Mike Slaughter / TORONTO STAR

CALL TO PRAYER: A muezzin summons the faithful at the Jami Mosque near High Park.

Salvatore Sacco for the TORONTO STAR

Student Nadir Shirazi says parents should visit their local mosque if they're concerned about the views taught there.

Mike Slaughter / TORONTO STAR

CONCENTRATION: Heads bowed in supplication. Muslims pray at High Park's Jami mosque, the oldest mosque in Ontario.

Ken Faught / TORONTO STAR

AFTER PRAYER: A fruit seller finds ready buyers outside the Taric Mosque on Friday.

The first was waged against the enemies of Mecca, when the Prophet Mohammed established the religion. The second was fought against the morally corrupt Ottoman Empire.

The third, the man says, looking pensively over the rows of restaurants and bars that line the street, is being fought today against the values of sin upon which the Western world is built — values that surround Muslims in Toronto.

Every Friday, thousands of devoted Muslims make their way to one of the mosques in Greater Toronto for afternoon prayers. Before the formal prayers begin, when men standing shoulder to shoulder organize themselves into perfectly formed rows, and before the reading of spiritual passages from the Qur'an, sermons are delivered by the imam from the mimber, or pulpit, that link religion, philosophy, politics and culture.

The imam's words reflect the mood of the community. And, like the Islamic fundamentalism reportedly spreading in such cities as New York, Hamburg and Islamabad, it's a similar hard-line interpretation of Islam that's gaining popularity here in Toronto.

During the past six weeks, The Star visited 15 of nearly 50 mosques in the Greater Toronto Area, some several times, and talked to Muslim students at York University.

The majority of mosques in Toronto send out a moderate message that speaks of embracing not only Islam but pluralism and modernity as well. However, in some mosques, a far more conservative version of the faith can also be heard by those who want to listen.

The war in Afghanistan, now being waged during Ramadan, the holiest month on the Islamic calendar, and talk of U.S. military action against Iraq, has only fomented anti-Western passions.

At the Madina Mosque, for example, the imam told the congregation that women must cover their bodies in public and that "everyone must do what they can to help their brothers fight the struggle against infidels."

But inside the Taric Mosque, near the junction of Highways 400 and 401, imam Abdool Hamid told the congregation that too many Muslims in Toronto are pointing at non-Muslims around them, saying they are the root of all evil. He warns that this idea is essentially un-Islamic.

That message doesn't go over well with some non-regulars (Muslims will often stop at the closest mosque for Friday prayers). Men gathered in the parking lot outside, denouncing Hamid's message and calling for a khalifa, the formation of one Muslim country with one unified army to, as one man puts it, "rid the world of infidels once and for all."

"It seems that some Muslims have an interpretation that they are here to wage a war against everyone who is not Muslim," says Hamid. "They are the ones who don't react very well to my sermons. There are definitely elements of extremism in the Muslim community here, there's no doubt about it."

"There is a lot of ignorance within the community in Toronto," says 23-year-old Salman Aziz, a fourth-year biology student at York University.

"Some of the children in Palestine have been brainwashed since they were kids, told that if they take their lives for the cause, they'll be heroes or martyrs. Now, whether it's kids who were raised here and reject the surrounding un-Islamic culture, or kids that have moved from the Middle East, you also see some of these extremist views popping up."

A group of Muslim students gathered outside the Scott Library on the York campus say the culture of the mosques reflects how an older generation thinks, many of whom, they say, didn't have the advantage of a proper Islamic education while struggling to establish themselves in a new country.

But more fundamental views are becoming apparent on the university's campus. According to several people present during a meeting of the Muslim Students' Association five weeks ago at York, a guest speaker — a graduate student at York — told students not to associate with Christians and Jews or they would go straight to hell.

When a few students objected to the outburst, they said they were silenced by executive members of the association. (An association spokesperson said an official statement would be released and offered no further comment. Five weeks later, no statement has yet been made.)

Like many people at the various mosques, the students say this type of extremism was not present in Toronto five years ago.

They insist they are not influenced by it and they say the messages heard in Toronto mosques are nothing more than contemporary examples of religious proselytizing that has gone on for centuries, much like that of Christian evangelicals.

"Children and youth are impressionable, and when parents hear about fanaticism or extremism at the mosque, then they should feel an obligation to go to the mosque (to find out if extreme views really are being spread)," says 18-year-old Nadir Shirazi, a first-year business administration student.

Young people who have grown up in Toronto understand the difference between various interpretations of Islam and what is actually in the Qur'an, he says.

"I go to a Friday circle at the Islamic Foundation of Toronto," Shirazi says.

"You will find people who'll say `If you don't have a beard, you're not a good Muslim.' But, at the end of the day, that's one person's opinion. If you don't have the scholarly knowledge, it can land you in the hell fire if you tell another Muslim how to behave. It's no Muslim's place to throw someone out of the mosque because they don't cover their heads or if they don't wear a beard."

