JEDDAH, 22 March 2004 — Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, will give a series of lectures in Canada during a tour this summer, a Canadian Muslim leader said. “This is the first visit of Sheikh Sudais to Canada,” Ibrahim Hussein Malabari, director general of the Toronto Islamic Center, said.
The Makkah imam will attend the annual conference of the ISNA conference in Toronto. He will also take part in a ceremony at the center marking the end of a four-week intensive course in Islamic and Arabic studies.
The course is organized by the center in association with Makkah’s Umm Al-Qura University.
“Umm Al-Qura has agreed to send seven professors to lecture on various Islamic topics and Arabic,” Malabari said.
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Jaeed, supervisor of educational programs, will lead the university’s delegation to Canada. Dr. Suleiman Al-Abid, head of higher studies in Arabic, and Dr. Khaled Al-Qurashi, head of the department of Islamic dawa and culture, will be part of the delegation.
He said some 5,000 Muslim delegates from different parts of Canada would take part in the ISNA (Islamic Society of North America) conference, scheduled for May 18-20 in Toronto.
“Islam for Peace, Progress and Prosperity” is the theme of the conference, which will be attended by prominent Muslim leaders like Dr. Muzzammil Siddiqui, Imam Siraj Wahaj, Dr. Mohammed Noor, president of ISNA in the US, and Dr. Ingrid Mathson, vice president of ISNA.
Malabari, a senior ISNA official, commended the favorable attitude of Canadians toward Islam and Muslims. “Canadians in general are against the ban imposed by the French government on hijab,” he said.
Canadians are now more curious to find out about Islam than ever before, Malabari said. “The number of non-Muslims who visit mosques and Islamic centers in Canada has increased considerably,” he added.
Canadian census figures released last year have shown for the first time that Muslims outnumber Jews.
“When the 1991 census was taken, about 25 percent more people said they were Jewish than Muslim,” the daily Globe and Mail reported. But immigration from predominantly Muslim countries has reversed that dynamic.
Figures from the 2001 Canadian census released by Statistics Canada show that the number of people claiming to be of Muslim faith increased by 128.9 percent to 579,640 in the decade beginning in 1991.
