The city’s first Muslim cemetery is ready to put a shovel in the ground.
The Toronto Muslim Cemetery Corporation received a licence from the province last week, officially giving it the go-ahead to begin operations on GTA’s first Sunni-Shia cemetery, located at Bethesda Sideroad and Leslie St. in Richmond Hill.
“This is the final nail in the coffin, so to speak,” said Abdulhuq Ingar, one of the founding members of the cemetery project. The group plans to open the 14-hectare cemetery officially in June. It’s expected to serve the needs of the estimated 300,000-strong Muslim community for at least 25 years.
For years, Muslims in the GTA have used non-denominational cemeteries, often compromising on certain religious requirements at the time of death, such as speedy burial. The new Muslim cemetery will ensure that all graves are correctly aligned towards Mecca, as preferred, and service is available on weekends.
The group has already received requests from terminally ill individuals asking to be buried there — even before the official opening.
“It’s an emotional thing. Some people really want the comfort of knowing they will be buried in a Muslim cemetery,” said Sabi Ahsan, chairman of TMCC. Besides building roads and landscaping, the group will do “test runs” over the next few months and receive training from established cemetery operators. Plots will also go on sale — at $1,500 each — in coming weeks.
Ingar and Ahsan say the cemetery project is a model of how diverse communities can work together to achieve a common good. Not only is this one of the first times Sunni and Shia Muslims have worked together on such a large-scale project, the land was purchased from Beth Olam Cemetery Corp., a Jewish organization.
Buying the $6.8 million property was made possible through an interest-free mortgage brokered by the president of Behar Group Realty Inc., Yosi Behar, an Israeli Jew. Completing the deal at a mosque, he signed as a witness in Hebrew script.
“It is probably the most satisfying deal I have done in my career,” said Behar, who has been in the real estate business for 44 years. “I always dreamed of bringing the Sunni-Shia community together.” Behar was invited to speak at the groundbreaking ceremony last November.
He also helped guide TMCC through many of the regulatory and legal hurdles along the way — including quelling doubts from within the Muslim community about the project’s viability.
“Throughout this process there have been a lot of naysayers, people who have said you will never find land, get the zoning, this and that,” said Ahsan. “But the truth is that once the cemetery starts operating, all those negative thoughts will get buried over time.”