Daniyal Elahi and Harris Elahi
In December 2025, ActiveHistory.ca printed our first piece on Non-public Hasan Amat, a soldier of the first Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Drive, killed on the Battle of Hill 70 on August 20, 1917. To our information, he’s the primary recognized Muslim soldier killed in motion serving with the CEF. He’s additionally certainly one of twenty-two identified Muslim troopers to have served in Canadian uniform through the First World Conflict.
This text is about how we discovered him. Additionally it is about what we did with that information after the file was closed.
How the Search Began
In 2024, earlier than we had ever opened an LAC personnel file, we have been doing background studying for an educational article on Canadian and South Asian service within the First World Conflict. In one of many secondary sources, a passing footnote talked about a Muslim soldier killed at Hill 70 in 1917. The footnote didn’t title him and there was no reference. We bookmarked it and moved on.
In November 2024, a junior cadet at our corps, 337 Queen’s York Rangers in North York, advised Daniyal that he wished he might see extra individuals who regarded like himself in Canadian remembrance. That sentence stayed with us. We had a corps standing parade the next week, and the hole between the cadet’s query and what we might reply felt bigger than it ought to have.
We went again to the footnote. We needed to seek out out who he was. What adopted was about ten months of looking. Many of the work occurred in two locations: Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and the Commonwealth Conflict Graves Fee (CWGC) database. Each are open entry, however neither is simple.
Determine 1. From the attestation papers of Pte. Hasan Amat, attested at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 14 January 1916. The handwritten entry alongside “Mohamedan” underneath non secular denominations is the sphere that made him seen within the LAC personnel database. Supply: Library and Archives Canada.
The Attestation Paper
Each CEF soldier’s file at LAC begins with an attestation paper. It information title, age, birthplace, occupation, subsequent of kin, and faith. For many troopers it’s the most informative single doc that survives.
The primary drawback is the names. Colonial-era clerks recorded non-anglophone names phonetically. French, South Asian, Japanese European, and different names have been transcribed inconsistently between paperwork. The LAC database requires near-exact matches, so a researcher who tries solely the plain spelling usually finds nothing. The footnote we had been working from gave us a partial spelling that returned no end result. We tried a number of variants, however nothing got here up.
The repair was to look by unit. As soon as we knew the soldier had been killed at Hill 70, we cross-referenced the first Battalion nominal roll towards deaths from August 1917 and filtered by birthplace. One soldier was listed as born in Singapore and enlisted at Halifax in January 1916. We opened his file. The primary line of his attestation paper learn “Hasan Amat.” Below faith: “Mohamedan.”
Faith as a Filter
“Mohamedan” is an outdated time period, however it’s constant throughout CEF information, and the LAC database treats it as a searchable area. This isn’t a small element. In CEF information, Christian denominations have been standardized whereas minority faiths have been inconsistently recorded or typically omitted fully. The express entry in Amat’s file is what made him seen inside an archival system that always obscures the very identities it ought to protect.
As soon as we knew the sphere was searchable, we cross-referenced it with the LAC personnel database. The question returned a manageable record of CEF troopers recorded as Mohamedan, Sikh, Hindu, and different minority faiths. Most of them survived the battle. Amat was the one one at the moment confirmed killed in motion.
The Personnel File
The personnel file is the place biography emerges. The attestation paper is a snapshot. The remainder of the file is the story.
Amat’s file reveals his path was not direct. He was born in Singapore and employed as a seaman earlier than the battle. He enlisted in Halifax in January 1916 and was medically discharged from his first unit, the Royal Canadian Regiment, and re-enlisted inside weeks. He skilled in England. He fell sick greater than as soon as. Whereas the medical entries are temporary, the dates accumulate. He was finally transferred to the first Battalion, a veteran formation that had been in France since early 1915.
The doc that gave us pause was his navy will. CEF troopers signed wills earlier than deployment. Amat’s is dated August 17, 1916, whereas he was serving with the 4th Abroad Pioneer Battalion. He left the whole lot to a John R. McLellan of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia however we have no idea who McLellan was. Amat lived one other 12 months. He was killed at Hill 70 on August 20, 1917.
Determine 2. Army will of Pte. Hasan Amat, 4th Abroad Pioneer Battalion, C.E.F., signed 17 August 1916. He bequeathed his actual and private property to John R. McLellan of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Supply: Library and Archives Canada.
That sequence shouldn’t be in any database. It comes from studying the file so as, web page by web page, and noting the dates as they seem. The personnel file is commonly skipped after the attestation paper, which is a typical pitfall. It’s usually the one doc that turns a reputation and rank into an individual.
