The Current - A Catholic church is becoming a second home for St. John’s muslims

Episode Date: June 9, 2025

<p>The only mosque in St. John’s, built in the 1980s, has become so crowded in recent years that worshippers often spill into the kitchen and lawn during Friday prayer. In her documentary The Best of Planners, Caroline Hillier tells the story of the community’s quest for a new place of worship — which they’re now renovating from the remains of a Catholic church, with the help of a generous donation.</p>

The ocean is vast, beautiful, and lawless. I'm Ian Urbina back with an all new season of The Outlaw Ocean. The stories we bring you this season are literally life or death. We look into the shocking prevalence of forced labor, mine boggling overfishing, migrants hunted and captured. The Outlaw Ocean takes you where others won't. Available on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast.

Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. The story of the Titan grabbed the world's attention two years ago. The submersible launched from a boat off the coast of Newfoundland headed for the wreck of the Titanic but it disappeared. It soon became clear that it had imploded killing all five people on board. This story had effects all around the world but it also had an impact here in Newfoundland that may not have been expected. That impact has to do with the only mosque in St. John's. It's become way too small to hold all of the people attending events like this Friday prayer.

But finding a new space to worship had been a long journey. Here is Caroline Hillier's documentary, The Best of Planners. Was there a cross there before? Yeah, there was a cross before. So we removed that cross and you can see that we have put a crescent. Yes, this new mosque used to be a Catholic church. Did you want to go in? Are we going in or no? If you want to, I can show you.

We have removed those cross signs and covered those with this Islamic artifact. A lot of voices are going to help me tell this story. My name is Father Paul Lundrigan. My name is Aisha Akhanturk. Hi, my name is Abdal Shahwan. I'm Syed Pirzada. They all talk a lot about fate, destiny, you know, how things happen for a reason. I think this is part of the wisdom, you know, the divine wisdom behind everything.

Like this place might have been destiny. There's one plan which a person makes or a human being makes, but there is another plan which is made by a God. Predestiny or in Arabic al-qadr is one of the six articles of faith in Islam. It signifies that everything is predetermined by God's knowledge and will. And so whether you believe in destiny or not, these people do. They see hidden threads that run through a bunch of events that don't seem connected but sort of are.

And you know, I remember when we were flying into St. John's and you saw the sea or the ocean. I said to myself, oh my God, look at the size of it. Where are they going to find this little vessel? We'll get to that connection. This used to be a confession room before. But first, we're here in this tiny room where for years people confess their sins. There used to be a partition wall here. So that partition wall has been removed. people confess their sins.

Haseen Khan is the new president of the Muslim Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. Queen of Peace. Mary, which in Islam we call Maryam, there is a chapter in the Holy Quran. So she is highly respected in the Islamic faith. As he talks, Haseen often quotes verses from the Quran by memory. This is what we say, وَمَكَرُوا وَمَكَرَ اللَّهُ وَاللَّهُ خَيْرُوا الْمَاكِرِينَ We plan and Allah also plans and He is the best of the planners. He had His plan, we have our plan. You see we have been trying for the last 15 years. Number of times we came that close but it did not materialize. So His plan was different. Trying to get a new mosque. The province's first mosque, Masjid al-Nur, was built in

the late 80s. Friday prayers there are so overcrowded, even the kitchen and lawn are covered in prayer mats. For Eid, they rent sporting stadiums. This overcrowding isn't new. Back in 2012, 13 years ago, I did a news story about how that mosque was overcrowded. The group had bought land and had plans to build on it. The Muslim Association hopes to build the Islamic Center here by the end of 2013. That's if the city approves the project this time around and if the community can raise enough money. Caroline Hilliard… Those plans did not work out.

My name is Father Paul Lundrigan. I'm a Roman Catholic priest here with the Archdiocese of St. John's. Okay. Another thread. Mary Queen of Peace Church was the first church that I was assigned to. And because mom and dad were there, like it had a special place in my heart. Both my parents were buried from there, as my grandmother was and a number of other members of my family. So again, it was sort of like my parish community.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's says that it may have to sell off property to compensate abuse victims from the Mount Cashell orphanage. If you say the words Mount Cashell in Newfoundland and Labrador, it's almost a shorthand for a tragic and lingering crime. In 1989, Canada's first major sexual abuse scandal broke, involving Christian brothers and young boys in a St. John's orphanage. It ultimately left the Catholic Church on the hook to pay out $104 million to victims. That money will come mostly from liquidation, a fire sale of church properties, including

from tiny outpours. Dozens of churches and other properties on the southern Avalon and Buran Peninsula are gradually being listed. And in 2022, the church put up hundreds of its properties for sale in order to find that cash. That's how Mary Queen of Peace Church goes on the market. And it was heartbreaking to see that it wasn't being used as a church anymore. In 2023, Mary Queen of Peace is sold but not to the Muslim Association yet.

