From a Mosque Basement to a Campus, 90 Years Later

Humraha News

A school that began in a mosque basement in the 1980s just opened a brand new campus, and the vice principal cutting the ribbon remembers his mother teaching downstairs.

Humraha News is our weekly spotlight on good news from the Muslim community. A culture of good news, one story at a time.

The Edmonton Islamic Academy started in the basement of a mosque. In the 1980s it was a handful of students downstairs at Al Rashid, taught by people from the congregation. On Saturday, families, alumni and teachers walked through the doors of a brand new elementary campus in west Edmonton to see what forty years of that turned into.

The curriculum follows the Alberta provincial guidelines, with Islamic, Quranic and Arabic studies woven through it. The building is new enough to still smell new. Benjamin Gee, a Grade 3 teacher who has been at the academy since its humble beginnings, put it the way a teacher would.

It's brand new, very shiny, but I think what matters more is that it's a safe space for our students to learn.Benjamin Gee, Grade 3 teacher, to CTV News Edmonton

He is most excited about the outdoor learning classroom. The school is moving toward land based education, where students learn outside and, as he puts it, hopefully develop a stronger sense of environmental stewardship. Which, he notes, ties closely into Islam.

Nearly 90 years of Edmonton history

The timing is not an accident. The opening lands close to 90 years since Edmonton's Muslim community built Al Rashid Mosque, Canada's first multi purpose mosque, at a time when the entire Muslim population of the city could have fit in a living room. That community built a mosque anyway. Then a basement school. Then this.

School vice principal Waylaid Zahra called it a full circle moment. He remembers his own mother's role in that basement.

It really gives us a sense of belonging, a sense that we're not just here to live in Edmonton. We're here to be a part and produce and give back to Edmonton.Waylaid Zahra, vice principal, to CTV News Edmonton

That is the line we keep rereading. Not we are here. We are here to give back. Two generations after a basement classroom, that is what a building like this is actually saying out loud.

If this reminded you of another quiet group of people doing the unglamorous work year after year, read about the Rockford volunteers who have handed out backpacks every August for fourteen years, or our guide to the new school year for Muslim parents. And if you have a kid starting somewhere new this month, a piece with their name on it does more for a first day than it has any right to.