Voice of British Muslim Women

As I grow older, I am beginning to realise how very true this wisdom is. Memory, as we travel through life and time, begins to play tricks upon us; twisting events together, melding words and forgetting finer details. In the residue left behind in the trail of our memory, what endures longest is the way we felt at the moment the memory was created. Fond remembrance of happy events from decades earlier can warm the soul with a gentle glow which is never extinguished by the ticking of life’s eternal forward clock.

 

Jalsa Salana, the Annual Convention of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, for me, has produced many such memories which uplift and rejuvenate. Memories which can be brought out like a treasured gift on a cold winter’s day to remind that the hope of coming spring remains. Jalsa Salana is a focal point of my year and I have been attending since my childhood years – so there are many memories to cherish. I vividly recall parking on the field in Islamabad, Tilford and walking into the ladies section, no AIMS card, no shuttle and running back and forth all day. I recall waiting for my father to come and meet us at the car when no mobile phones existed and there were many friendly faces for him to greet. I recall the torrents of rain in sticky summer storms and heatwaves and dust kicked up by the dry ground. But, most of all, for me, I recall that Jalsa was a place where I belonged.

 

I grew up as an English Ahmadi child, for some years, in the deepest depths of Cornwall. In the 1980s and 1990s (MTA started its full operations in 1994) it did feel a place apart from other areas of the country. There was no internet and little exposure to other cultures at the time. The world was a different place then. As I looked around my secondary school, there was no-one quite like me, no-one else who was a Muslim. The teachings of Islam were unknown to most of the local residents and as a result I never quite felt that I fitted in. A proverbial square peg in a round hole. Jalsa was always a time of year which alleviated that feeling and reminded me of who I was – and that I wasn’t alone.

 

On the days of Jalsa, I would arrive and be greeted by friendly faces. Friends of my parents were always affectionate and kind. Through doing duties such as water duty, helping in the creche and later working at MTA, I developed my own friends amongst fellow Ahmadis – something that was an impossibility in the green fields of Cornwall. I felt a peace in my mind, a peace that this was a home for me (even if just for a few days) and a realisation that I belonged. It was this enduring sense of belonging which was refreshing for me and the thread of which remains in my memories of Jalsa to this day.

 

As the international guests arrived each year, speaking their own languages and wearing their own dress, I saw that Ahmadiyyat did not belong to any specific group or nationality. As I greeted sisters from Indonesia, Jordan, Ghana, the USA and later South American countries, I saw that Ahmadiyyat was indeed for all. That in this beautiful faith, no-one was a square peg because there were no holes. Instead, diversity was a strength of the Community and it didn’t matter what my background was, I fitted here, amongst everyone else adhering to those same shared values and beliefs. It brought to life the verse of the Qur’an ‘…And know that this community of yours is one community, and I am your Lord… ’2

 

There were so many memories I hold of Jalsa across the years. So many moments woven in my mind. Yet some remain stronger than others. There is always one moment each year which strikes a chord for me – the singing of the international poems when the Khalifa graces the ladies marquee. This is a moment that combines my faith, and adherence to Khilafat, with personal identity. I stand before the Khalifa, amongst thousands of others, with nothing to recommend myself except the desire to be beside my sisters in faith. And reflected back in those moments, I see myself. I hear my own language being sung ‘There is no God but Allah’ and it intertwines in melodious voices merging the languages of others – reinforcing that there is always a place for me in the fold of Islam and the Community of my Khalifa. On more than one occasion, tears would stream down my face as I am overwhelmed by the enormity of that belonging and appreciate how integral such a feeling is to life.

 

My father used to often tell me, as a self-conscious teenager, that Jalsa was not a fashion show and he was right. I have no memory of what I wore, or how I did my hair. All my memories revolve around how I felt when I attended. Because while the details may fade, I have yet to find another time of year which makes me feel so very much that I belong.