know too much about the efforts made for the first one, and this is our opportunity to leave something for the next generation,” he says.

“The small place we have now was okay for the very small number of families we had around in the 80s and 90s; it was sufficient, but we’re over 400 Muslim families between Red Deer, Blackfalds, Lacombe and Innisfail, so the space is strained.”

Iqbal notes this will be one of very few purpose-built mosques in Alberta, compared with the more common practice of older buildings being converted.

In 2017, an incident of vandalism at the local mosque was reported on by multiple media outlets including rdnewsNOW, with Iqbal saying at the time that mosque leadership wished to meet with the culprit over tea.

In terms of opposition to the mosque, he hasn’t heard of anything. He says it helps they’re moving into an area where there aren’t many existing residential or commercial tenants.

“Even in a place like ‘multicultural Toronto,’ mosques are vandalized. It doesn’t matter where you live in the world, these things will happen, and regardless of how a city has branded itself as welcoming,” he says.

“We’ve gotten a lot of support from the overall community here in Red Deer, and it’s honestly been a lot better than my experience living in Calgary, or when I went to school in Ontario. Alberta gets a bad rep, but society and culture here are actually much more conducive to people of the Muslim faith because family is big, and other traditional values Muslims hold dear are not looked upon as being so alien, such as our commitment to faith. It’s a lot better compared to 10 or 15 years ago.”

Iqbal shares that mosque leadership doesn’t prefer to look at denominations, and while the current mosque and the new one primarily welcome Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims have also attended, and practice is to not turn anyone away.

For updates on construction or for more information, you can follow along via the association’s Facebook page and website.

by Josh Hall (Twitter: @Vancan19)

A historic ground-breaking for new Red Deer Islamic Centre

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