Paper short abstract:

Founded by a charismatic leader in late19th century India, the Ahmadis are a small but economically and educationally significant diasporic Muslim minority. We consider the Ahmadi mosques in London, their planning, and actions towards them by local residents, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

Paper long abstract:

Founded by a charismatic leader in late-19th century India, the Ahmadis are a small but economically and educationally significant diasporic Muslim minority, established today in numerous cities in the West, Asia and Africa. In many Islamic countries the Ahmadis have been defined as heretics and subjected to persecution and human rights abuses. Legislation in Pakistan in 1984 effectively criminalised the Ahmadis and compelled their religious leader, the Khalifa, to flee Pakistan. He took up residence in a quiet suburban street in South West London thereby transforming a local Ahmadi mosque into the global Ahmadi headquarters. The Khalifa's move to London led to increased activity at the mosque and resulted in considerable tension with the local residents. This tension only ended when the Ahmadis built another, state-of-the-art mosque, in nearby Morden.

This paper considers the Ahmadi mosques, their planning histories, the attitudes and actions towards the mosques by local residents both Muslim and non-Muslim and the Ahmadi mosque-building projects as, in part, local responses to the proscription and destruction of Ahmadi mosques in Pakistan. Data was collected from local council planning offices; by interview with Ahmadis and non-Ahmadi locals; at committee meetings held in the Morden Mosque and to which local residents, police representatives, elected councillors and others are invited; and in a range of formal and informal contexts.

The strategies adopted by the Ahmadis towards the local spaces in which they find themselves are inevitably shaped by national and international events beyond their control. However, Ahmadi responses to events such as the destruction of their mosques in Pakistan and the July 7th 2005 bombings in London are placed within the context of Ahmadi faith and the divine mission of their founder as played out in an urban and technologically advanced local mosque environment which includes Ahmadi global media networking facilities.