Asad is the Imam for the Niagara Falls branch of Mosque Aisha. Asad works as a production manager in Toronto and also owns several businesses in the Niagara region.
Abdul Wahab is the Imam for the Niagara Falls branch and leads the 5 daily prayers. He holds a bachelor's in Shariah Law from Al-Azhar University (Egypt). Abdul Wahab is a Hafiz Quran and moved to Canada in 2016.
Mosque Aisha is centrally located in Niagara Falls, Ontario with our other branch located in Thorold. Mosque Aisha is the only mosque in the Niagara region, close to the tourist area; the mosque is located at walking distance from the Falls and major tourist attractions. According to the most recent statistics, nearly 1 million Muslims visit Niagara Falls each year. Before the establishment of Mosque Aisha, tourists had to pray in parks or their cars, etc. but now they have a conveniently located mosque where they can easily come to make wudu, relax and offer their prayers.
The mosque was established in 2012 and has quite a rich background. Before the establishment of the mosque, the building was used as a Chinese restaurant which was shut down. Later, a brother purchased the building to open a shawarma and sheesha cafe, for a mere $375,000. The owner, reached out to Asad asking him to work as a manager for him. In Asad's own words, "When I entered the building, I instantly fell in love with the place and visioned for it to be a mosque.". Asad declined the offer to become a manager and instead offered to purchase the building so he could bring his vision to life. Asad was however met with unfavorable circumstances at the time being as the owner raised the price and asked for a million dollars upon hearing about Asad's plan. This was out of the budget for Asad, but Allah rewards and helps those with good intentions. Subhan Allah, the previous owner, despite having the completed set up for his cafe, could not start it and ran into problems after problems. Over the next year, Asad continued to pursue the owner to lower the price so he could purchase it, and with Allah's support, as the owner was about to go bankrupt, he offered to sell it at the original price and Asad scooped up the deal, ultimately bringing his vision to life in the coming year. Allah says in the Quran, "When Allah decrees a matter, Allah says "Be" and It is" and our history attests to it.
At Mosque Aisha, our main focus is on our children and future generations. We want to work towards their religious education and the services we can provide for them in this country to learn about Islam and live a life in accordance with the teachings of the Quran and Sunnah. Our goal is to provide resources to learn and understand Quran and Sunnah and we offer various programs such as Quran classes, Halaqas, daily prayers, lectures in order to work towards our goal.
We already feel the mosque is not as big enough as we see, especially during summer, the mosque reaches its full capacity easily. Within a couple of years of establishment, we have already gone from having a single Jummah prayer to having 3 (or more) Jummahs, our patio is also full and we never have enough room for Eid prayers and generally conduct it in a park. Our vision is to expand the mosque to a 3 story building, which will allow us to accommodate more people, build classrooms for our children, and much more!
At mosque Aisha, we believe that the reason for our success is because we are a very inclusive community overlooked by very friendly and approachable management. It is a mosque for everyone. Anyone is welcome inside the mosque at all times, whether they want to come pray, recite Quran, make wudu or even just relax. There are no restrictions applied. We believe these things matter.