Ijtema meals

Every year thousands of Khuddam and Atfal attend their ijtema which this year is taking place in Country Market, Hampshire. There are academic competitions, sports, workshops and a variety of breakfast, lunch and dinner provided for everyone. All the auxiliaries of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community have held such ijtemas for many years and recently my …

Hard Work and Inspirational Smiles

It was the Thursday before Jalsa in 2014 and I was working in accommodation on the Hadeeqatul Mahdi site. Our job was to register guests, see if they needed any bedding and settle them with mattresses in the marquees. Guests had been arriving all morning and the marquees were filling up fast when in the …

Stories From My Elders – Jalsa Roti

My dad was telling my daughter and I about Jalsa Salana in Rabwah and how the last Jalsa there had an attendance of 275,000 people, making our Jalsa in the UK seem tiny by comparison. Imagine cooking food for that many people, my dad laughed, imagine the number of rotis that were made! He recalled a …

The Jalsa Feeling Begins

  One morning, around two and a half weeks before Jalsa, I got a text from my mum saying “can you and the girls come over to help?” My daughter and I had already volunteered to help them get down their bedding so we got ready and went over. We found it was not only …

Stories From My Elders – Naming the Baby

At large family gatherings such as Jalsa, I have always enjoyed sitting with the elders of the family as they reminisced about their childhood in Qadian. Recently my Mamoo, (mum's youngest brother) passed away so family have been getting together and talking during which some nice stories have emerged which I hadn't heard before. A …