Family Retreat
October 24–26, 2026 · Keltic Resort, Cape Breton
For two nights in late October, the Keltic Lodge belongs to the retreat. Every room, the dining room, the grounds, the trail down to the water: all of it reserved for one gathering of Muslim families.
Cape Breton is at peak colour that week. The Skyline Trail, the gondola up Cape Smokey and the headland at Middle Head are all within reach, and the lodge has hot tubs, a sauna, lawn games and golf on site. Five teachers share the weekend with you.
Bring the kids. Bring the grandparents. Children’s activities are built into the retreat, halal meals are cooked fresh on site, and no one in the family is left somewhere else.
Your family is your first ummah.
This is where you strengthen it.
Late October is when Cape Breton does the thing it’s famous for. The hardwoods across the Highlands go copper and red at once, the Cabot Trail becomes one of the most photographed drives on earth, and the tourists who came for summer are long gone.
The Keltic Resort sits on Middle Head, a thin peninsula that pushes out into the Atlantic with water on both sides. It’s been the landmark of Ingonish Beach for over eighty years. Wake up steps from the ocean. Walk out the front door and you’re on a headland trail. Ten minutes in any direction is Cape Breton Highlands National Park.
A historic main lodge with the character to match, and rooms that look onto the grounds or straight out to the Atlantic. Red chairs on every lawn facing the sea. This is the kind of place people photograph from the road and wish they’d booked. See the resort at kelticresort.com.
Middle Head Trail starts steps from the lodge and ends at a cliff where the only thing in front of you is open Atlantic. Ingonish Beach is below. Whale season is winding down but the sightings aren’t done.
You’re inside one of Canada’s most dramatic national parks. The Skyline Trail, the Cabot Trail lookouts, the gondola up Cape Smokey. If you’ve ever put “see Cape Breton in the fall” on a list, this is the week to cross it off with your family beside you.
Getting there: This is a land-only package, so flights are booked separately. Fly into Halifax Stanfield (YHZ), then it’s about four and a half hours to the lodge. Rent a car at the airport (they book up early), take the Maritime Bus coach, or book an airport shuttle with Ceilidh Shuttle, Cape Breton Shuttle or Are We There Yet Shuttles.
Optional Halifax add-on: Arrive Thursday midday, spend Thursday and Friday seeing what Halifax has to offer, then travel to Cape Breton together on a group bus. It runs only if enough families join. Email blessedvoyage@almaghrib.org to register your interest.
Late October. Peak colour. The summer crowds long gone. The scenery is Cape Breton; the families are from recent AlMaghrib retreats. Put them together and you have the idea.
We didn’t put together a speaker list. We put together a household. A scholar who spent seven years in Madinah and speaks three languages. A jurist who runs one of Atlantic Canada’s largest Muslim institutions and pulls the whole city together. A traditionally trained teacher with unbroken chains of learning and the warmest sense of humour in the room. And a Qur’an teacher who has spent fifteen years with women and girls, and leads the children’s program this weekend.
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Montreal born and raised. Shaykh Daood was giving khutbahs and teaching Quran at his local mosque before he’d finished his first degree, then spent more than seven years at the Islamic University of Madinah, graduating from the Faculty of Da’wah and Usool ad-Deen in 2010. He followed that with a Master’s degree, completed with distinction, in Islamic and Other Civilizations at the International Islamic University Malaysia.
What students remember about him isn’t the credentials. It’s that he teaches in English, French and Arabic without missing a beat, and that he has a rare gift with young people. He’s been leading youth retreats, umrah trips and family programs for years. If your kids walk out of a session quoting him, don’t be surprised.
Shaykh Abdallah holds both his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Islamic jurisprudence from Al-Azhar University and is completing a PhD in Islamic Finance. He leads Ummah Society, the institution that has become the centre of Muslim life in Atlantic Canada.
