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MILPITAS — Members of the Bay Area’s Ahmadiyya Muslim community marked the 100th anniversary of their movement’s arrival in the United States with a day of service Saturday.
The work began early in the morning, when members gathered for special pre-dawn prayers at the community’s Milpitas mosque, then continued with presentations to celebrate the revivalist movement’s history.
Later, members assembled 300 sandwiches and kits of essentials for people living on the streets in the South Bay, then distributed them to homeless residents of Milpitas, Fremont and San Jose.
The Ahmadiyya movement differs from other Muslims in the belief that its founder, a 19th-century Indian religious leader named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was a prophet sent by God. That has led to religious persecution of Ahmadis in many Muslim-majority nations where it is considered heresy.
Saturday marked the hundredth anniversary of the day in 1920 when one of the faith’s representatives, Mufti Muhammad Sadiq, came to the United States and began missionary work here.
Today the movement counts millions of followers worldwide. In the United States, its communities are a mix of those who joined the faith as a result of its missionary work and members of an Ahmadi diaspora that has fled discrimination in Pakistan.
Mujeeb Ijaz, the president of the 350-member Silicon Valley Ahmadiyya community, described the effort as a “service to mankind” that is an integral to the faith. An estimated 10,000 Ahmadiyya worshippers across the country gathered at their local mosques to mark Saturday’s anniversary and participate in community service projects.
“If you think about people praying — that they want God’s help — the help comes in the form of other people helping them,” Ijaz said. “It’s not like it happens without there being the motivation within another being that, ‘I want to help this person.’ We think this is so foundational.”