Janazah & burial services
Shia Ja'fari community centre on Third Concession Road in north Pickering. PHONE NOT PUBLISHED HERE: the only number found came from a scraped commercial aggregator listing, carried a Toronto area code for a Pickering address, and could not be confirmed against any page controlled by the organisation - so it has been removed rather than published. No working organisational website was found either. NEEDS A PHONE CALL to verify it exists at this address and to obtain a real number. Also note there is an unrelated organisation of the same name in London, Ontario - do not conflate them.
Each line below is either confirmed from the organisation’s own material or marked as not confirmed. We publish the gaps rather than guess at them.
Facilities & community services
At the masjid
Services the community can ask for
Listed from the organisation’s own material. A service not listed here isn’t necessarily unavailable — call the office and ask.
About Al-Mahdi Islamic Community Centre
The Al-Mahdi Islamic Community Centre is the centre operated by The Council of Islamic Guidance, which has served the Greater Toronto Area since 1984 and was incorporated the following year; the Council was granted charitable registration by the CRA effective 21 October 1986. It was co-founded with H.I. Syed Zaki Baqri, who arrived in 1979 and whom the Council describes as the first resident alim in Ontario and the second in Canada. The centre at 510 Concession 3 Road in Pickering houses prayer halls, a library, classrooms and gymnasium and recreation facilities, and runs the Al Mahdi Madrassah and Darul Quran alongside an interest-free loan programme and a Muslim Burial Plan. Programmes are delivered in Urdu and English.
From the organisation’s own pages, checked 13 Aug 2026 — see the sources below.
Shia. The Council of Islamic Guidance, the registered charity that owns and runs the centre, gives as its object the promotion of the teachings of Islam according to the Shia Ithna-Asheri Jafri faith; its own website publishes combined Zuhrain and Maghribain prayer times and names H.I. Syed Zaki Baqri, the first resident Shia alim in Ontario, as co-founder. We publish how a community describes itself — never our own categorisation of it.
What we haven’t confirmed
We could not establish: On-site mortuary, Cold storage, Ghusl facility, Ghusl for women, by women, Kafan (shroud), Transport of the deceased and more. Those are published as gaps rather than filled with a plausible guess. If you know the answer — especially if you are from this organisation — tell us and we will verify and update the listing.
Planning ahead, rather than in a crisis?
The two things a funeral coordinator asks a family for are the burial wishes and the will. Recording where your will is kept and working out the inheritance shares now spares your family both questions at the worst possible moment.
Where to go next
Sources for this listing
Every factual claim on this page traces to a source below. Details change — check the original source before relying on any figure, fee or legal position.
- The Council of Islamic Guidance — Al Mahdi Islamic Community Center (official page: address, founding, facilities, services) — cig.ca
- The Council of Islamic Guidance — home page (serving the GTA since 1984; Zuhrain/Maghribain prayer times; Ahlul Bayt(a); Ghusl, Muslim Burial Plan, Qardul-Hasana, Darul Quran) — cig.ca
- Al-Mahdi Islamic Community Centre - Pickering listing (Wanderboat.ai) — wanderboat.ai
- CRA List of Charities — THE COUNCIL OF ISLAMIC GUIDANCE INC., BN 119228815RR0001, Registered effective 1986-10-21, 510 Concession 3 Road, Pickering ON L1X2R4 — apps.cra-arc.gc.ca
- Al-Mahdi Islamic Centre — official Facebook page (almahdicig) — facebook.com