JewishJournal.com: by Rob Eshman Before His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad, leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, entered the gilded ballroom of the Montage Beverly Hills last Saturday afternoon, a spokesman took the microphone and explained the rules to the 500 or so acolytes, dignitaries and invited guests. 

First, when His Holiness the khalifa, or spiritual leader, enters a room, it is customary to stand. Moreover, he said, His Holiness will not set foot inside until the audience is fully seated. Not just seated, he added, but quiet.

People sat. They kept still — no one even sipped their iced tea. The only person you could hear whispering was me.

I leaned to my tablemates, both followers of His Holiness, and said: “This is so not a Jewish audience.”

Estimates vary widely about the number of Ahmadiyya Muslims spread throughout the world.  Some experts put the number at 13 million — about the same as the number of Jews in the world.  The group itself claims 70 million followers. Either way it is a fraction of the 1.6 billion Muslims, though, by all accounts, growing. 

The sect was founded in India in 1889, by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, referred to as Promised Messiah, who preached nonviolence and claimed to be the second coming of the Messiah. 

That belief set Ahmadis at odds with mainstream Muslims, who maintain that no messiah or prophet has succeeded Muhammad.

They are concentrated in Pakistan, Southeast Asia and Africa, with just 30,000 Ahmadis residing in the United States. In Southern California they have two mosques, one in Chino, the other in Hawthorne.

In Pakistan, Ahmadis are not considered Muslims, and they are barred from voting. Attacks on the community in 2010 in Pakistan left 99 dead.  Since 1984 the khalifa, or successor to the Promised Messiah, has resided in London.  Security at the Montage was Israel-heavy.

“This cannot stop us from doing our assigned task,” Ahmad, who is the fifth khalifa, said during a press conference before his appearance. “We are the true Islam.”

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