A Short history of the Canterbury Muslim community (July 2009)

By Hajji Abdullah Drury      (author: Islam in New Zealand)

The Muslim Association of Canterbury is the oldest Islamic institution in the South Island and the third oldest such organisation in New Zealand. The Canterbury mosque at 101 Deans Avenue, Riccarton, was the second purpose built mosque in the entire country. There are approximately 3000 Muslims in Canterbury at present.

Genesis

The first Muslims to live in the South Island were 14 Chinese Muslim gold diggers working in Dunstan, Otago, recorded in the April 1874 government census. However these characters did not stay and left no descendants or institutions. We don’t know their names or indeed their ultimate fate.

Closer to home the March 1878 census recorded 32 Muslims in the Canterbury provincial district, four in the county of Selwyn and one in Ashley. Again, however, these migrants have left no clues as to who they were or where they went. There have been verbal rumours suggesting there was a party of Indian workers for an Anglo-Indian Gentleman settler in Cashmere but I have found no substantial documentary evidence towards this conclusion. (Not that that rules it out of course).

The first identifiable Muslim settlers were Sultan and Saleh Mahomet, father and son from Ashkabad in Turkmenistan. Apparently the pair had fled the Russian invasion during the late 19th century and moved, firstly, to British India, and from there to Dunedin in 1894. They settled in Christchurch in 1903 and worked at hawking merchandise door to door. The father, Sultan Mahomet, passed away in 1905 and is buried in the cemetery at Linwood. His son, Saleh Mahomet also known as "Charlie", married a New Zealand lady and had four daughters. Sometime after his father's death Saleh Mahomet set up a popular ice cream business at Cathedral Square and earned the nickname "ice cream Charlie". He ran this business right through to the 1930s. Ice ream Charlie died in 1943. Neither Sultan nor Saleh seem to have insisted on Islamic burial and there is no evidence they were particularly religious in any sense.

Another more obscure Muslim settler, an Arab from Muscat in Oman, also settled in the South Island sometime before World War One and worked for the railways. His name was Ahmet ben Redi - also known to the authorities as Ali Mahomet. He entered Turangi retirement home in Ashburton in 1930 and died there one year later aged 73, unmarried. He is buried in an unmarked grave in Ashburton.

Yet another curious individual, and certainly the very first identifiable Muslim settler to New Zealand, was Sheikh Mohammed Din from Sialkote in the Punjab, India. Born in 1877 it is uncertain when he arrived in New Zealand but we do know that a group of several Punjabis came to this country in the 1890s - most were Sikh but some were Muslims. Sheikh Mohammed Din settled in Akaroa during the early 1900s and set up shop as a businessman there operating a general store until declaring bankruptcy in 1911. He moved to Christchurch where, curiously, he is listed as either "unemployed" or as a "jeweller" according to the Electoral Roll and the Post Office Trade Directory. Din died in the Chatham Islands, obscurely enough, after drowning in a local river there in July 1945.

Of more significance was Mohammed Kara from the Gujarat province in western India. Mohammed Kara arrived in 1907 and his descendents are still here in Christchurch today, making them the oldest Muslim family in New Zealand. Kara started working as a Hawker and by 1912 had set himself up as a businessman operating a small shop. In 1921 Mohammed Kara was joined by his 13 year old son Ismail. Mohammed Kara returned to India later and died there but Ismail maintained a business in Christchurch and in 1949, in turn, his eight year old son Suliman Ismail Kara joined him there. In 1971 Suliman’s brother Yusuf also emigrated to New Zealand.

Year 1951 saw an influx of Muslim refugees from Socialist Eastern Europe on board the Norwegian SS Goya. Two settled in Christchurch: Adem Firkatovic - Samso Jusovic from Bosnia.

