At an Islamic gathering of women in Hampshire, the largest of its kind in the UK, Tooba Khokhar hears from Ayesha, who tells of her family’s persecution
Saturday 01 August 2026
When she was 10 years old, Ayesha received a call from her father. It was a Friday afternoon, and he had gone to pray at the mosque as usual, but this ime he had called to say the building was under attack.
An hour after that call, Ayesha’s family learnt that her father had been shot in the head, with shrapnel wounding his abdomen. The attackers had even opened fire at the ambulance he was in, but the driver managed to get them to safety. Her brother, meanwhile, had sought refuge in the mosque’s basement.
Ayesha’s family are Ahmadi Muslims, a minority reformist movement within Islam who face severe persecution in countries such as Pakistan, where Ayesha is from.
On 28 May 2010, terrorists from Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan attacked two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, killing 94 people and injuring over 100 others, including Ayesha’s father.
Everything changed for Ayesha after the attack. Her friends at school discovered she was an Ahmadi Muslim, which she had previously managed to keep private. Her teachers began treating her differently: her English teacher told her she should become “a real Muslim”, while another teacher was overheard saying “animals were better” than Ahmadis.
The turning point came a year after the mosque attacks, when her family home in Lahore was directly targeted by gunmen who were shooting from close range.
Now 26, Ayesha, whose family sought refuge in the UK over a decade ago, was one of the thousands of Ahmadi Muslims who gathered in Alton, Hampshire, last weekend for Jalsa Salana, the UK’s largest Islamic gathering. The gathering, run by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, marked its 60th year.
Ayesha describes the event as “liberating”. Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community travel from across the UK and abroad to hear addresses by His Holiness Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, worldwide head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.
The event is also attended by MPs, bishops, local councillors and faith leaders, with heightened security measures in place after safety concerns caused a religious convention in Suffolk to end early.
Categories: Ahmadis, Ahmadis And Pakistan, Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Pakistan, Religious persecution