As of August 2024:
Al-Hilāl will no longer be hosted by SFU Library. For more information contact Multicultural History Society of Ontario (MHSO).
In 1972 Voice of Pakistan began publishing in Toronto. It ran for about a year under that name, then changed its title to The Fortnightly Crescent, and then just The Crescent, under which name it was known until 1981. At that time it changed names again to Al-Hilal (which means “crescent” in Urdu) and continued publishing until the late 1990s. Throughout its run, this newspaper published both English and Urdu-language sections, and covered issues related to Canada and South Asia, as well as world affairs. It was an activist newspaper which took strong political stances and reached out to non-Pakistani Muslims and other groups with similar concerns.
The run of Al-Hilal presented here, 1981 to 1987, includes the years of the Pakistani community’s growth and establishment in Canada, and these forces are reflected in its pages. Earlier issues of the newspaper are located in the Voice of Pakistan (1972-1973) and the Crescent (1973-1981) collections.
Contributed by Multicultural History Society of Ontario.