The people who had bought it were looking to make it into a wellness center or into an office complex or some sort of clinic. They tried a number of different things. And then there was even talk that, well, we're not going to be able to sell this building, it's just too hard to remodel. So we'll tear down the church and sell the land. And I thought that would have been the most heartbreaking. But those plans don't work out either. In 2024, the building goes up for sale again.

So I'm Syed Pirzada. I am one of the executives of Muslim Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. We were approached by a real real state that this church is for sale. And are you guys interested? We said that yes, we are interested and then we started thinking about how much money do we have and how much funds we can collect so quickly. They didn't have enough money to buy the church. And this is where another seemingly random thread is pulled into place.

On Sunday, communication with the small 21-foot-long submersible ended. When the world learned the Titan had enough oxygen on board to keep passengers alive for up to four days, there was hope. But that faded as the search continued without result. You probably remember this tragedy. It grabbed the world's attention. In June of 2023, a deepwater submersible, the Titan, goes missing. Two of the five people on board are father and son, Shazada Daoud and Suleiman Daoud. So when this happened, naturally we flew, the whole family flew to St. John's.

That is Hussein Daoud, a businessman and philanthropist, and the father of Shazada and the grandfather of Suleiman. And then you had these amazing things that the U.S. government, and particularly the UK government, and the Canadian government, all went out looking for them. And they put tremendous effort, and they didn't let go. I mean, that's so unusual. What drove them to do that? I don't know. When you go down to the levels that they went to, the pressure is 4,000 tons per square inch. So when a vessel goes down there, if there's the slightest defect, there'd be a massive implosion because there's massive

weight of 4,000 tons, which just crushes everything. So it's a great blessing that, you know, when you go, you go without realizing. That is a great blessing in itself. I don't think any of the five even knew what was happening. It is so instantaneous. It's too fast for the brain to process. The international media frenzy focuses on the titans implosion, but the Daud family is in St. John's and quietly asks the local mosque to hold a funeral service for Shazada and Suleiman.

Well, you know, in Islam, we don't believe in delaying the funeral, the funeral rites. They done very quickly and very promptly. So that's what happened. And from there, we met Dr. Mansour, who was so gracious, he took it upon himself, he and his very gracious wife, and they looked after us. They arranged everything. They took us to the mosque that was there. And I thought that, you know, the whole organization under the leadership of Dr. Mansur was entirely

voluntary and quite a large number of community came to participate. In the Muslim community there are no strangers. This is the essence of Islam. That you're one community, wherever you are. You see that in every prayer. They stand there shoulder to shoulder with somebody you don't know at all. And it's a glorious feeling of comfort.

And you don't know the people around you, even though you don't know them. They could be from the other side of the world. You're one community. Is drinking raw milk safe like RFK Junior suggests? Can you reduce a glucose spike if you eat your food in quote unquote the right order? I'm registered dietitian, Abbey Sharp. I host a nutrition myth busting podcast called Bite Back with Abbey Sharp.

And those are just some of the questions I tackle with qualified experts on my show. On Bite Back, my goal is to help listeners create a pleasurable relationship with food, their body and themselves, which in my opinion is the fundamental secret to good health. Listen to Bite Back wherever you get your podcasts. Hussain Daud and the then president of the Muslim Association, Saeed Mansour Prasada, keep in touch. And once that funeral service and everything was over, Mr. Daud, Hussain Daud, he approached me and he thanked me. And when the church goes up for sale again? I texted Mr. Hussain Daud about this church and he gently said that, you know, this opportunity has come to buy the church and he wasn't actually looking to me to give any contribution, none

at all. And he didn't mention this to me because he was looking for sponsors or supporters or whatever. And I told him that this is the best opportunity our community can have because this is a big church, this is a historic church. He said that this church will be able, and we have a limited time frame. And he looked quite worried that they'd lose this opportunity. He was kind enough.

He asked all the questions and he said, I said to him, listen, I'd love to participate in this. And if this is what we can do to show our gratefulness for all that you've done and we'll happily participate. That's what we did. So I just sent him the money. So everybody was in shock but you know I mean Allah or God you know decides to help somebody that the help can come from anywhere and from any part of the world. And I just felt in my heart that I'd like to show my appreciation for the way they've really identified with our tragedy and they showed such humanness.