The Conflict Diary & The CWGC Report
Each CEF unit stored a battle diary, digitized by way of LAC. The first Battalion’s diary for August 1917 covers Hill 70 in operational element. It doesn’t title Amat. Conflict diaries hardly ever title particular person troopers beneath the rank of officer. What the diary offers is essential context. For Amat, the August 20 entry describes the battalion holding captured floor towards German counterattacks at heavy value. The space between “killed at Hill 70” on the casualty record and what that meant on the bottom runs by way of the battle diary.
The Commonwealth Conflict Graves Fee database is free and absolutely searchable. Each Commonwealth soldier killed in each World Wars has an entry. For Amat, the CWGC report confirmed that his physique was by no means recovered. His title is engraved on the Vimy Memorial amongst Canada’s lacking, irrespective of birthplace or faith. In dying, no less than, he’s commemorated as a Canadian soldier amongst Canadians.
Nonetheless, the uniformity of the inscription honours each soldier equally. It additionally obscures what made each particular. The CWGC report tells you he died. It doesn’t inform you how he lived. For that, you should return to LAC.
What Adopted
The analysis was full. What remained was the query of easy methods to share it. The December 2025 Energetic Historical past piece was the primary public output. From there the undertaking moved outward in instructions we didn’t initially plan for.
The cadet corps the place the undertaking started has formally adopted the lesson. The commanding officer of 337 Queen’s York Rangers, Capt. James Kelly, CD, confirmed in writing that “Management Below Fireplace: Classes from Hill 70,” the management module we wrote round Amat’s switch and the August 20 motion, can be on the 2026–2027 coaching calendar. The lesson teaches small-unit decision-making at part and platoon degree utilizing a Canadian Muslim soldier because the labored instance. It runs yearly.
In Canadian secondary faculties, the identical archival materials has been tailored into an Ontario-curriculum-aligned module. The primary pilot was delivered chilly by a Grade 10 historical past trainer at Stephen Lewis Secondary Faculty within the Peel District Faculty Board in February 2026, with out us within the room. Crescent Faculty adopted in April. The Toronto District Faculty Board is reviewing the supplies to be used in Islamic Heritage Month programming.
Past the cadet corps and the classroom, a commemorative poster carrying Amat’s portrait and a brief biographical abstract is on everlasting show on the Islamic Discussion board of Canada, a North York Mosque with roughly a thousand weekly congregants, and at Crescent Faculty in Toronto. In December 2025, we gave a forty-minute discuss to a couple hundred senior college students on the Proper to Play Group Centre close to Lahore, Pakistan. Six Pakistani nationwide tv networks coated the occasion. Challenge content material reached a broad public viewers on-line between November 2025 and Could 2026, with paid promotion supported partially by a Veterans Affairs Canada Commemorative Partnership Program grant.
Different commemorative outputs are in practice with Legion Journal, Veterans Affairs Canada, the Commonwealth Conflict Graves Fee, and the Vimy Basis.
A bench and plaque in Amat’s title have been commissioned by the Hill 70 Memorial Basis for the memorial web site at Loos-en-Gohelle, France. The set up is absolutely funded by way of non-public donations we raised. To our information, it is going to be the primary devoted everlasting commemorative memorial to a Canadian Muslim soldier of the First World Conflict. A web site survey is scheduled for June 2026 forward of the 109th anniversary of the battle in August.
Recovering a soldier like Amat provides to Canadian wartime historical past with out altering it. The story is identical. There may be now extra of it to inform. What started with a footnote and a junior cadet’s query now has a everlasting memorial in France and a spot on the 337 Queen’s York Rangers coaching calendar.
Why This Issues Past Amat
The strategy we used shouldn’t be particular to at least one soldier. Attestation papers, CWGC information, personnel information, and battle diaries exist for each CEF soldier who served. Most of those information are free and on-line. The barrier is understanding what to search for and dealing by way of how a colonial navy forms recorded the folks it documented.
Our studying of CEF information suggests there are different minority troopers whose service has been recorded however not surfaced. Some are recoverable. Others will not be. The work is incremental and gradual. What we have now tried to indicate with Amat is that even one file, learn rigorously, is sufficient to put a reputation again into the historic report and, with the fitting companions, into stone.
We’re two cadets from North York. We began with a footnote and a public archive. So can anybody.
Daniyal Elahi, a Warrant Officer, and Harris Elahi, a Sergeant, are cadets with the Royal Canadian Military Cadets at 337 Queen’s York Rangers in Toronto. They based Our Shared Sacrifice in September 2025 to get better underrepresented troopers of the Canadian Expeditionary Drive. The Hill 70 Memorial Basis has adopted their analysis and commissioned a memorial bench and plaque in Pte. Amat’s title at Loos-en-Gohelle, France. In 2026 they acquired the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Younger Heritage Leaders.
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