Mosques Are Sleepwalking Into Losing a Generation

By Muneeb Nasir

Most Canadian mosques today are little more than prayer halls and classrooms. 

People rush in on Friday, listen to a khutba, pray, and rush out. Or they drop off their children for religious classes.

For too many, that’s the extent of mosque life.

Meanwhile, Muslims are finding community elsewhere — in professional organizations, festivals, arts and hiking clubs, and activist networks dealing with issues such as the environment, indigenous relations, and food insecurity. 

These “third spaces” have become the real centres of belonging. 

They’re where Muslims debate identity, organize for justice, and build friendships.

They exist because mosques haven’t kept up. 

Khutbas avoid real issues. 

Boards are closed off to younger people and women. 

While mosques have excelled in offering religious instruction, lectures, and revival events, their focus has largely remained confined to ritual. 

Many mosque boards take comfort in the large congregations that gather on Fridays and during Ramadan, assuming this alone fulfills community needs. 

Yet numbers alone do not constitute a community; it is the extent to which the actual needs of people are understood and addressed that truly builds and sustains one.

As a result, mosques risk losing teenagers and young adults who turn to third spaces to find the belonging and purpose they do not experience within their own faith institutions.

Mosques have left a vacuum, and third spaces rushed to fill it.

The danger is that this split weakens both. 

Third spaces are vibrant but financially fragile and sometimes religiously shallow. 

Mosques are spiritually grounded but socially narrow. 

Together, they leave the community fragmented.

The result is a hollowed out Canadian Muslim identity—secularized and reduced to culture—Muslims without Islam, and a community left unanchored and rootless.

Historically, mosques were never just for prayer. 

They were centres of prayer, culture, learning, social care, and justice. 

Canadian mosques can reclaim that role — and some already are.

Take ISNA Canada in Mississauga. 

Beyond daily prayers, it runs youth programs, counseling services, and relevant community events. 

Its multipurpose spaces are used for running a cafe, sports activities, cultural programming, and civic engagement. 

They have reconnected third space activities with the mosque.

Families see it not just as a prayer hall, but as a hub of community life.

Or look at other Islamic centres in Halifax and Winnipeg, where mosque leaders have opened doors to wellness initiatives, lectures, and interfaith events, making it a gathering point for Muslims and the wider community alike.

These examples prove it’s possible. But they remain the exception, not the rule.

For mosques to reclaim the third space, they must:

• Open cafés and lounges so youth have a place to stay after prayer.
• Host arts and cultural programs that celebrate faith and creativity.
• Put women and young people on boards with real authority.
• Partner with activist and civic groups so the khutbah connects to lived struggles.
• Start a robust outreach program, engaging with neighbourhood and interfaith groups.
• Offer sports, counseling, and wellness alongside prayer.

This isn’t about competing with third spaces. 

It’s about absorbing their strengths back into the mosque, making the mosque the beating heart of Canadian Muslim life again.

If mosques stay as they are — ritual‑heavy, socially narrow — they lose the next generation. 

But if they reclaim the third space, they can become what they were always meant to be: places where faith is not only prayed, but lived.

The future of Canadian Muslim life depends on which path we choose.