Oakland Farm, Green Street, East Worldham, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 3AU. 30th July 2017. Pictured: Children are encouraged to help out at the conventio
Oakland Farm, Green Street, East Worldham, Alton, Hampshire, GU34 3AU. 30th July 2017. Pictured: Children are encouraged to help out at the convention. // Around 38,000 people from 100 countries have converged on Hadeeqatul Mahdi - formerly Oaklands Farm - near East Worldham, for Jalsa Salana, the 51st annual convention of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. A key feature of the opening ceremony was the flag raising, in which His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad raised the Ahmadiyya flag and Rafiq Hayat, the community’s UK president, raised the British flag to emphasise that its members consider themselves both Muslim and British. For more than one hundred years the Ahmadiyya Muslim community has been leading a peaceful revival of Islam from the time it was founded in India in 1889. Established in the UK since 1913, the organisation built London’s first mosque in 1926 (The London Mosque in Putney). They now have 129 branches across Britain and have opened a number of mosques including the landmark Baitul Futuh mosque in south London, which is the largest in western Europe. During the course of the 3 day event in the Hampshire countryside, the community will pay tribute to Britain for the freedom it gives its citizens and see delegates pledge loyalty to their nation as a fundamental part of their faith. 200 acres: The site is a Hampshire farm, which is turned into a global village in the two weeks prior to the event and taken down within a week. The facilities include accommodation, a kitchen that produces more than 270,000 meals and international bookshop, and a media centre. 5,000 volunteers: The gathering is organised exclusively by volunteers from across the UK (2,000 women and 3,000 men). 80 million people: All proceedings are transmitted to more than 80 million people worldwide via webcast and Muslim Television Ahmadiyya (MTA), the world’s first Islamic satellite channel and translated into dozens of languages, including – English, Urdu, Arabic, French
Size: 5467px × 3650px
Location: Alton, Hampshire, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © Lee Thomas / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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