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Babas ”˜n' Babies offers fathers and their young children an opportunity to get together once a month in Ottawa and participate in a unique set of engaging programs.

“Babas ”˜n' Babies is the very first program in Ottawa designed specifically for children and their fathers,” says Omar Mahfoudhi, organizer of the activities. “The goal of the program is to give fathers of young children the opportunity to engage in various fun and interesting activities with their children in a safe, comfortable and supportive environment.”

Initiated early last year, the Babas ”˜n' Babies meet-ups offer fathers and their children a wide range of activities to enjoy together, including cooking sessions, guided nature walks, treasure hunts, gardening, library sessions, guided museum tours and woodcraft workshops.

“Strengthening Relationships with the Muslim Community” is a series of sessions organized by several Muslim organizations in partnership with the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and the Community Police Action Committee (COMPAC).

The first session took place on Thursday, January 24th 2013 at Masjid Assunnah. Chief of Police Charles Bordeleau summed up the purpose of the series as follows: “It's about us as police officers and members of the police service learning more about the Muslim community but it's also about the Muslim community knowing who we are as police officers and what we do, and what the police service is capable of doing to help you.”

It was a defining moment for the growing Muslim community as members of disparate organisations and associations came together to celebrate the achievements of their own.

The Jan. 19 event, hosted by the Muslim Coordinatin

g Council (MCC) and the Ottawa Muslim Association (OMA), honoured 20 Ottawa Muslim recipients of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Award.

“This is the first time in Ottawa that 42 Muslim organizations joined hands in a community-wide celebration of our contributions to Canada,” the MCC said in a statement issued after the event.

For the last two months, a group of youth in the city have been hard at work trying to get advertisements on bus shelters and preparing gift bags to hand out to the public. Their goal ”“ to spread the noble message of Hussain, the blessed grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him.

“Who is Hussain” is an initiative that began in the UK that has spread across the world; arriving in Canada's capital. The campaign aims to familiarise the public with Hussain, may Allah be pleased with him, who alongside his closest companions and members of his young family, was killed for standing up against injustice and oppression.

Like most great ideas, this one started modestly enough.A few eager Ottawa residents thought it would be neat to invite a popular Canadian Muslim scholar to launch a new book on Islam in the nation's capital.

So they got together with a formal group of Muslim organizations to plan a conference which would bring Dr. Jamal Badawi to Ottawa, as well as other scholars to discuss important faith issues.

That was in 2011. Two years later, that modest idea has grown into a major youth conference scheduled for March 16, 2013 which aims to support young Muslims in every facet of their lives. Organizers are also thrilled that the conference also marks one of the most significant collaborations between Muslim organizations and youth groups ever to happen in Ottawa.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him said “An intelligent person is one who is constantly thinking about and preparing for death.“ (Tirmidhi)

Ottawa Muslims now have a cemetery to call their own. The Ottawa Muslim Cemetery officially opened on Jan. 4 2013.

The project is the result of almost two decades of effort on the part of a small but determined group of Ottawa Muslims who saw the need back in 1994 for a cemetery for Muslims run by Muslims.

A visionary group of Canadian Somali youth has been providing their peers with inspiration and guidance as part of the Somali Canadian Youth Mentorship Program. It's a program that aims to connect young people with successful professionals and university students in Ottawa. Ifrah Hassan spoke with the Muslim Link's Amira Elghawaby about the initiative.  

Kandahar-The Fighting Season is a new exhibit that is sure to garner a lot of attention from those with an interest in Afghanistan.

The exhibition at the War Museum features sixteen intense, some even haunting photographs taken between 2006 and 2001, during the war in Afghanistan.

Award-winning photographer Louie Palu accompanied Canadian soldiers to Kandahar Province in Southern Afghanistan. He captured their world of firefights and exhausting patrols in some of the most dangerous districts of Kandahar (said to be the heartland of the insurgency).

Too many times I hear people say “youth are not engaged enough in the community''. For young community leaders like Ahmed Sadiq, the chairman and head of the  Assalam Mosque Youth Department, that undoubtedly is not the case. 

When Ahmed saw a need for a program focused on Ottawa's young Muslims, he sprang into action. In December 2011, Assalam Mosque's Youth Department, along with a group of young, dedicated volunteers, including myself, organized the first annual “Go Halal or Go Home'' Youth Winter Conference.

