The Toronto mosque that once warned its members to avoid wishing others “Merry Christmas,” equating it with murder, is once again pitted in controversy.
And now the Muslim Canadian Congress is calling on Ottawa to strip the charitable status of the Somali Islamic Society of Canada, which owns the Khalid Bin Al-Walid mosque in Etobicoke, founded in 1990 and serving more than 10,000 worshippers.
Congress president Farzana Hassan said postings on the mosque’s website are “in contravention of what a moderate Muslim should stand for.”
Asked for specifics, Hassan cited the site’s “statements about women.” For example, she said, “they say female circumcision is honourable and yet they find piercing your ears reprehensible, wearing high heels reprehensible, laughing objectionable. It’s very disconcerting that their priorities are where they are.”
But the mosque defends its postings, arguing in a statement posted on its website that “different scholars of Islam may have differing opinions on the same subject.”
The statement, signed “Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque Management and the Board of Directors,” continues: “We try our best to enrich Islamic knowledge for anyone who visits our web site and show to them the differing views of Islamic scholars on a particular subject.”
And, it adds: “We make it clear to all readers of our web site that unless the answers are provided by the Khalid mosque, the answers do not necessarily reflect the views of Khalidmosque.org.”
The Khalid mosque’s statement was issued to the Star earlier this month as the paper prepared a story about the mosque, its views and its recent involvement advocating for eight Somali women who complained to the Canadian Human Rights Commission that their employer UPS Canada Ltd. violated their religious views by requiring them to adhere to dress codes at a sorting plant.
The company argues it’s a question of safety.
“We have maintained our web site to reach out to Muslims and non-Muslims alike to provide to them the authentic teachings of Islam,” the mosque’s administration says in the statement. “We do not seek to offend or harm anyone with what is written on our web site. There are many different religions in this world and there are naturally many disagreements between scholars of each religion.”
Len Rudner, the Canadian Jewish Congress’s Ontario director, contacted the mosque’s board Friday to ask that they remove “material that we deem offensive.”
The mosque’s statement, Rudner said, “in essence ... says there are points of religion where scholars are going to disagree. And that’s fair.
“But what really draws my attention on the website ... is one particular section where they talk about, for want of a better way of putting it, the ongoing historical efforts of Jews to destroy Muslim society.”
Rudner said he’s already heard back from the mosque and a meeting is planned to resolve issues.
And, late Friday, the mosque emailed Rudner to “apologize without reservation to the CJC and the Jewish community at large for any and all comments that they have found offensive on our web site, which we never intended in the first place.
“All of the writings to which offence has been taken have been or will be removed from our site immediately,” added the email, signed by Said Omar, acting chair of the Khalid mosque’s board.
In an interview Friday, Omar argued the mosque was not responsible for the offensive material, contending it had merely posted the opinions of scholars, and that mosque officials were well within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in disseminating information about Islam on their website.
It’s not the first time the mosque or its board have been the subject of critical attention from other Muslim organizations that see it as extremist or ill-informed about Islam.
In 2002, a mosque employee sent an email to the Khalid mosque’s Internet message service on Christmas Day, warning that saying “Merry Christmas” was akin to “congratulating someone for drinking wine, or murdering someone or having illicit sexual relations and so on.”
The mosque defended itself against critics then by saying the email was sent by a junior employee without his superiors’ approval.
Ahmed Hussen – who has met Prime Minister Stephen Harper and appeared on CTV Newsnet – is president of the Canadian Somali Congress and said the impression this Toronto mosque speaks for Somali-Canadians “saddens us as a community, because it’s not reflective of who we are in this country.”
Two weeks ago, Hussen said, his organization launched a Somali-Jewish scholarship and mentoring program, whereby Jewish professionals mentor Somali youth.
“A lot of folks, yes, go to the mosque. And some don’t. But they go to the mosque as a religious centre. And they come out. They don’t necessarily base their life decisions or their approach to Canada on what an imam says,” Hussen said, adding that, in many cases, the more outrageous or offensive Imams are given “undue credence.”