Buddhist monks and leaders of other faiths also attended, but few from other strands of British Islam. This was the one note of division at an otherwise festive and all-embracing event.
Source/Credit: The Economist
By The Economist | August 3, 2017
Some 37,000 people gathered at a farm for the worldwide convention of the Ahmadiyya sect
Each summer in a collection of remote fields in rural Hampshire, sheep and cattle make way for a vast tented camp. But this is not another of Britain’s many music festivals; it is the largest gathering of Muslims in western Europe. At the end of July, Oaklands farm near Alton hosted Jalsa Salana, the worldwide convention of the Ahmadiyya sect.
The event attracted about 37,000 people from over 100 countries. One team of Ahmadis cycled from Germany; the Canadians chartered their own plane. Around 30,000 Ahmadis live in Britain, where Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, the fifth khalifa (or leader) of the sect, is based, and there are over 10m worldwide, representing about 1% of Muslims. The Jalsa Salana itself has been held for 51 years, but the sect bought Oaklands farm to host the ever-rising numbers that flock to it. There may be mud (plenty this year), but it is thoroughly well organised. British Ahmadis are more likely to be hedge-fund managers and civil servants than impecunious DJs, and it shows. The tents are solid, the boardwalks broad and the timing Swiss.
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