In 2019 he became the first Muslim to receive Nova Scotia’s Lieutenant Governor’s Faith in Action Award, given for leadership that reaches well past the mosque walls. Under his direction, Ummah Society has built schools, youth programs and partnerships that stretch across the Maritimes. He brings the fiqh, and he brings the perspective of someone who has actually built a community from the ground up.
Dr. Mahmoud is a scholar in the classical sense. Trained within the traditional Sunni sciences and carrying recognized chains of transmission back through his teachers, he treats sacred knowledge as something to be handled with precision and passed on with care.
Sit in his class for five minutes and you’ll notice something else: he’s funny. Gentle, dry, disarming. He makes a room feel dignified and relaxed at the same time, which is exactly what you want when your whole family is in it. Expect depth you’ll be thinking about on the drive home.
Born and raised in Montreal, Tasneem began her Qur’an journey as a little girl and has never looked back. Her studies have taken her to Malaysia, Australia and Saudi Arabia, back to Canada, and now to Portugal.
She has studied with local scholars and through the Islamic Online University, has taught Qur’an and tajweed for over fifteen years, and conducts halaqas for women and girls. She remains a student of the Qur’an herself, and works to connect people to it wherever her journeys take her.
Everyone in the same place for two nights: the same lodge, the same dining room, the same evenings. Supervised arts and crafts and games keep the kids busy during lecture time, and the whole property is ours. It’s a family gathering with world class teachers in it.
The Skyline Trail. The gondola up Cape Smokey. Indoor and outdoor hot tubs, a cold plunge, a sauna, lawn games and golf, all on a property reserved for us. Excursions and activities are booked individually. Expect 5 to 10°C outdoors, so pack layers for the walks.
The Islamic program is being built with the instructors and will be shared with registered families. What’s fixed already: four teachers, two nights, and a setting that leaves room to actually listen.
Beyond the sessions, the moments you can’t schedule. Fajr with the ocean going pink. A conversation with a teacher that runs long because nobody wants to leave. Questions you’ve carried for years, asked somewhere you can finally hear yourself think.
Scenes from recent AlMaghrib family programs and summits. Cape Breton is next.
Two nights, October 24–26. Prayer times are for Ingonish on the day. Timings may shift slightly once we’re on site.
Your room at the lodge for both nights and the retreat program, with the whole resort reserved for the retreat. Meals are a separate meal plan; activities are booked individually.
Not included: The meal plan ($180 per adult, $120 per child aged 4 to 12, for six fresh halal meals plus treats and tea and coffee), excursions and resort activities, and flights and travel to Nova Scotia.
Every room at the Keltic Lodge is now booked. Join the waitlist and we’ll contact you first if a room opens up.
Resort rooms on the Keltic Lodge property.
for the entire weekend
2 nights · per room · taxes included
Up to 4 people per room (2 adults, 2 kids)
One price for the room, not per person. Meal plan booked separately.
At CapacityRooms facing the Atlantic. Wake up to the water on Middle Head.
for the entire weekend
2 nights · per room · taxes included
Up to 4 people per room (2 adults, 2 kids)
One price for the room, not per person. Meal plan booked separately.
At CapacityCancellations happen. Add your family to the waitlist and you’ll be the first we contact if a room becomes available.
Join the WaitlistPrices in CAD, for reference. Each price is the full cost of the room for both nights, taxes included, whoever is in it: up to 4 people in a two-double room or 3 in a king. No cots are available; children in the room beyond the recommended maximum is at your family’s discretion. The meal plan is $180 per adult and $120 per child (4 to 12), booked separately. All sales are final.
AlMaghrib has spent over two decades teaching Islam to adults across 45 cities in North America and Europe. Ummah Society has spent years building the Muslim community of Atlantic Canada from the ground up: mosques, schools, youth programs, and a reputation for bringing people together.
One of us knows how to teach. The other knows the coast. Together we can do something neither could pull off alone: a family retreat, at a resort this good, in the most beautiful corner of Canada, with teaching that meets the AlMaghrib standard.
This is the first one. We intend for it to be the one people talk about.
