BOSNIAN ISLAMIC CENTRE OF HAMILTON

BOSNIAN ISLAMIC CENTRE HAMILTON

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Essalamu Aleykum,

 

It is an honor and immense pleasue to see you all here, united in faith, united in a mutually important and noble cause, united as a community, as muslims and believers.

It is the fact that in the lives of the believers, the Islamic Community plays a social and spiritual role of significant proportions.

Union of believers brings believers together in rows,  cleanses their soul, awakens their hearts and minds, solves individual and communal problems....

 

All of this was well known to the Muslims of Hamilton and surrounding area some ten years ago when they had decided to build a union of believers aimed at struggle to safeguard and strengthen islamic component.

That is how the Islamic Centre of Bosniaks of Hamilton came into existence, an association of voluntary united believers in the name of Allah s.v.

With its ten years of existence and work Islamic Centre of Bosniaks of Hamilton in an organized and constructive way responds to questions of Islamic identity.

Thanks to the Islamic Centre of Bosniaks of Hamilton muslims have, on one hand, cleaverly absorbed those cultural achievements of the Canadian society which correspond with the fundamental requirements of the islamic credo, and on the other hand, asserted their influence on spiritual enlightment and cultural enrichment of the Canadian cultural mosaic.

From the very beginning, which was in the darkness of the basement of an old and inadequate residential building, in addition to a mandatory teaching and practice of islam, the Mektheb studies and Bosnian language school were held as well.

Since then, and until now, through those two schools, more than 500 children of various ages had attended and received basic knowledge about Islam, Bosnian language, History of Bosniaks and history, culture and tradition of Bosnia. Those programs are indeed the best protection in the defense of our children from always omnipresent assimilation and departure from the values and teachings of Islam. Today, those children are already members of our association.

The Mosque is Allah's House in which Allah is mentioned, where MELEKS reside, where Allah's words are tought, noble aya's are explained and interpreted, words of our Prophet are spoken, in the Mosque one is directed towards doing good deeds and diverted from the path that leads to haram and evil doings.

The best example of significance   the Mosque has in Islam, is the fact that our Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, having arrived to the place of Kuba first built a mosque. After arriving to Madina Prophet Muhammad, pbuh,  did the same.

His ashabs, after conquering Sam, Persia, Bizant,  the first thing they did was to build a mosque. Turks, Osmanliyas while conquering  Balkan, first thing they did was to build a mosque.

 

Consciences of the significance of the Mosque as Allah's house, regardless of how good their work was, the darkness fo the basement mosque soon became a barrier to further development and growth of the association of Bosniaks in Hamilton. That is why the members of Bosniaks Islamic Centre of Hamilton have decided to leave the darkness of the basement and come out to the light of Mosque. Small house was purchased in a very short time, modified and converted into a Mosque. That lead to a state where it was possible to  put our community to continue with actions of even better quality and higher quantity. BIA Hamilton becomes central place of congregation of Muslims of Hamilton and surrounding area.

 

On January 5th, 2010, president of the commission for purchase of property - house located next to our current Mosque, had collected the keys of the property at 208 Barton Street in Stoney Creek as well as the copy of the deed if Property, a document which attested that the above lsited property was finally owned by Bosniaks Islamic Centre. This was indeed one of the those crucial moments in the development of Bosniaks Islamic Association of Hamilton, which will surely not only become a part of our Association's historical milestones but also a historical milestone for all Canadian Muslims Total price of the property, including all associated costs was  $ 242,963.00 and the property and associated expenses were I immediately paid off in full.

 

Indeed, great success for, by numbers small, but by quality and determination one of the best associations of believers in North America.

Since we are mentioning the number of members of our association, it is important to mention that our association currently numbers over 250 members. Indeed, very few associations in North America and elsewhere can claim to have a such number of active and contributing members.

This was achieved with precisely planned and targeted program and delegation of duties at the very beginning of creation of our association, with complete transparency of work and activities of the association, with excellent and exemplary leadership within the community, from the leadership in various boards to the spiritual leadership.

Now we have a task of completing digital survey, then set a meeting with the architect and project managing firm representatives And after completion of architectural plan initiate procedure for "merging i re-zoning" at the Hamilton city hall. Estimated total cost of the whole project related to building of a new Mosque is roughly 1.5 million dollars.

I wish therefore to express my sincerest gratitude to all of the donors who, in the name of our Master Allah, S.V, have donated their material goods, work and knowledge and thus build part of themselves into the Bosniaks -Islamic Centre of Hamilton.

 

At the end, please allow me to present to you this evening's program:

 

Immediately after this short introductory presentation we will pray aksam namaz, after aksam namaz dinner will be served.

After the dinner, BIAH Imam Ismail Fetic will shortly address the audience and will also announce the main speaker of the evening dr. Zijad ef. Delica, who is the Executive Director of  Islamic Congress of Canada.

Osmrtnicama ba