Controversial sect opens Europe’s ‘largest’ mosque

More than 10,000 followers of the Ahmadiyya movement thronged the grounds of the Bait-ul-Futuh mosque in the UK capital London on Friday to celebrate the opening of the building.

Members of the Ahmadiyya (or Ahmadi) sect consider themselves Muslims, but many Muslim religious groups reject that characterisation.

Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the fifth supreme religious leader of the Ahmadi community, led inaugural prayers at the mosque, which features two towering minarets, a library, three conference rooms, a gym and a 23-metre high dome.

The mosque will be able to house 10,000 people, with 4,000 fitting inside two segregated prayer halls.

Landmark

During the ceremony, the British flag was raised above the building and 76 doves, representing each of the existing Ahmadi centres in Britain, were released into the sky.

“We built the very first London mosque in 1924,” said Rafiq Ahmad Hayat, head of Britain’s Ahmadi community, before the ceremony.

“This time we have produced the largest and most sophisticated mosque in Britain to serve as a landmark for the next century.”

The $16.4 million cost of the building was raised entirely from individual donations, mainly from British worshippers but also from abroad, according to Basharat Nazir, spokesman for the Ahmadi community in Britain.

Moderation

“We are the renaissance of Islam. We stand for moderation,” he said of the Ahmadi belief that Islam cannot be imposed by force.

The Ahmadi movement was founded in the Indian town of Qadian in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who his followers believe was a prophet and a messiah.

Today, the movement has millions of followers, spread across South Asia and in large diaspora communities in Europe. There are also indigenous Ahmadi communities in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

In some countries, such as Pakistan, Ahmadis are legally barred from referring to themselves as Muslim and from practicing certain aspects of their faith, under strict blasphemy laws.

The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) said on Friday the Ahmadi mosque should be really be called a “prayer space”, as the organisation rejected the sect’s inclusion among Muslims.

In a statement it said: “Mainstream Islamic teaching holds that the blessed Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the last in a long line of Prophets sent to mankind. Mainstream Sunni and Shia Muslims are both agreed on this basic tenet of the Islamic faith.”

The MAB statement said that while the group respects the Ahmadis’ freedom of belief, it does not believe they are Muslims.

“Whilst we fully accept the right of Ahmadis to their own religion, it is clearly misleading to describe them as Muslims. They are not,” said the statement.