• My Jalsa Salana

    My Jalsa Salana

    Meher Shazia Chaudhry, Aged 10, Bexley and Greenwich Being an Ahmadi Muslim is a true blessing from Allah, and attending the annual Jalsa Salana is an integral part of this spiritual journey. This year’s Jalsa held a special place in my heart as I had the opportunity to serve on water duty for the first…

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  • New Steps, New Light: My Jalsa Experience

    Fatiha Nadeem, Bradford This year, Jalsa was bound to be different as it was my first Jalsa unaccompanied by my mother or grandmother. In fact, for many, an experience is not the same if the people around are different – as was the case for me. However, I knew it would be different and there…

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  • A Day at Jalsa

    A Day at Jalsa

    Ayela Noor (aged 15), Fleet As soon as I enter, I am immediately greeted with smiles. Jalsa has a very positive, friendly environment that makes me feel welcome. I start the day walking around the site, and I see people of all different backgrounds, united by one thing. Islam. It’s beautiful and so inspirational to…

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  • A Blessed Day for Lajna

    Bareera Ghaffar, Nottingham Jalsa Salana UK, is an eagerly anticipated three days for Ahmadis across the world. In Hadeeqatul Mahdi, The Garden of the Mahdi, men, women and children gather in their numbers across the country and across the world, to feel the spiritual brotherhood that envelopes all, and to hear, listen and reflect on…

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  • Freedom Without a Choice

    Danila Jonnud, Hampshire I could never, by any stretch of the imagination, be a Vulcan. That is to say, I could never fit the criteria required to be part of the fictional logic-driven emotion-rejecting alien race from Star Trek. To be honest, I’m more like the opposite but sometimes I see something so incomprehensible in…

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  • When the Wind Holds Its Breath (A Poem)

    Saira Iffat Bhatti, Slough The air shifts.  Something stirs.  A thousand steps quicken without a word,  As though the earth itself knows that something sacred is near.  They’ve come from motorways and meadows, Pushing buggies, carrying toddlers, Draped in cultures and colours.   Hearts alight with one shared hope: to catch a glimpse.  To hear the…

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  • Jalsa Salana Day 1: The World Walks In, The Heart Awakens

    Saira Iffat Bhatti, Slough There’s something electric in the air this morning at Hadeeqatul Mahdi, and it’s not just the buzz of golf carts whizzing past or the volunteers rushing around with walkie-talkies crackling. It’s the sense of possibility. A feeling that every person stepping through the gates has left the ordinary world behind and…

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  • Who is Making Muslim Women Wear the Hijab?

    Yusra Dahri, Tilford Over the past decade or so, the hijab has remained a contested issue. Even now, only 26% of Britons believe that wearing a hijab is a woman’s personal choice, whereas 49% believe Muslim women wear the hijab due to family or community pressure.      As a woman who wears the hijab of her…

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  • Podcast 32 – Spiritual Rejuvenation

    On the first day of Jalsa, Ayesha Naseem Mirza and Iffat Mirza Rashid discuss the core purpose of Jalsa Salana, an opportunity to be in the presence of His Holiness Khalifatul Masih V (may Allah be his Helper), and to surround ourselves with discourses regarding high moral values. For many Jalsa Salana, and the international…

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  • Jalsa Salana: The Greenest of Greens 

    Rameen Masood, Leicester  ‘It is He Who has made the earth for you a cradle, and has caused pathways for you to run through it; and Who sends down rain from the sky, and thereby We bring forth various kinds of vegetation.’ (20:54) [1]  There is something profoundly humbling about the image of the earth…

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