See the faces of the 2021 Mosque Open Day and food festival

See all the fun, faith, friendship and family from the weekend’s Garden City Mosque Open Day and Toowoomba International Food Festival in our gallery.

FAMILY LUNCH: Samar Desouky and Ahmed Alnaggar enjoying a delicious meal with their daughters Hania Alnaggar and Allia Soltan at the Toowoomba Mosque Open Day and Toowoomba International Food Festival. Picture: Nev Madsen.

More than 1500 people visited the Garden City Mosque on Saturday for the eighth annual open day and international food festival.

Organiser, Dr Mainul Islam said this year’s event was particularly special because the next one will probably be held in the newly completed mosque.

GALLERY: Food festival at Mosque

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“We have high hopes the mosque will be finished by this time next year,” he said.

“We can’t wait to be able to show off the completed building to the community and hope all of the remaining work can be completed over the next several months or so.”

Member of the Islamic Society of Toowoomba, Mohamed Ali Kalifullah said it was important to host events like the Mosque Open Day and food festival so that the rest of the community could come to better understand and appreciate Muslim culture.

Enjoying the Garden City Mosque Open Day (from left) Sahira Jameen, Mohamed Ali and Aleena Ali. Picture: Nev Madsen

“There’s so much more to our traditions and people than what is portrayed on television and in the media,” he said.

“We want to get to know the Toowoomba community and we hope they get to know us too.”

Members of the Toowoomba University of the Third Age, Marie Cameron and Diane Hillyard agreed, saying the wider Darling Downs community should take advantage of different cultural and religious days.

“I have been teaching a course at U3A called Christianity in feminism for a number of years and I also find female Islamic cultural practices very interesting and would love to find a local Muslim feminist to come and give a talk at one of my class,” Ms Cameron said.

“I think there’s so much we can all learn from one another.”

Marie Cameron and Diane Hillyard from UA3 at the 2021 Garden City Mosque Open day and Toowoomba International Food Festival.

“We really enjoyed the tour of the mosque and learning more abut the architecture and how it was all designed to work in with the existing landscape,” Ms Hillyard said.

“We are looking forward to coming back next year and seeing the Mosque completed and enjoying another wonderful international food day.”