{"id":68474,"date":"2017-08-02T12:40:14","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T19:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=68474"},"modified":"2017-08-02T12:40:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-02T19:40:14","slug":"largest-islamic-convention-in-u-k-concludes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/08\/02\/largest-islamic-convention-in-u-k-concludes\/","title":{"rendered":"Largest Islamic Convention in U.K. concludes."},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><i><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif;\">By A. Abdul Aziz,\u00a0<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif;\">Press Secretary,\u00a0<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-size: 14pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif;\">Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama\u2019at \u2013 Sri Lanka.<\/span><\/i><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">\u00a0The 51<sup>st<\/sup> \u00a0Jalsa Salana (Annual Convention) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the United Kingdom concluded on Sunday 30 July 2017 with a call for believers to reject all forms of extremism\u201d in the last of his five speeches. by the\u00a0World Head the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the Fifth Khalifa (Caliph), His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #333333;\">During the event, His Holiness spoke about the rise of extremism and continued instability in the world. He called for Muslims to return to the true teachings of Islam.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">During his concluding address, His Holiness said: It is up to Muslims to stand up and reject all forms of extremism and terrorism. It is the task of Ahmadi Muslims to show the true teachings of Islam which are of peace love, mercy and compassion,\u201d he added.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"margin-bottom: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #333333;\">The Convention began on Friday with the traditional Friday Sermon and the raising of the black and white flag of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community alongside the Union Flag. On Saturday (the second day of the event), the Caliph conducted proceedings from the ladies marquee where 15,000 Muslim women witnessed His Holiness awarded prizes to women for academic achievements and deliver a speech on the rights and empowerment Islam affords them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">More than 30,000 people from 100 countries attended this three day Convention ( Jalsa Salana), which took place at Hadeeqatul Mahdi in Alton, Hampshire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">Apart from the thousands of Ahmadi Muslims who participated, many non-Ahmadi and non-Muslim guests also attended.\u00a0\u00a0The entire event was also broadcast live on\u00a0<i>MTA International <\/i>and streamed online.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">One of the highlights of the three-day Convention was the pledge of allegiance, known as <i>Bai\u2019at<\/i>\u00a0that took place on Sunday afternoon, where the participants pledged allegiance to Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad as the Fifth Khalifa (Caliph) of the Promised Messiah \u2013 Hazrat Mirza Ghlam Ahmad(<i>peace be upon him<\/i>).<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">The participants formed a human chain leading to the Khalifa as they repeated the words of the pledge in unison.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"gmail-msonospacing\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 14.0pt; font-family: 'Lucida Sans Unicode',sans-serif; color: #666666;\">Prior to the ceremony, His Holiness announced that 609,556 people had joined the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community during the past year from all around the world. He also announced that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was now established in 210 countries. The event concluded with silent prayer led by His holiness.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By A. Abdul Aziz,\u00a0Press Secretary,\u00a0Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama\u2019at \u2013 Sri Lanka. \u00a0The 51st \u00a0Jalsa Salana (Annual Convention) of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the United Kingdom concluded on Sunday 30 July 2017 with a call for believers to reject all forms of extremism\u201d in the last of his five speeches. by the\u00a0World Head the Ahmadiyya Muslim [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68474\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}