Your room at the Keltic Lodge for two nights (check-in Saturday October 24, check-out Monday October 26) and the retreat program. It is a land-only package: flights are booked separately, the meal plan is booked separately, and activities are booked individually.
Cape Breton in peak fall colour, from a lodge on a cliff with the Atlantic on both sides. A group hike on Saturday afternoon, the Skyline Trail on the way out on Monday, the gondola at Cape Smokey, and walks through the fall landscape around the property.
The whole Keltic Lodge property is reserved for the retreat, so its indoor and outdoor hot tubs, cold plunge, sauna, fitness centre, lawn games and golf are all on hand. Excursions such as the guided Skyline Trail hike are booked individually. For the kids, supervised arts and crafts and games run during lecture time. Expect 5 to 10°C outdoors and dress accordingly.
Flights are not part of the package. Book your own into Halifax Stanfield (YHZ), the closest major airport, and allow about four and a half hours to get from there to the Keltic Lodge. See the next question for how to make that trip.
Three options. Rent a car at the airport, and book it as soon as you can, because rentals for that weekend fill up early. Take the Maritime Bus coach to Cape Breton Island. Or book a shuttle from the airport with Ceilidh Shuttle, Cape Breton Shuttle or Are We There Yet Shuttles.
If you are travelling to Canada from outside the country, Canadian visa and eTA rules apply. Check the requirements for your passport with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada well before you book.
The Keltic Lodge at Ingonish Beach, Cape Breton. The whole property is reserved for the retreat.
Rooms have either two double beds (recommended maximum of 4 adults and children) or one king bed (recommended maximum of 3). The hotel does not provide cots or extra mattresses. This is a family-friendly trip, so you are welcome to have your kids in the room with you; going beyond the recommended maximum is at your own family’s discretion.
Yes. Email blessedvoyage@almaghrib.org with the names before you pay and we will note the request. Each room is booked and paid for as one room.
We can try. Same-gender roommate matches depend on someone else asking for the same thing, so email blessedvoyage@almaghrib.org before you pay to register your interest. If no match is available we will let you know, and you should be comfortable covering the full room price, since payments are non-refundable.
Meals are not part of the room price. They are a separate meal plan: $180 per adult and $120 per child aged 4 to 12, booked on the registration page. It covers six halal meals across the weekend (two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners) plus treats and tea and coffee, all prepared fresh on site by a professional chef and his team from One Ummah Society. Tell us about any allergies or dietary restrictions, such as nuts or oils, when you register. Limited snacks and groceries are available at a local convenience store.
All sales are final. Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable after purchase. If the organisers cancel or significantly change the event, refunds or alternatives will be offered.
Early-bird pricing closed on September 30, and the prices shown are now the standard rates. To be confirmed: any additional AlMaghrib student discount.
They teach the sessions in Ceilidh Hall, lead the prayers, and take part in the activities, so you get them on the trail as well as at the front of the room. The full program is in Program & Schedule. See Your Teachers for who is coming.
Yes. The retreat dates are fixed, but your travel around them is yours to plan, and Atlantic Canada is right there. Extend on either side.
Yes. It is built for families. Supervised arts and crafts and games run for the kids during lecture time, a smaller room is set aside for children and women, and you can have your kids in your room with you.
Yes. All ages are welcome. Sessions and meals are all on the lodge property, and the outdoor activities are optional. Late October runs 5 to 10°C outdoors, so pack warm layers.
The full program is in Program & Schedule above: check-in from 11am Saturday, closing session at 10am Monday with check-out at 11am. Timings may shift slightly on site.
We took over a lodge on a cliff for two nights, and every bed in it is now spoken for. If a family has to cancel, the room goes to the waitlist first.
Bring the people you love most. Learn together. Laugh together. Stand at the end of Middle Head together and watch the Atlantic do what it does.
Cape Breton. We’ll see you there, insha’Allah.
Questions? Email blessedvoyage@almaghrib.org
Cape Breton scenery: Keltic Lodge, Ingonish and Cabot Trail photographs via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA).
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