THE FIRST MUSLIMS ON THE GOLD COAST
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The first Muslim on the Gold Coast was a man named Ghulam Goss .

He was born in 1873 in India and passed away in 1948 at the age of 75.

He was 47 years old when he arrived in
1920.

He was a
farmer who grew bananas , pineapples and vegetables in a market garden in the area between Robert Street , Turpin Road and Goss Avenue , Southport .

All the land from Robert Street to Goss Avenue was owned by the Goss family.

On the corner of Robert Street and Turpin Road is a shop and house .

In that house lived
Mohammed Shaffee Goss ( Ghulam's eldest son ) with his family of nine children

Shaffee was born in
1923 and died in 1976 , aged 53 .

At No.91 , Robert Street was Ghulam's second son ;
Mohammed Shariffe Goss with his wife Rashida Bibi Goss and eight children .

Shariffe was born in
1929 and passed away in 1991 at the age of 61

Rashida was born in
1926 , and passed away in 1993 aged 65 .

All seventeen children went to Labrador State School and then Southport State High School

The two households held Islamic lessons all year and Taraweh each night during Ramadan

Shaffee Goss was our
first Imam and teacher .He taught all the children about Islam .

Shaffee was a builder by trade and also a shopkeeper .He built the
Holland Park Mosque which remains essentially unchanged till today .

Yusuf Goss , who was 16 years old at the time and fresh out of High School , worked on this project as Shaffee's assistant .

Shariffe Goss was a Fruiterer ; selling fruit and vegetables around the Southport - Labrador area for 35 years
.
He was very well known in the non-Muslim Community . He often used to sit with non-Muslims and talk about Islam ( Da"wah )

In those early days , when there was no Mosque or Islamic Centre , visiting Muslim families from such places as Sydney , Murwillumbah , Lismore or Brisbane , would always visit Shaffee and Shariffe's families , who would prepare a meal to make their visitors welcome .

Until around
1980 , the two families were still the only known Muslims on the Gold Coast .

They shared a vision that one day they would build a Mosque on the vacant land they had adjacent to the shop and house .

Over the next few years , other Muslim families began to settle in the area .

In
1983 , the Islamic Society of Gold Coast was founded .

Its founding President was
Dr.Chothia .

After several years , because of his good relationship with the local Government , Shariffe , along with
Aslam Nabi and others , a big effort was made and resulted in the land at Arundel being allocated to build an Islamic Centre and Mosque .

Sadly , Shariffe Goss passed away in 1991 , aged 61 , without seeing his vision for the Mosque became a reality
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