Mississauga, now Canada’s sixth-largest city, is home to one of the largest concentrations of Muslim students in Canada.
This is why in seventeen out of Mississauga’s nineteen high schools, Muslim students associations are demanding autonomy on holding congregational prayers on Friday and on choosing who delivers the sermons.
The Peel Board of Education has recently ruled that only six approved sermons could be delivered during Friday prayers, ones that are consistent with the board’s values of honesty, cooperation and inclusion. But the students now wish to regain control.
Currently these efforts in Mississauga are being partially led by Shahmir Durrani, who in fact is not in high school but reportedly attends the University of Toronto at Mississauga. They insist on the sermon being drafted by the students.
One of the imams who is on the Peel Board’s Faith Leaders Network, Omar Subedar, has even previously condoned wife battery, even though he now claims to advocate equality for Muslim women. [Toronto Sun] Read more