Jami Mosque
Jami Mosque
- Jami Mosque (مسجد جامع) is a Musjid in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located just east of High Park, it is the oldest Canadian Islamic centre in the city and dubbed “the mother of all the mosques in Toronto”.
- Built in 1930 as a Presbyterian church, the building was purchased in 1969 by Toronto’s small, predominantly Bosniak and Albanians Muslim community and converted into the city’s first Islamic worship centre.
- Jami’s congregation was founded in 1961 and first met in a leather shop near Dundas West and Keele. The structure that now houses the Musjid was originally built in 1930 by John Francis Brown & Son as the High Park Presbyterian Church. In 1969, the Muslim Society of Toronto managed to secure funds from King Faisal of Saudi Arabia to secure purchase the church building as a home for the pre-existing congregation and as Toronto’s first permanent mosque.
- While Jami originally held a large number of Tabligh Jamaat followers, the numbers declined after a large influx of Gujarati Muslims immigration led to the leasing of a hall in eastern Toronto; and the eventual 1981 purchase of a building converted to Madina Mosque, which became the spiritual hub of the Tabligh Jamaat. Jami then drifted towards finding leadership in the Muslim Students Association.
