Al-Rasoul Islamic Society has been proudly serving its diverse Shia community in the Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia Since 1994.
About Us
Al-Rasoul Islamic Society started modestly from the basement of the residence of one of the founders (Taleb AbidAli). Moved from the house of Taleb AbidAli to the basement of Cresco to accommodate the expansion at that time. At that time of community building and expansion, many community members worked hard with a lot of multitasking. Even, Taleb AbidAli served in multiple capacities such as the cook, speaker, occasional Imam and many others. The community grew and flourished more. After spending a few years in a rental building, the Al-Rasoul Islamic Society settled at the present location of 1247 Bedford Highway.
Al-Rasoul Islamic Society is a very diverse Muslim community that houses tens of nationalities ranging from South East Asia to Arab regions. This makes Al-Rasoul a bouquet of cultures and languages. Al-Rasoul Islamic Society currently is a place of worship, social gatherings, and educational learning, where great memories are made, insightful information is gained, and delicious food is served. In addition to weekly programs and prayers, Al-Rasoul holds many special annual programs. We share a community meal at the end of all programs.
Al-Rasoul Islamic Society is open to all irrespective of faith of participants. Al-Rasoul believes in creating an environment full of love, peace, and hospitality. With such a philosophy, the society has always been successful in attracting and unifying people from diverse ethnicities and cultural backgrounds as one big family. This is in accordance to a beautiful reflection of the peaceful Islamic teachings, and in alignment with our core Canadian values that promote inclusiveness.
Tolerance and peaceful co-existence with our brother and sisters in humanity are our core values. Al-Rasoul Islamic Society believes in strong bi-lateral and multi-lateral inter-faith relations. We have very friendly bilateral relationships with various denominations of various religions including our neighbors Bed-ford United Church and Rockingham United Church. We are also a very active part of many multi-lateral interfaith initiatives such as Spiritual Diversity Conferences, Interfaith Harmony and Interfaith and Spirituality Network.
Founders and Patrons:
Taleb Abid Ali (President)
Hussain Mousavi (Vice President)
Resident Alim
Executive Committee
Board of Directors
Membership, Hospitality and Volunteering Committee
Mandate:
1- To make plans for connecting communities (various nationalities) within Al-Rasoul through innovative interactions.
2- To brainstorm ways to encourage participation of the community members in weekly and annual programs.
3- To make a strategy to be aware of the needy, old, and sick community member and make a strategy to be in contact with them through communication or visits and involve more community members wherever required.
4- To plan and provide hospitality in regular and special programs. Hospitality includes helping people seat, directing people to the dinning hall or come back to the prayer hall, respectfully stop brother and sisters who talk continuously during speeches and recitation, say goodbye to internal and external guests, take care of admission control wherever needed, and assistance in controlling kids etc.
5- To promote volunteering in the community to serve our own community and to community at large beyond our community.
6- To encourage the formation and promotion of youth, women, and children groups, especially early teens.
7- To work for getting the resources such as space and money needed by these groups
8- When we have a guest speaker, a comprehensive schedule should be developed and acted upon to take care of him, food for him, site seeing, interaction with community and other such needs.
9- To further extend or refine these initially proposed tasks.
Note: If you want to be a part of this committee, please register through this link (), you will be informed if a vacancy is available at (https://forms.gle/j2hBLPQJMTXjjEaN6)
Administrative Committees
Sunday School Committee
Mandate:
1- The management of the weekly operation of the Sunday school
2- The develop and select curriculum and study material for the various sections of the Sunday school
3- The manage and promote the student enrollment
4- The planning and staffing of teachers, volunteers, and community speakers
5- To arrange refreshment for the students during recess with the help of Food Services Committee
6- To plan co-curricular and extra curricular activities for the students of the Sunday school
Programming and Community Programming Committee
Mandate:
1- Making a schedule of all weekly and annual programs this year.
2- Make a schedule of calendar of community programs such as game days, picnics, site seeing for various ages and community groups for the whole year.
3- Consultation about the topics for weekly programs/speeches.
4- To make a list of able and mature community speakers who occasionally can deliver speeches and make a strategy to encourage these speakers.