Nevertheless, a growing number of male students on campus do wear their beards, and the sight of female Muslim students wearing hijab is now closer to the rule than the exception.

"There is certainly a more fundamental idea of Islam spreading in Toronto," says one male student who asked for anonymity. "Some of the students here begin by embracing orthodox practices, which is fine, but if that slowly leads to extremist views, like what we witnessed during the outburst at the meeting on campus, then we must question how youth are being influenced."

Off-campus, three young men at mosques separately talk of forms they say were brought back from an Islamic convention in Chicago and are circulating around Toronto. The forms apparently detail how young men can sign up to be sent to Pakistan for training in extremist madrasas, Islamic schools that the Taliban use to indoctrinate youth. The Star was unable to obtain any of these forms.

Abdool Hamid, the imam who delivered the sermon on tolerance at the Taric Mosque, moved to Toronto in 1992 after receiving a bachelor's degree in Islamic Studies from the Islamic University of Madina in Saudi Arabia. Because he holds the degree, which is required to be an imam, he is regularly invited to deliver sermons at Toronto mosques.

"What I see happening is that, right now, most of the people in charge of Islamic centres in Toronto have recently immigrated from other countries. They see things as black and white. They tend to look at non-Muslims as the enemy. The sad reality is that a lot of these people, even after they come here, hold on to these beliefs."

Some mosques have their own imams who regularly deliver sermons, while others invite guest imams to address the congregation. Mosques have an executive board that hires imams and consults them about the nature of sermons to be delivered in the mosque.

Hamid says it was around the early '90s, when he arrived here, that the Muslim community in Toronto began to define itself more on the basis of culture and politics than religion.

"Muslims have now grouped themselves in terms of their country of origin, their language or their sect (denomination). They've spent most of their life living in another country, so they come with a lot of preconceived ideas. For example, in Toronto, the countries many Muslims come from believe that women are not allowed out of the house, so this cultural bias influences people here."

A number of imams began a movement in the mid-'90s calling for moderate reformation within Toronto's Muslim community, he says — a reformation that would allow Muslims to prosper and participate in a modern, multicultural society without sacrificing any devotion to their faith. But the effect, instead of uniting organizations and institutions, resulted in resentment for suggesting the community needed to do a better job of auditing itself.

Hamid feels certain mosques need to do more to foster a sense of harmony between a Canadian and an Islamic identity.

"There are some centres and mosques in Toronto whose idea of Islam doesn't agree with mine," he says. "But I never turn down a mosque when asked to speak.

"The hardliners mistrust America and everything the West stands for," he says. "So even though (U.S. President George) Bush or (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair say this is not a war against Islam, they don't believe that. They think the entire infrastructure of Islam is being attacked. These views need to be confronted."

"Every community has moderates, conservatives, reform-minded and extremists in their midst — the Muslim community is not an exception," Kutty says. "I think the real issue is that some in the media appear to thrive in highlighting the extreme elements in the Muslim community more than others. If you look under every stone, you are bound to find some dirt."

Inside the Jami Mosque near High Park, during an informal gathering on a weekday evening, Muslims are told how to spread da'wah — instruction about Islam for non-Muslims — and advised by a middle-aged man to sell their houses and apartments and move into the same neighbourhood in Toronto. Then "Toronto, and eventually Canada, will be converted into an Islamic state," he says.

A pamphlet he distributes spells out the only reason Muslims should live among non-Muslims: to try to convert the land to an Islamic state.

"The person who gave you this pamphlet, we try to counter that," says Amjed Syed, who is the head administrator of the Jami Mosque. "We have to bring sense to people who come into the mosque who have a misplaced idea of what Muslims should be doing here. I ask them what they are doing in Canada if they have these negative views about the West, or if they think Canadians are our enemy."

Syed says that the Muslim community in Toronto has changed considerably since the Jami Mosque, the oldest in Ontario, was established more than 30 years ago. In recent years, people with more conservative views or from particular sects have gravitated to mosques that opened during the '80s and '90s, mosques that Syed says "are abusing the pulpit if they are using it to spread the message of hate and division." He says the Jami Mosque is considered too liberal by some Muslims and by other mosques, a reason why people with unauthorized literature or more extreme views may try to spread their message there.

"I visit many mosques just to pray, and I will not name any names, but they should take some responsibility to Islam and this society," Syed says. "Many people in the congregations feel they do not have any say, but it is sad if the fundamentalism they are hearing is not Islamic."

"Here, liberal Muslims think fundamentalism is bad," he says. "What they don't realize is fundamentalism means the true, intended practice of Islam."

For his parents, who have become quite comfortable in Toronto's secular society over the past 20 years, fundamentalism flies in the face of Canadian multicultural values. The intention of an open society, they say, is not to foster separate communities that become isolated from mainstream society — whether in the name of religion or for the protection of culture.