The Muslim Association of Canterbury

By 1960 Suliman Kara was operating his own dairy and like his father, was an active member of the local Indian Association. The 1960s saw a modest influx of foreign students from Asia, some of whom settled. Dr Hanif Quazi for example arrived in 1967 from the Khyber Pass in Pakistan. To begin with, apparently, many Muslim students joined the Kara family men for prayers and Iftar at the Kara households. Soon however Suleman Kara, Dr Quazi and others realised that their private homes were too small for such meetings. In the late 1970s a group of about 200 mostly Malaysian students arrived to study at Canterbury and Lincoln Universities.

In 1976 there were 181 Muslims living in and around Christchurch according to the government census. By 1981 this figure had grown to 465.

Matters came to a head when a resident Ugandan-Indian refugee named Panjwani, and belonging to the Ismail (Shia) sect, died in early 1977. Dr Hanif Quazi, Suleman Kara and Mansoor Khawaja struggled to arrange a proper Islamic burial with Kara translating a religious guide booklet from Gujarati in order to undertake the Janaza (funereal) rituals properly. The effort inspired the men, residents and students together, to form a proper organisation to handle such issues in future. On 30 May 1977 the Muslim Association of Canterbury was formally registered and Suleman Kara was voted president. The first really big group congregational prayer for Eid was held at the Students Union Building at Canterbury University on 22 November 1977, at 8:30 a.m. About 70 people attended including students, residents, children and even a few converts!

After that point further meetings and functions were held at the Phillipstown school hall and fundraising for a proper Islamic centre was initiated straight away. By July 1979 the Association had $3,000 and on 26 November 1980 they bought a small house at 534 Tuam Street for $8000 and converted it into an Islamic Centre.

The Federation

Immediately following the creation of the Muslim Association of Canterbury, Christchurch Muslims had initiated correspondence with Muslim groups in Auckland and Wellington, with an eye towards creating a national Muslim organisation and helping to develop the Halal meat trade. On 18 November 1978 the first preparatory meeting was held in Christchurch : Hajji Abbas Ali and Robert “Abdul Salam” Drake (architect of the Ponsonby mosque) came representing Auckland; whilst Hajji Salamat Khan, Dr Hajji Khalid Rashid Sandhu and Abdul Rahman Khan came from Wellington; Palmerston North was represented by Ali Taal, a postgraduate student from Gambia. A consensus was reached and it was agreed to meet again for further talks and on 15 April 1979 the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) was formally established. Auckland resident Mazhar Krasniqi (an Albanian SS Goya refugee from Kosova) was the inaugural president and Dr Hajji Hanif Quazi was the first Secretary-General.

In April 1988 FIANZ held its first ever South Island AGM at the Canterbury mosque and Christchurch resident Dr Sameh Al Samahy from Saudi Arabia was elected president. A second South Island AGM was held at the Riccarton mosque over 24-25 June 1989 where Dr Sandhu of Wellington was elected president and Dr Al Samahy was made vice-president. The following year a local Contrarian convert to Islam, Soraiya Gilmour, was appointed FIANZ Treasurer: Curiously the Muslim Association of Canterbury has never again had a female representative to FIANZ, nor has the Federation ever engaged a female on the Executive Committee!?

The Deans Avenue Mosque

The Tuam Street property soon became too small for the Muslim Association of Canterbury. There was further fundraising and in 1982 the land at 101 Deans Ave was purchased for $80,000. The land contained horse stables and negotiations with the Riccarton Borough Council began.

On 10 May 1982 the Council approved in principle a plan by the Muslim Association to build a proper mosque on a piece of land at 101 Deans Avenue. The Mayor of Riccarton, a bloke named Harrington, publicly welcomed the move and suggested the mosque might even prove to be a tourist attraction. Martin “Rasjid” Wallen, a convert to Islam and president of the Association in 1979, designed the new building. On 24 May 1982 the Council formally approved the mosque architectural plans and on 12 June 1983 a foundation stone was laid during Ramadan.

A lot of money was raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by three Saudi medical students resident in Christchurch - Dr Salih Al Samahy in particular. Mention should also be made of the $8000 donated from various sources in the Islamic Republic of Iran throughout 1982.

