Muslims from around the world gathered from December 23-26th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to attend an annual conference. More than 17,000 Canadian Muslims will gather at the ninth annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention, a meeting that offers Muslims a renewal of their faith just before the new year through sharing meals, group prayers and listening to lectures from prominent speakers.
The conference, created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, also offers young Muslims a discussion about Islam and applying its practice in a North American context, event spokesperson Ayman Faris said. The event works on “keeping the threat of extremism and radicalism at bay” as young generations of Muslims grow up in North America and, at times, turn to Internet, which can be a “dangerous” place to retrieve information about their faith, Heer said. She has seen the event grow from 6,000 to last year’s 17,000 attendees. Tariq Ramadan, an Oxford University professor, and Ingrid Mattson, a Canadian convert from Kitchener, Ont., who was also the past president of the Islamic Society of North America, are among the speakers at the 2010 conference.
