Canada: Group educates community about Qur’an

“It’s just that it’s been a very small chapter, and now it’s actually grown to a point where we can actually have the human resources to hand out these flyers and have an open house to actually go and communicate with the community,” Khan said. “Now it has come to a point where we think we can actually engage socially.” 

Photo: Catherine Szabo

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The Lloydminster Source
By Catherine Szabo | March 22, 2012

After a campaign where members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Group went door-to-door, dispelling myths about the Islam religion, Lloydminster residents recently had another chance to learn more about the eastern faith.

Representatives from the youth group were at the Lloydminster Public Library late Thursday afternoon, hosting an open house where people could walk around, reading information displays about the Qur’an and the religion.

The organization has existed in the Border City for about two years, said Salman Khan, who works with the youth group locally, but they’re only now at the point where the group is big enough to start hosting events and going out into the community.

“It’s just that it’s been a very small chapter, and now it’s actually grown to a point where we can actually have the human resources to hand out these flyers and have an open house to actually go and communicate with the community,” Khan said. “Now it has come to a point where we think we can actually engage socially.”

The event was two-fold, explained Noman Khalil, who works out of the organization’s headquarters in Toronto. Not only could members of the public engage with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Group, but members themselves were being taught how to spread their knowledge, because Toronto-based members can’t fly to the Prairies every time there is an event, he said.

“The presentation that we do is basically a one-on-one presentation, we take the guest around to the banners,” Khalil said. “It’s an open format, but the guest has a choice – they can read themselves or we can walk them around to the banners and show them some of the stuff that they may not be able to understand, and clear up some of the misconceptions.”

After a meeting with the mayor earlier on Thursday, Khalil said they were prepared for a small turnout, though it has varied from city to city. Still, even if they saw 10 to 30 people on Thursday, it would be that many more who would walk away learning something new, he said.

“The problem with the Muslim world right now is that there’s a lot of stuff that has been put into the media, that the Muslims have created a religion that is really, really distorted,” Khalil said. “It is our job, and we take it upon ourselves, to clear up this image, and clear up this dirt that they have created.

“We find we need to go cover this in all the communities, and we need to go again and again, because if you go once and you spread a message of peace, a while later everybody forgets about it. So you need to go again and again and again to actually create that peace.”


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