Kelston is a residential suburb of West Auckland, New Zealand. Originally a ceramics manufacturing centre, the area is now mostly residential, including a number of schools. Kelston is located in, and its name has been given to, the Kelston parliamentary electorate.
Islam is the third-largest religion in New Zealand (1.5%) after Christianity (32.3%) and Hinduism (2.9%). Small numbers of Muslim immigrants from South Asia and eastern Europe settled in New Zealand from the early 1900s until the 1960s. Large-scale Muslim immigration began in the 1970s with the arrival of Indian Fijians, followed in the 1990s by refugees from various war-torn countries.
A congregational mosque or Friday mosque, or sometimes great mosque or grand mosque, is a mosque for hosting the Friday noon prayers known as jumu'ah. It can also host the Eid prayers in situations when there is no musalla or eidgah available nearby to host the prayers. In early Islamic history, the number of congregational mosques in one city was strictly limited. As cities and populations grew over time, it became more common for many mosques to host Friday prayers in the same area.
The Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ) was set up in April 1979 by Mazhar Krasniqi and other Muslim community leaders to draw together the regional Islam organisations of Auckland, Wellington and Canterbury into one centralised New Zealand-wide body.
Mazhar Shukri Krasniqi (1931–2019) was a New Zealand Muslim and Albanian community leader of Kosovar Albanian descent, businessman and human rights activist. He was both the first president of the New Zealand Albanian Civic League and Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand (FIANZ).
A Sunnah prayer is an optional or supererogatory salah that can be performed in addition to the five daily salah, which are compulsory for all Muslims. Sunnah prayer have different characteristics: some are done at the same time as the five daily compulsory prayers, some are done only at certain times, or only for specific occasions ; some have their own name and some are identified by how they are performed. The length of Sunnah prayer also varies.
Nazmi Mehmeti (1918-1995), also recorded as “Mehmetovitch” on the SS Goya.
MS Goya was a Norwegian refugee ship that carried hundreds of Eastern European refugees to New Zealand in 1951. Most notably it carried several men who went on to play a significant role in the development of the New Zealand Muslim Association including Mazhar Krasniqi and Nazmi Mehmeti.
Māori Muslims are a small minority community in New Zealand.
Saʻad al-Ghāmidī is a Qāriʾ and a former imam of the great holy mosque Masjid an-Nabawi. Shaykh Sa'ad al-Ghamdi has served as imam to Muslim communities across the globe.
Masjid al-Haram, also known as the Sacred Mosque or the Great Mosque of Mecca, is considered to be the most significant mosque in Islam. It encloses the vicinity of the Kaaba in Mecca, in the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia. It is among the pilgrimage sites associated with the Hajj, which every Muslim must perform at least once in their lives if able. It is also the main site for the performance of ʿUmrah, the lesser pilgrimage that can be undertaken any time of the year. The rites of both pilgrimages include circumambulating the Kaaba within the mosque. The Great Mosque includes other important significant sites, such as the Black Stone, the Zamzam Well, Maqam Ibrahim, and the hills of Safa and Marwa.
Abdul Rahim Rasheed was a Fijian-born Indian Muslim community leader and lawyer in New Zealand.
Kelston Girls’ College (KGC) is a single-sex girls state secondary school in Kelston, a suburb in West Auckland, New Zealand. It was created in 1963 when the roll of Kelston High School became too large for the site on the corner of Archibald and Great North Roads. The boys moved to a new site further down Archibald Road and the original site became the home of Kelston Girls' High School.
Albanian New Zealanders are residents of New Zealand who are of Albanian heritage or descent, often from Kosovo, with smaller numbers from Albania and a few from North Macedonia. Albanian New Zealanders are mainly concentrated in the city of Auckland. The Albanian community has been present in New Zealand since the mid twentieth century and are an integrated part of its society.
The Al Noor Mosque is a Sunni mosque in the Christchurch suburb of Riccarton in New Zealand. It was built between 1983 and 1985 by the Muslim Association of Canterbury, an organisation founded in 1977 that also manages the mosque building. It was the primary target of the Christchurch mosque shootings of 15 March 2019.
The Linwood Islamic Centre was a Sunni Islamic mosque in Linwood, Christchurch, New Zealand. The mosque opened in early 2018 on the grounds of the former Christchurch Baháʼí Centre and the building had most recently been the Linwood Community Centre. The building was formerly a Sunday School Hall in Highstead Road and was moved to Linwood in the late 1980s. It was the second mosque to open in Christchurch. It is owned by the Linwood Islamic Charitable Trust, which was founded in 2017.
On 3 September 2021 at 14:40 NZST, eight people were injured in a mass stabbing at the LynnMall Countdown supermarket in New Lynn, Auckland, New Zealand. The attacker, Ahamed Samsudeen, was being followed by police officers, who intervened during the attack, shooting and killing him after he charged at them. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident was treated as terrorism and was "ISIS-inspired" according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. It was the second stabbing in less than four months to occur at a Countdown supermarket, the first being in Dunedin, and the first terrorist attack in New Zealand since the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019.
West Auckland is one of the major geographical areas of Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Much of the area is dominated by the Waitākere Ranges, the eastern slopes of the Miocene era Waitākere volcano which was upraised from the ocean floor, and now one of the largest regional parks in New Zealand. The metropolitan area of West Auckland developed between the Waitākere Ranges to the west and the upper reaches of the Waitematā Harbour to the east. It covers areas such as Glen Eden, Henderson, Massey and New Lynn.