5- Program planning of various commemorations and celebrations throughout the years and bring in acceptable out of the box ideas to have community involved and interested.
6- Consult to deliver to a guest speaker the topics of speeches that are as per the needs and likings of the community. This is an urgent item at this time as Ramadhan is approaching and this should be on the top of the to do list.
7- To make a strategy for the growth of early teens in recitation, making speeches, and discussion.
8- To think of more community involvement through programming. For example, to have intra-faith dialogue on a topic on one of the Thursdays of a month.
9- To further extend or refine these initially proposed tasks.
Note: If you want to be a part of this committee, please register through this link (), you will be informed if a vacancy is available at (https://forms.gle/j2hBLPQJMTXjjEaN6)
Social Media/Multimedia Committee
Mandate:
1- To carry on media room operation, propose upgrades, and have the resources maintained in order.
2- Foolproof availability of a media teammate during any sort of community program if not possible.
3- To prepare an easy to follow manual to enter the media room on temporary basis (can be accomplished through onetime password of the digital lock) and steps to put on and off the speaker system (at least) without messing up the advance options.
4- Program intimation to the community through emails and social media.
5- The social media presence should be maintained, if the primary responsible is busy, a secondary responsible should cover.
6- To coordinate the maintenance of the website. Some one should be responsible for finalizing the contents (potentially Imam).
7- To make a pool of brothers and sisters to make announcements before, during or at the end of a program such as introduction od speakers, asking community members to go downstairs, lost/found etc.
8- To maintain multimedia displays during programs such as wrong parking, ppt slides, duas, etc.
9- To further extend or refine these initially proposed tasks.
Note: If you want to be a part of this committee, please register through this link (), you will be informed if a vacancy is available at (https://forms.gle/j2hBLPQJMTXjjEaN6)
Hygiene/Infrastructure Committee
Mandate:
1- To make a schedule of weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annual cleaning by listing all tasks to be accomplished such as vacuuming, dusting, mopping, etc.
2- To arrange community volunteers to do cleaning if no on or not sufficient people available then contact the previously arranged cleaning company.
3- To make a procedure of the booking the space to be used by various community events. To decide which type of gatherings should be free and which should have donation and how much? This should encourage the community to use the space instead of discouraging. Advertise these procedures to community very well.
4- Make an access procedure to the facility by arrange a list of volunteers to be responsible and known to community members or method of access?
5- To keep an eye on any needed facility maintenance and propose any work needed to be done.
6- Recommend maintenance or development in the infrastructure.
7- To organize/plan/involve other in decoration or transformation of the facility in accordance to commemoration or celebrations.
8- To further extend or refine these initially proposed tasks
9- To manage garbage disposal, snow removal and landscaping
Note: If you want to be a part of this committee, please register through this link (), you will be informed if a vacancy is available at (https://forms.gle/j2hBLPQJMTXjjEaN6)
Interfaith/Outreach Committee
Mandate:
1- To maintain bilateral and multilateral interfaith relations.
2- To arrange and participate in interfaith dialogues
3- To prepare a pool of community members for participating in interfaith dialogues
4- To provide leadership for organizing visits to greet other faith communities on their celebrations.
5- To manage joint interfaith projects,
6- To keep sustained memberships of the interfaith organizations
7- To initiate and join community development projects based on interfaith relations
Note: If you want to be a part of this committee, please register through this link (), you will be informed if a vacancy is available at (https://forms.gle/j2hBLPQJMTXjjEaN6)
Food Services Committee
Mandate:
1- To arrange groceries, cooking, serve food, and cleanup the dining area and kitchen for regular and special community programs
2- To assess needs of occasional cooking staff and volunteers for food operations
3- To provide resources and volunteers for food projects through our interfaith relations
4- To plan and maintain a proper inventory of all kitchen supplies
5- To keep major appliances in kitchen functional
6- To get ready the kitchen for community bookings if requested
7- To propose maintenance work and development in the kitchen the relevant committee
8- To take care garbage disposal as per HRM rules
Note: If you want to be a part of this committee, please register through this link (), you will be informed if a vacancy is available at (https://forms.gle/j2hBLPQJMTXjjEaN6)