This year, I was back for more, trekking all the way from the west-end to the east-end to commit my time to a “for youth by youth” initiative that I feel recognizes the real needs of Muslim youth like  myself, who in our teens and early twenties, are struggling to balance the pressures of our daily lives with our deen.

The Yemeni journalist and human rights activist Tawakkol Karman charmed several audiences during a visit to Ottawa on November 21 and 22 while touring across Canada.

Before landing in the nation's capital, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate had been in Edmonton, where she received an honourary doctorate of Laws from the University of Alberta. There, she also participated in the Festival of Ideas.

The Canadian Association of Muslims with Disabilities launched their fourth annual khutbah (Firday sermon)awareness campaign at the beginning of December.

The Ottawa Police is inviting all Muslim residents to attend a community information session at Masjid Dar Assunnah on Jan. 24, 2013.  The event, organised in partnership with several Ottawa Muslim organizations, is aimed at strengthening relations between the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) and local Muslims.

On Dec. 1, the Montreal Muslim Ball Hockey Tournament celebrated its 20th anniversary with its 35th tournament held at John Abbott College in Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue.

The mainly bi-annual tournament is a volunteer-driven, non-profit event that has been a longstanding tradition for Montreal's Muslim community. It began in 1992 with five teams at the NDG YMCA and has continued to grow, now regularly attracting up to 20 teams and around 200 Muslim youth and adults, typically aged 15 to 45, from across Quebec, Ontario, as well as Canada and the United States.

The fifth annual Expressions of Muslim Women (EMW) took place on Saturday, November 17 at the Centrepointe Studio Theatre. The sold-out event raised funds for local charities like Sadaqa Food Bank and Nelson House, a shelter for women and children fleeing abuse.

The title of this year's event was “Strength in Sisterhood”, a theme which ran through several of the performances that evening. The theme was also embodied by the commitment of the event organizers, a group of women who have volunteered to make EMW an artistic celebration for women to look forward to each year.

Women wearing the niqab (face veil) will have an opportunity to talk candidly about their experiences to opinion and policy makers, through a new study by the Canadian Council of Muslim Women (CCMW).

The research, funded by the Ontario Trillium Foundation, a government agency, will be carried out in consultation with Shahrzad Mojab, Professor at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

A local public health researcher wants to hear from minority women, including Muslims, who have used maternal care services at the Ottawa Hospital.

With colleagues from the University of Ottawa, Dr. Sylvia Reitmanova has begun a survey titled “Diversity-inclusive maternal healthcare services” which aims to capture the experiences of women who have had any experiences with the Ottawa Hospital during pregnancy and birth. This includes General, Civic and Riverside campuses.

Canadian Blood Services are encouraged by the "fantastic" success of their two blood clinics with the Ottawa Muslim Association (OMA) and would like to build a mutually rewarding relationship with the Muslim community, Community Development Coordinator Glen Crowe says.

Algonquin College has opened a spiritual centre for its students in the brand new Robert C. Gillett Student Commons Building. The centre has a large prayer room, two rooms for ablutions, and three offices for each of the major faiths represented at the school: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

The centre officially opened on Nov. 1, 2012 with an interfaith prayer service and lunch which brought together students, school administration, and religious leaders from outside the campus, to celebrate.

It's Nov. 17, and as Somali-Canadian student Sharmake Abdulkarim delivers the khutbah (sermon) at the jummah (Friday) prayer, he encourages his fellow Muslim students not to gossip or backbite, and to help each other through the stressful time of exams and midterms.

“I have to admit, I was nervous,” Mr. Sharmake says, but he welcomes the encouragement he receives from Adel ElMaghrabi, the centre's full-time volunteer Imam, to write khutbahs that will be relevant to the lives of his fellow students.

“When the students come to jummah, they need to hear something that will help them in their daily lives,” Imam ElMaghrabi says.

Violence in Syria since an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's regime erupted more than 20 months ago has claimed the lives of thousands of people, mostly civilians. One of the latest victims of the conflict was Mu'ath Jafar Al Shebli, 35. His sister in-law Aminah Kandar, an Ottawa resident studying in Qatar, tells of the family's grief and loss.

Local and national Muslim organizations have strongly condemned the defacement of a war memorial in Toronto's Coronation Park that took place on Remembrance Day.