Editorial

Living Virtually

This year, in addition to the approximately two million intending hajjis bearing the heartbreak associated with the canceled hajj season, the vast majority of Muslims will also be denied the traditional pleasure of welcoming their near and dear hajjis back home.

Let’s pray that this will be the first and only pandemic-limited hajj.

Heartbreak aside, this extraordinary health care disaster has opened up the world to new opportunities — ones built on the bedrock of recent technological advances.

As ISNA president Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Syeed says, “It is now old news that the 57th Annual ISNA Convention is going to be unlike any previous one.” He asks us to remind ourselves of Surah al-Kahf, which announces that only God knows what He does and why He does what He does.

On the one hand, the global coronavirus outbreak continues to cause massive suffering, while on the other hand we can see Him using it to lift all time and space limitations. As a result, this year’s event is the product of our unfettered imagination and unbridled extravagance.

Given the convention's virtual format, gone are all of the former barriers, restrictions and overbearing costs! The lack of any need to invite speakers and guests to appear physically at a specific place and time has opened up the reality for the attendees to interact with our community’s respected authors, scholars, orators, leaders, nonprofit experts and representatives working in so many professions and fields — all from the comfort of their own homes.

This is also true for our guest speakers from throughout North America and the world.

We pray that our community benefits from this interaction.

As we were applying the final touches to this issue, the earthly departure of Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a Civil Rights icon, has saddened all thinking people. In his moving tribute, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Esq., deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, citing Rep. Lewis, stated, “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”

This reminds us of a much earlier, and very similar, proclamation made by Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam): “Whosoever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith” (“Sahih Muslim,” hadith no. 49).

Let us act on Mitchell’s advice that as Muslims, we not simply issue token or empty remembrances, but reflect upon and replicate the work that God allowed Rep. Lewis to do.

Islamic Horizons’ efforts to document the story of North America’s Muslim communities continue to bear results. More than a few graduate students have told us that they have relied on our content for such information.

In keeping with this effort, this issue revisits the state of Islam in Canada. We are blessed that this task was graciously accepted by Syed Imtiaz Ahmad, emeritus professor at Eastern Michigan University, who, besides serving on several Islamic and civic organizations, has served as ISNA vice president and president as well as ISNA Canada vice president and president.

We are confident that these articles will serve not only as a source of pride for Muslim Canadians, especially the younger generation, but also constitute a resource for scholars researching this topic. ih

PUBLISHER The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)

PRESIDENT Sayyid Muhammad Syeed

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Basharat Saleem

EDITOR Omer Bin Abdullah

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Iqbal Unus, Chair: M. Ahmadullah Siddiqi, Milia Islam-Majeed

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