The Muslim and Arab Community in PEI: From Sponsorship to Masjid Dar As-Salam

1. Three Decades Before It Had a Building

The Muslim Society of Prince Edward Island (MSPEI) was founded in 1990 to serve the Island's growing Muslim community, long before it had a dedicated place of worship. For over two decades, the community fundraised and organized Friday prayers, community suppers, and settlement support for new arrivals without a permanent home. That changed on July 14, 2012, when Masjid Dar As-Salam, PEI's first permanent mosque, officially opened.

2. Becoming a Refugee Sponsor in Its Own Right

Until 2016, the Catholic Diocese of Charlottetown was the Island's only Sponsorship Agreement Holder (SAH), the federal designation allowing an organization to sponsor refugees directly. MSPEI had worked with the diocese informally during the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis, but as that workload grew, the diocese suggested MSPEI pursue SAH status itself. After a 20-month application process, MSPEI received its own official SAH certificate in September 2016.

"We have at least 10 applicants asking for sponsorship," said Najam Chishti, president of the society at the time, describing demand for the program shortly after MSPEI's designation became official.

The society's approach to selecting families was often driven by existing connections:

"We thought that probably the best thing to do would be to sponsor families who have relatives already here on the Island, so there will be a reunification of families," explained Zain Esseghaier, a Muslim Society representative, describing how two Syrian families already connected to mosque members were identified for sponsorship.

3. The Scale of Resettlement Since 2015

Between 2015 and 2017 alone, roughly 200 Syrian and Iraqi refugees came to PEI, sponsored through the combined efforts of MSPEI and the Charlottetown Diocese, alongside other immigrants arriving from around the world during the same period. Raising the sponsorship funds required real, sustained community effort: MSPEI raised at least $30,000 within the Muslim community alone to support two Syrian families' private sponsorship applications, on top of the roughly $29,000 per family typically required to demonstrate a sponsor's financial capacity to the federal government.

4. What the Society Does Beyond Sponsorship

MSPEI's ongoing programming, per its own charitable filings, includes:

• Daily and Friday obligatory prayers, plus the two annual festival prayers
• Sunday school for children ages 3 to 17
• Weekly Quran recitation sessions for women
• Monthly interfaith dialogues and an annual open house specifically to build understanding with other Island religious communities
• Ongoing settlement help for new Muslim immigrants and refugees, connecting them onward to IRSA and other formal settlement services

5. Why This Matters for a Newcomer Today

If you're a Muslim newcomer arriving in PEI today, whether through the PNP, a refugee pathway, or as a student, MSPEI's newcomer welcome infrastructure, an active email list, WhatsApp and Viber groups, and a 35-year-old organizational history of resettlement work, isn't new. It was built specifically for this purpose, well before most current arrivals landed on the Island.

6. Where to Connect

MSPEI can be reached at info@muslimpei.com, with an active presence on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) under the handle @muslimpei, alongside IRSA as the first point of contact for broader settlement services.