In July 1984 a contract for the construction of the mosque was signed between the Muslim Association president and ML Paynter Ltd. Two months later the Saudi Ambassador, Dr Hajji Alohaly, on a rare visit to New Zealand, took the opportunity to visit Christchurch and inspect progress on the masjid. He presented the Muslim association with a cheque for $460,000 that had been raised in Saudi Arabia for the Canterbury mosque largely by the Rabitah Al Alam Al Islami (Muslim World League).

On 25 August 1985 work on the mosque was completed and the keys were officially handed over to the Association president Dr Hanif Quazi. A two day symposium was held over 29 and 30 November that year to mark the event. One of the Saudi students involved in fundraising informed the guests that Hajji Nasser Al Aboudi, Assistant Secretary of the Muslim World League, had played an important role in collecting funds for the Masjid.

Activities and Events

The Muslim community had not awaited the completion of the mosque when it came to organising events. The first "International Islamic Dawah Youth Conference" in all New Zealand was organised by the Muslim Association at Canterbury University over 13 to 18 May 1985. Over 150 participants attended from across the Pacific region, including Australia and New Caledonia, and the event was sponsored by the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand.

In May 1986 the Canterbury mosque organised its first ever "Mosque Open Day". The highlight of the event was a week long Photographic Exhibition by Omar Hill, a local convert, featuring images of the Afghan Mujahideen. Three months later the Muslim Association organised New Zealand's first ever "Islamic Calligraphy Exhibition" over 23 to 30 August. This later event was attended by the Canadian-Egyptian scholar Dr Hajji Jamal Al Badawi and also by Dr Hajji Maneh Al Johani, the secretary general of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in Saudi Arabia. This also featured on the popular television arts series "Kaleidoscope" screened in September.

There were lots of other events in the late 1980s. In 1987 the first ever national children's Quran recitation competition was held at the Canterbury mosque with over 25 competitors from across the country attending. In July 1988 FIANZ staged the first, and last, national workshop at the Canterbury mosque to discuss means of economic self sufficiency. Later that year a national conference on Palestine was staged at the mosque.

The 1990s and early 2000s were, a troubled period for the Canterbury Muslim community. The number of Muslims grew enormously but sentiments of fraternity did not. According to government census results the number of Muslims in Canterbury leapt over ten short years from 363 (in 1991) to 1758 (in 2001). There was one court case involving the Muslim Association of Canterbury in the late 1990s and on one occasion police were called into the Canterbury mosque to intervene and on another occasion 2002 several cars in the mosque car park were vandalised.

The only two positive developments to stem directly from this period of internal conflict within the Canterbury Muslim community were the well attended National Islamic Converts Conference in 2004 and the creation of the Canterbury Islamic Centre in late 2006. The Canterbury Islamic Centre purchased a Lincoln Road disused church and converted it into a mosque that same year

In August 2008 the current president Hajji Mohammed Afrey Jama, originally from Somalia, was elected president of the Muslim Association of Canterbury.

Conclusions

Any review of the history of Canterbury Muslims reminds us of the vast disparity in cultural and educational heritages that the different migrants, refugees and converts bring to the mosque. Ultimately our community needs to study more: to learn about the past and reflect more deeply upon how to merge together as a united Ummah. There are many challenges but of course, with great challenges come great rewards. Al Hamdulilah we have the support of our Government in the form of the Office of Ethnic Affairs “Building Bridges” programme which aims to foster greater Muslim “civic participation” in society and encourage a greater sense of belonging here, in my native land!

In the final analysis because of this diversity of origin of there is an ongoing need to “Build Bridges” within the Muslim community itself. Human nature being what it is, folk are not always as patient with other cultures, customs and traditions as might be desired: we see this in our communal history. But we also see unity. One way this conundrum is addressed is by the various activities and events that are connected to the special religious occasions that are celebrated as a congregation, such as Eid and Iftar. These events, like our past, help bring people together to recognise our oneness as an Ummah.