WELCOME, BROTHER
Al Noor, in Arabic, means ‘‘the light’’. Everything about the mosque in Christchurch’s Deans Ave was a monument to its name; the white walls, the immense golden dome and the green carpet, now stained red.
Until its door was darkened by a white supremacist intent on terror, the prominent mosque at 101 Deans Ave – which loomed above bungalows and modern townhouses on the edge of Hagley Park – regularly opened its doors to visitors, including schoolchildren, tertiary students, and the media.
Every year, the Masjid Al Noor (as the mosque is formally called) would host a free barbecue during Islam awareness week, for interested members of the wider community.
Leaders of the mosque welcomed questions and gave presentations to community groups to enhance the visibility of the small but dedicated Muslim community.
There was little proselytising; the mosque, as its name implied, was a light that drew those who found it.
The final words of Haji Daoud Nabi, a 71-year-old worshipping at Masjid Al Noor on Friday, were ‘‘Hello, brother. Welcome’’ – directed at the man alleged to have killed him.
‘‘They’ve always been apolitical,’’ said Abdullah Drury, a Muslim historian, about the Muslim community in Christchurch. ‘‘It’s always been a lowkey, quiet community that kept to itself ... A lot of them had been trying to get away from the violence in the Middle East.’’
Muslims have lived in Christchurch as long as the city has existed. The first Muslims known to have come to New Zealand were from India and settled in Cashmere in the 1850s. Muslims remained a small part of the predominantly Pa¯ keha¯ , Christian city until the 1970s.
By 1981, there were nearly 500 Muslims in Canterbury, many of them university students.
The first communal space for Muslims to congregate was a house in Tuam St, bought in 1981. It wasn’t large enough for the growing number of migrants, so work began on construction of a new building in Deans Ave, on what was then the site of a horse stable.
The mosque’s development was community led and largely relied on member donations, as well as a $460,000 donation from the Saudi Kingdom.
It was driven by a small group; among them was Dr Muhammad Nabi, originally from Bangladesh, who died many years ago but was vital to its establishment, his wife, Shabiba, said on Sunday.
When the Masjid Al Noor was completed in August 1985, it was the southernmost mosque in the world, and likely further from Mecca than any other. It was the only mosque in the South Island and the second in New Zealand.
Great care was taken with its construction, according to a 2016 thesis authored by Abdullah Drury about the history of South Island Muslims. The interior was carefully designed and laden with symbolism. Inscriptions were prepared by a calligrapher from Sudan and placed on walls and windows; the interior was otherwise largely bare.
As with any other religion, Islam has sub-cultures among its adherents – Muslims from more than 40 countries were regular members of the mosque in 2014.
Throughout the 1990s, more Muslims migrated to Canterbury, many as refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan.
Despite the rising Muslim population, comprising many different cultural and racial groups, the Masjid Al Noor remained the only mosque in Christchurch. Despite occasional tensions, there was never a schism.
‘‘In many respects, the [Christchurch] Muslim community resembled an extended family or perhaps a clan or a tribe: sometimes functional, sometimes
‘‘It’s always been a low-key, quiet community.’’ Muslim historian Abdullah Drury
dysfunctional, with individuals drifting in and out constantly,’’ Drury wrote in his thesis.
Throughout the 2000s, the Christchurch Muslim community found itself on the defensive, following a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the West.
Christchurch Muslims unanimously condemned violent extremism and continued their outreach to the wider community. Three weeks after the September 2001 attacks in the United States, a Press reporter visited the Masjid Al-Noor, where Muslim leaders shared their dismay.
‘‘Islam condemns any acts that encourage disharmony within communities and between human beings, ‘‘ said Sheikh Abdulrahman, who was then imam of the mosque.
‘‘Forget about doing an act by hand, you can’t even put something bad in your heart for another human being.’’
Many Muslims were awake when the first earthquake struck Canterbury in September 2010 – it was the third week of Ramadan.
The mosque itself was largely unaffected, and Muslims joined other faiths in showing solidarity to the 185 victims of the second earthquake in February 2011, as well as the Anglican Church, which lost its main centre of worship, the Christ Church Cathedral.
Before Friday’s massacre, leaders in Christchurch’s Muslim community reiterated their commitment to peace in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130.
In an interview in 2016 with the Migrant Times, Masjid Al Noor’s imam, Gamal Fouda, again rejected extremism.
‘‘People need to learn about Islam from authentic scholars who represent true Islam, not from those who call themselves Muslims, but hide behind the religion and use it to force their own agenda and create chaos,’’ he said.
‘‘All these groups who call themselves Islamic states, I call them non-Islamic states.
‘‘Un-Islamic. They don’t represent Islam, they do not represent Muslims ... God created us all and we are brothers and sisters in humanity.’’
Fouda survived Friday’s terrorist attack.
It wasn’t until 2017 that the Muslim community in Christchurch became so large that a second mosque was needed. The Linwood Islamic Centre was formally founded in 2018 in a building in Linwood Ave that had housed the Linwood Community Centre. It was a passion project led by Ibrahim Abdelhalim, originally from Egypt.
The building was earthquake damaged, and had been sold in an ‘‘as is, where is’’ condition in 2016.
The Muslim community worked to raise the money needed to buy the building, which they did in June 2018 for $400,000, property records show. The community was planning to renovate the worn interior of the building; they had recently installed new carpet. On Friday, 80 people were in the newly formed mosque, praying, with their backs turned to the main door at the rear of the mosque.
Abdelhalim, who had poured his soul into creating the Linwood mosque, was defiant when speaking to reporters on Saturday.
‘‘We are never going to stop going to the mosque to pray to our God, because this country accepts all religions, all the people who come from every nationality, every language,’’ he said. ‘‘We are part of New Zealand, whether [the attackers] accept that or not.’’