Having Own Place for Worship Really Important: Brockville Imam
Muslims in Brockville are one step closer to getting their own dedicated prayer space officially recognized by the city — and it has their leader reflecting on the long journey.
"Having our own place for worship is really, really important," said Ahmad Khadra, an electronics store owner who doubles as an imam in the region.
Khadra and other local Muslims have been using a Park Street building they recently purchased for group prayers, but the municipality still has to amend its zoning bylaw to officially declare it a place of worship.
That plan met with no objections last week at Brockville city council's planning and development committee, though one neighboring business has expressed concern about parking.
Khadra said the local YMCA, located across the street, has offered 10 parking spots.
"So basically everything is covered," Coun. Nathalie Lavergne said. "It's great the Muslim community of Brockville and the area as their own place of worship."
A final zoning decision from city council is still needed. Khadra is hopeful to have all approvals in place in November.
Prayers under the stairs
The path to forming the Islamic Centre of Brockville has not always been an easy one.
Khadra emigrated to Canada from Syria in 1994 and moved to Brockville to take over an electronics store in 1998. At that time, there were only two other Muslim families in the community, he estimated.
Today, the faith community still only numbers about 12, but Brockville is also a hub for highway travellers, Khadra said.
"Every Friday we get a dozen [to 20 more]," Khadra said. "They [get off Highway] 401 and they come [pray]."
Before securing the Park Street building — a former salon north of Brockville's downtown — Khadra and fellow community members gathered over the years at a variety of venues: his store, a friend's business, in basements.
"[Once] the neighbors criticized us and called the police on us," Khadra said.
On another occasion, when a planned indoor venue didn't pan out, Khadra improvised and led prayers from under the building's back emergency stairs, he said.
"We put our blankets on the floor, on the grass," he said.
In recent years, Wall Street United Church hosted the group at the invitation of minister Kimberly Heath.
"She walked me through the whole church ... and said, 'Pick a room,'" Khadra said.
'Writing the history of Brockville'
Heath said the church's relationship with the Islamic community grew out of its experience helping sponsor Syrian refugees.
"They were already in Brockville, but we came together to bring more Muslims — and then they had no room to host prayers in their homes. So we opened our doors," Heath said.
Heath remembered someone burning the Quebec flag at the Brockville train station when she was 16. Today, the eastern Ontario city roughly 115 kilometers south of Ottawa is much more welcoming, she said.
"Brockville has come a long way since those days. It is far more diverse and so much richer for it," she said.
The Islamic Centre of Brockville is nothing ornate: just a carpeted floor, four walls, a ceiling and windows on two sides.
But the importance of the space can't be overstated, as Khadra told the committee last week.
"We are writing the history of Brockville at this moment."
Source: cbc.ca
