By Barry Ellsworth
TRENTON, Ont. (AA) – A Canadian mosque in which several worshippers were radicalized and left to fight for jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq will close its doors Friday to the relief of its imam and the Muslim community.
But while the 8th and 8th mosque – its name is derived from its location in downtown Calgary, Alberta, – will be shuttered, plans are in place to build a new one that is not tainted by reputation.
“It was a place I taught and gave lectures,” Imam Navaid Aziz told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Thursday. “I performed people’s marriages. We celebrated people’s births in this mosque.
“Then there was this dark element that lingered over it, that overshadowed and overpowered all of these amazing experiences over something I had no control over. I had nothing to do with it.”
Aziz was referring to the news, nearly three years ago, that Salman Ashrafi, Damian Clairmont and others who had attended prayers at the mosque, had become radicalized and left to join jihadist groups.
“Once that negative incident happened, that was so powerful, that outshined all of the positivity,” the imam said.
That incident placed Calgary in headlines in 2014, named as the hotbed of jihadi recruitment in Canada. According to a 2011 Canadian Census report, Calgary is the largest city in Alberta with more than 1 million residents, while the Muslim population is about 57,000.
Aziz and the Muslim community hope the stain will finally be removed when a new mosque is opened.
“We have found another location that we have closed a purchase agreement on,” the imam told a Calgary radio station. “It is approximately within a two-block radius of the 8th and 8th Musallah.”
Ashrafi, Clairmont, Tamim Chowdhury, Ahmad Waseem and Gregory and Collin Gordon all left Canada to fight for Daesh and all were killed.
Another member of the mosque, Farah Shirdon, became notorious when he appeared in a 2014 Daesh video in which he threatened Canada, the United States and “all oppressors,” the CBC reported. It is not know if Shirdon is still alive.
