Driven from Pakistan and now reeling from murder of Asad Shah in Glasgow, Ahmadis seek ‘spiritual uplift’ at Jalsa Salana

By mid-morning, Agha Abdul Karim Abed had already baked 56,000 roti. He had been at work in an outhouse on a Hampshire farm since 5.30am, and his target was 150,000 circles of the flat bread before the day was out.

Giant mixers combined flour, water, salt, sugar and yeast into a dough that was rested before being fed into a machine. At the end of a long conveyor belt, two men and a boy piled up the roti for bagging and transporting to enormous meal tents.



The roti operation overseen by Abed was just one element of the huge logistical challenge of organising the 50th Jalsa Salana, a 40,000-strong international gathering of Ahmadiyya Muslims taking place this weekend at Oakland farm, near Alton.

For the UK’s Ahmadis, this affirmation is particularly apt after the jailing this week of Tanveer Ahmed for the murder of Glasgow newsagent Asad Shah in a sectarian attack motivated by hatred of Shah’s Ahmadi faith.

The Jalsa, which opened on Friday lunchtime and runs until Sunday, is an opportunity for “spiritual uplift” among members of the Ahmadi community and others, according to Abdul Quddus Arif, a 26-year-old imam. “We stand together and pray together as an international community across cultures and boundaries. It’s an amazing and beautiful thing,” he said shortly before Friday prayers, marking the opening of the Jalsa.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ahmadis fear ‘religious and cultural bigotry’ against them could be imported to the UK. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Shah’s killing has laid bare the extent of hostility and prejudice shown towards the Ahmadi community by many other Muslims. “People have certainly been talking about it,” said Adam Walker, an Ahmadi spokesman at the Jalsa. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say [the murder] has created anxiety or a sense of fear, because if you’re known as an Ahmadi you already face problems in every facet of your life. But the key question for many of us is, where does it lead?”

The risk was that “religious and cultural bigotry” in South Asia – and Pakistan in particular – could be imported to the UK, Walker added.



The Ahmadiyya moved their global headquarters to the UK in the 1980s after Pakistan essentially outlawed their faith. But in the past few years, there have been signs of increasing animosity from other Muslims in Britain, with boycott movements, harassment and ostracism reported on university campuses.

Many orthodox Muslims regard the Ahmadiyya as blasphemous for not adhering to the belief that Muhammad was the final prophet. In the UK, the Ahmadis are a minority within a minority: there are about 30,000 among a Muslim population of 2.7m, itself only about 5% of the general population.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We stand together and pray together as an international community across cultures and boundaries.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

In Hampshire, Mohammed Nasser Khan, the man in overall charge of operations, was considering the scale of his logistical task. Around 5,000 volunteers were organised into teams covering food, security, transport and parking, accommodation, first aid, translation and exhibitions.

Although the community has owned the 200-acre Oakland farm since 2008, its annual licence to convert the site from working farm (sheep, cattle and crops) to convention centre covers just 28 days. Khan and his teams have to build a mini-city from scratch in the two to three weeks leading up to the gathering, and dismantle it without trace in the week afterwards. “As well as all the volunteers, there are 500 contractors on site, who need to be fed,” he said while directing supplies into his vast kitchens.

Elsewhere, broadcasting units were preparing to transmit Friday’s lunchtime prayers – led by the Ahmadi caliph, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, and translated into a dozen languages – to some 80 million people worldwide.



In the “ladies section”, with strict segregation in force, baby-changing tents and pushchair areas were filling up. “The reason behind the separation of men and women is religious, but we also find we are much more comfortable this way,” said Fariha Khan, a south London GP who was head of women’s security for the Jalsa.



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She and other women scoffed at the idea that there might be more on offer in the men’s section of the site. “It’s a mirror image. There’s nothing the men do that we don’t – except they cook our meals,” said Safiyya Salam.



The whole community felt grief over Shah’s murder, said Fariha Khan, but the Ahmadi creed of peacefulness and tolerance meant there could be no question of retribution or backlash. “I grew up in Pakistan, and in comparison the freedom that this country gives us to practise our religion is massive. I know Islamophobia is on the rise, but it’s really important to highlight the positives,” she said.

Among the weekend’s activities of prayers, speeches and socialising was the ceremonial raising of the union jack and an ambitious project to get participants – men and women – to write verses of the Qur’an in calligraphy.

A climate-controlled marquee housed a collection of ancient and beautiful Qur’ans, calligraphy tools and ink pots. In a screened-off section at one end, creamy, thick, acid-free paper was ready for more than 6,000 people to each write out an ayah, or verse, of the Qur’an over two days.

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Razwan Baig, a master calligrapher, artist and collector who conceived the project, said it would help participants “connect to the sacred art. People have a passion when they do something from their own hand.” Such a project had never been attempted before, he added. The resulting 300 pages would be bound and illustrated with gold and ink made from crushed precious stones.

Back in the barn-like kitchens, a different kind of art was under way as lunchtime loomed. Some 200 65-litre steel vats held bubbling dhal and curry, and a convoy of trucks stood ready to transport the food to the dining tent.



Javed Uddin said he had been volunteering in the Jalsa kitchens for more than a decade. “This is the most important date in my calendar. I get a huge buzz out of it. It’s really hard work, and after 14 or 15 hours of chopping onions, you stink. You can’t rid of the smell for a week. But I don’t mind, because it’s a reflection of what I’ve done for my community.”

