The Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at (AMJ) commemorated a significant occasion on March 4, 2023, not just for its community in the UK but also for the entire global jama’at of this spiritual tradition. His Holiness Sahibzada Mirza Ahmad Masroor Sahib, the 5th Caliph, opened a new complex at the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden, a neighbourhood and town in Merton, the southern borough of London, England, the UK. He planted a tree and revealed the inauguration plaque on that sombre occasion, Bitter Winter reported.
The administration offices, two sizable multipurpose halls, and guest rooms for the neighbourhood are all housed in the new five-story structure. After a fire on September 26, 2015, which left almost half of it damaged, it was reconstructed into a stunning structure that interpreted Islamic design using a contemporary Western minimalism approach and combined beauty with usefulness. A sum of 1.20 million pounds was spent on the project, all of which came from believers’ free and private donations. One of the biggest mosques in Western Europe, Baitul Futuh is located on 2.1 hectares and can accommodate up to 10,000 worshippers, acting as a spiritual hub for the neighbourhood. In fact, the fifth Ahmadi Caliph is still alive today and resides in the UK. He is referred to as “huzoor,” an Urdu title that is derived from an Arabic word that can mean “Eminence” or “Excellence”; it is typically used to refer to saints and is equivalent to the “His Holiness” title most usually used by Ahmadis.
A report published in Bitter Winter read, Masroor was forced to leave Pakistan when he was chosen as the next Caliph in 2003 after being imprisoned in 1999 as a result of the state’s ongoing persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan during the first part of the 1980s.
He now resides in the Islamabad complex of the village of Tilford in Surrey County, England, which also houses the Mubarak (“Blessed”) Mosque and the global headquarters of the AMJ.