But, ironically, in Toronto's pluralistic society, which has become home to people from political hot spots around the world, charter rights are used to protect the type of extreme views quelled by less democratic regimes in the countries from which many immigrants have fled.

Whether they're Pakistanis who believe Hindus are trying to steal Kashmir, Bosnians who blame Serbs for genocide, or Palestinians who think Israelis are trying to push them into the sea, many Muslims in Toronto have found a common cause, a return to a particularly dogmatic version of Islam now being encouraged by some of the mosques.

Sohail Raza came to Canada 13 years ago and attends the Madina Mosque about once every two weeks.

"Over the last five years in Toronto, I have seen the things that I ran away from in Pakistan. The imams there (the Madina Mosque) will never categorically incite extremism," Raza says.

"They will not name Americans, but by using words like `infidels,' by drawing connections between their continued presence in Saudi Arabia and their policy on Palestine, they say there was a justification for the attacks on the 11th of September."

The president of the Madina Mosque, who does not want to be identified, disputes all of Raza's observations, and says the imams who speak at his mosque are instructed not to address the congregation about politically sensitive issues. "I don't have control of what people say outside the mosque," he says.

Raza disagrees. "These mullahs (priests) who have come in from Pakistan, India and Saudi Arabia over the past five years are basically the same as the Taliban. They preach a Wahhabi brand of Islam that has now entered the mosques here in Toronto."

Toronto isn't alone in experiencing the influence of Wahhabism, an extreme version of Islam that originated in the 18th century and is now the state-sanctioned sect of the faith in Saudi Arabia. It was Wahhabi religious instructors who trained the Taliban in Afghanistan; Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, is an adherent of this sect.

Since the mid-'90s, when the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan and bin Laden rose to prominence, Wahhabi preaching has spread throughout much of the Islamic world, including Canada, where Wahhabi literature is available in many mosques.

Syed Ali Abbas, who regularly attends Friday afternoon prayers at the Islamic Society of Toronto Mosque in Thorncliffe, is also worried about the Wahhabi doctrine he commonly hears being preached there.

"For the last seven years the area has changed a lot and the mosque has become very organized in trying to influence the values of the community," says Abbas, 37.

"The president of the mosque and the imams tell us in their waz (sermon) that you have to keep a distance from non-Muslims, that the way of life here (in Toronto) is not for us to follow. They tell youth to basically seclude themselves from mainstream society. They tell us that to shake hands or to embrace each other during holy celebrations is haram (sin). They continually warn us about the threat of homosexuality. And you never see women inside the mosque.

"For me, living in North America and having been educated here, there are certain things that are unacceptable," he continues.

"At the madrasa (the evening school at the Islamic Society of Toronto), mosque executives are telling youth not to listen to music, not to wear shorts, not to participate in social activities at schools. They are even telling young people not to mingle with non-Muslims. It's scary."

"Women are not allowed to attend the prayers or even enter the Islamic Society of Toronto Mosque," she says, adding that it's a small group that uses the mosque to spread extreme views — even urging the local Sunni Muslims not to associate with Muslims of other sects or denominations.

When the mosque president, Abdul Ingar, campaigned to become a school board trustee last year, Sharif says he called another Muslim candidate an infidel because "he was from another sect of Islam.... He went door to door telling Muslims that to vote for a Kadyani (a sect of Islam) was a sin.

"These are the people that are running the mosque and influencing our children."

Yet, sitting in his office at the mosque on a Friday afternoon, Ingar denies the allegation. "I never said that voting for another Muslim candidate was a sin." Asked what he did say in the campaign, which he lost, he replies, "I didn't bring up any other Muslim candidates while canvassing, but if others talked about it I may have spoken about other candidates."

He also denies women are not allowed in the Islamic Society of Toronto Mosque. He gets up from his office chair and leads the way to a separate chamber with a sign on the door that reads "Ladies," though, as men, he does not allow us to enter.

About 600 men were in attendance at each of the three Friday afternoon prayer services The Star attended at this mosque. In total, fewer than a dozen women were seen.

"There are indeed mosques in Toronto where officially they say women are welcome," Hamid says. "But, practically, women are not encouraged or really welcome. If women are stuck in a small backward room and forced to use an entrance from the back, of course they're not going to feel welcome."

Two weeks earlier, before Friday afternoon prayers, the imam at the Islamic Society of Toronto had addressed the congregation.

He talked about how the media in the West have used false propaganda to suggest Muslims were responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist acts. He told the congregation that some bad (meaning "liberal") Muslims in the community are trying to sully the reputation of good Muslims. He told young men in the congregation they must grow their beards and women must wear head coverings.

But when the words are repeated to Ingar, he says he doubts they were ever said in the mosque.

"Maybe I was absent on that Friday," he says. "If the imam said that, that is not the policy of the Islamic Society of Toronto."