I feel that I've got to show my gratitude for that. We got the money and then we bought the church. So this was a gift from, not only a huge gift from Mr. Hussain Daud's family, but also I believe that it was a gift from God to our community. The church is bought for just over $2 million. How does your faith in Islam and in God help you grieve this profound loss that you've experienced? Well, life and death, I believe, are entirely under the control of the Creator. And I understand it from the point of view that my Creator was so gracious. He was so gracious to bless us with two beautiful souls and it was a gift and it's right to

take it back. Okay girls, assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Hello, my name is Ayyshe Akinturk. I'm a Canadian Muslim of Turkish origin. In the basement of the old mosque at a weekly youth girls club, Ayshe is thinking about how to make the new mosque look like a new mosque. And she's reflecting on how the mosque came to be. On the one hand, two souls are lost, you know, in such a tragic event. And then that sense of loss becomes a sense of hope for the entire community here, for

the Muslim community here. So there is a Muslim community on the land of this province, but also Muslim souls who passed away in the shores in the very water of this province. So it made me to reflect about the cycle of life. So yes, we are all destined to die, but sometimes our deaths can facilitate, can, you know, pave a ground for other people to become hopeful, you know. So your name and your soul continue to live, in a sense, through the legacy, through the charity that you leave behind. Remove the pews was our first task. That was the first thing we had to do. We removed them.

At the new mosque, 20-year-old Abdullah Shehwan and other volunteers lugged church pews out the door, cleaned prayer mats and pressed tape into the floor to form straight lines for prayer. There's a little stage that has like a skylight that the sun shines down to and we find that's beautiful to have in a mosque too. If you picture a church, all the pews face the front altar, right? But in this church, once it's a mosque, the worshippers will actually do a 180. So they'll face the opposite direction to pray towards Mecca in the east.

So yeah, we believe in like good deeds in our religion. So like anything that's good that benefits you, that benefits your community, that's a good deed. Whether it's just helping someone out, if it's just vacuuming a carpet here, you're getting deeds for that. It builds on you. Charity is so important that it's another one of the six pillars of Islam. On Eid al-Fitr, the Shaheed Sulaiman Dawood Mosque is open. Not yet for day-to-day worship, but volunteers managed to get carpets down for this Eid prayer. There are two services. About 7,000 people show up. You know, like most of us, for instance, dress up in new clothes, wear a new pair of shoes and things like that. So for us, the Eid was like to be able to pray in a new mosque.

So it was Eid in its full scope, right? In the Muslim community, we have people from every Muslim country of the world. Everybody was excited to be there in the church and be the part of that Eid prayer. You see, as a Muslim, as a person of faith, I see some connections. Of course, I'm not wise enough to understand, comprehend God's wisdom behind it,

but I see the connections and it even makes my faith in God stronger. So our community was desperate for a new place of worship and it came through the generosity of this family who is still mourning the loss of their beloved ones in our shores. Yes, it is tragic, but on the other hand, there is some hope and comfort in thinking that, you know, this is not the end of everything, you know, because we believe in the hereafter. So the life journey of these individuals continue. And those people whose names were given to this new mosque, you know, like people will continue to pray

for them and they will rank in the paradise, I hope, will get higher and higher. Each and every day, someone prays at this new masjid. In Quran, there are the words, فَذْكُرُونِيْ أَذْكُرْكُمْ فَذْكُرُونِيْ أَذْكُرْكُمْ وَشْكُرُولِيْ وَلَا تَكْفَرُونَ that, remember me, and I will remember you. And be among those who are grateful.

Don't be among those who are ungrateful. The message is always be grateful and respectful to those who have been helpful to you. God knows his plans best and that is what Mr. Hussain Daud said when he came. Life is not black and white and it's not a straight line. It's full of complexities. I would never in my wildest dreams have a thought of going to St. John's and you know meeting such wonderful people over there. The community in St. John's, you know, they must understand I did them no favor, not whatsoever. It's just working with the community for the betterment of all members of the community. And I consider it is their graciousness that they're giving my grandson's to the mosque, calling Shaykh Sulaiman Dawood.

The plan is to keep renovating and eventually get the mosque open for daily prayers. There's also a plan to have an area in the back to showcase bits of the building's Christian history. It's just a new chapter for the building from a church to a mosque is just opening a new religious chapter. And I saw the crescent moon replace the cross on top of the building. So when I saw that it's going to continue to be used for public worship by a community of faith that is distantly related to us, I thought, this is great. This is absolutely wonderful. And for the grand opening, the association wants to welcome Muslims and non-Muslims and the Daoud family. I happen to believe that in life after death, and I happen to like to do things which will prepare me for the next life.

And the next life is called Paradise. Paradise is the real life, the life on this earth. It's but a series of tests. That documentary was produced by Carolyn Hillier with the CBC program Atlantic Voice with help from the audio documentary unit. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.