Yukon's 1st mosque a milestone for Canada, founders say

Yukon's first mosque opened Friday, and leaders say it marks an important milestone for Canada.

Muhammad Javed, president of the Yukon Muslim Society,welcomed a crowd to the mosque's open house wheremany in the audience were non-Muslims who stopped by to offer congratulations over coffee.

"Today really is a historic day for the Muslim community of Whitehorse," said Javed.

Javedsaid the Muslim community began its journey to find a home in 2005, when the Whitehorse United Church welcomed Muslims to use the space to pray. Then in 2009, Javed said they rented a small apartment in the city to usefor prayer.

Now, there is at least one mosque in every province and territory in the country, noted Javed.

"This completes the North. This completes the territories.I call it the Star Trekmosque,"said HusseinGuisti, from theZubaidahTallabFoundation, a small charity that helped build a mosque in Thompson, Man.

"Congratulations for turning a trucking warehouse into a mosque. Well done," said AngeliqueBernard, the commissioner of Yukon, garnering cheers from the crowd.

The same builderthat installed mosques inInuvik, N.W.T., and Iqaluit began construction on the low, metal-plated trucking warehouse in April.

Fathallah Farajatof Hamilton, Ont., builtthe mosque, and says it took about four people to renovate the building at a time.

"It's done now, everything's done,"saidFarajat, who started his career building custom cabinets and worked his way up to building mosques.

"I'm so happy here. The community's happy here."

Farajatsays his next project is to work on building the mosque in Yellowknife.

With files from Philippe Morin.

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