1867–1960s Four years after Canada's founding in 1867, the 1871 Canadian Census found 13
European Muslims among the population. The first Muslim organization in Canada was registered by immigrants from
greater Syria living in
Regina, Saskatchewan in 1934. The first Canadian
mosque was constructed in
Edmonton in 1938 when there were approximately 700 European Muslims in the country. The building is now part of the museum at
Fort Edmonton Park. The years after
World War II saw a small increase in the Muslim population. However, Muslims were still a distinct minority. It was only after the removal of European immigration preferences in the late 1960s and early 1970s that Muslims began to arrive in significant numbers.
1960s–1980s Bosniaks and
Albanian Muslims were the founders of
Jami Mosque, the first mosque in Toronto in 1968, whose readjustment into a mosque—originally an old
Catholic school building—occurred on June 23, 1973. The mosque was readjusted for the Bosniaks, with the support of the local Christians. Later, with the action of
University of Toronto (U of T) professor Qadeer Baig, it was purchased by Asian Muslims, while Albanians and Bosniaks later founded the Albanian Muslim Society and
Bosanska džamija (Bosnian Mosque) respectively. The oldest mosque in
Toronto, with the oldest
minaret in
Ontario built in Ottoman style is in
Etobicoke, part of the Bosnian Islamic Centre.
1980s–2000s The first
madrasa (Islamic seminary) in
North America,
al-Rashid Islamic Institute was established in
Cornwall, Ontario in 1983 to teach
hafiz and
ulama and focuses on the traditional
Hanafi school of thought. The seminary was established by Mazhar Alam, originally from
Bihar, India, under the direction of his teacher the leading
Indian Tablighi Jamaat scholar
Zakariyya Kandhlawi. Due to its proximity to the
U.S. border city of
Massena the school has historically had a high percentage of American students. Their most prominent graduate, Muhammad Alshareef completed his
hifz in the early 1990s then went on to form the
AlMaghrib Institute. As with immigrants in general, Muslim immigrants have come to Canada for a variety of reasons. These include higher education, security, employment, and family reunification. Others have come for religious and political freedom, and safety and security, leaving behind civil wars, persecution, and other forms of civil and ethnic strife. In the 1980s, Canada became an important place of refuge for those fleeing the
Lebanese civil war. The 1990s saw
Somali Muslims arrive in the wake of the
Somali civil war as well as Bosniaks fleeing the
breakup of
Yugoslavia. However Canada has yet to receive any significant numbers of Iraqis fleeing the
Iraq war. However, in general almost every Muslim country in the world has sent immigrants to Canada from
Pakistan,
Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Albania to
Yemen and
Bangladesh. According to the Canadian Census of 1971 there were 33,000 Muslims in Canada. Population estimates for the Census 2006 pointed to a figure of 800,000. As of May 2013, Muslims account for 3.2% of the total population, with a total of over a million. In January 2017, six Muslims were killed in
a shooting attack at a Quebec city mosque. In the contemporary era, there are
halal restaurants across Canada, including over 1000 in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). One of the first Islamic internet radio stations,
Canadian Islamic Broadcasting Network, was started in 2019. == Demographics ==