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The thorny issue of whether Muslim students should be allowed to pray in Canadian secular schools aroused a storm of protests this year in a large school district in Toronto.

But Muslim students have for years quietly been provided space to pray in private in Metro Vancouver public high schools, particularly in Burnaby and Surrey.

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Metro Vancouver Muslim leader Aasim Rashid said it’s essential that Muslim students be given a space to fulfil their “obligation” to pray five times each day — plus join a religious service every Friday afternoon.

“It’s a religious obligation that is placed upon every Muslim from the time they reach puberty,” said Rashid, a former mufti with the B.C. Muslim Association who heads an independent school in Surrey called the Al-Ihsan Educational Foundation.

Controversy over Muslim prayers triggered bursts of opposition this year in Toronto, where eight per cent of the population is Muslim.