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The mosque complex occupies the site of what used to be a large milk bottling plant and incorporates quite a lot of the original building, with the former chimneys being marble clad to become minarets, although the mosque proper is new build and described as one of the largest in western Europe. They were rather full of how many tons of concrete, reinforcing steel and marble went into the thing.

The big surprise was that this complex was not built for Moslems at large, but as the headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Community (http://www.alislam.org/), a community which claims tens of millions worldwide, although in at least one place the claim goes up to 160 million, or 10% of the total. In any event a strong showing given that they have only been going for a little over 100 years. One fly in the ointment is that some other Muslims do not think that these Muslims qualify, possibly finding their belief in a Messiah who started his ministry in 1889 in northern India obnoxious. There have been some ugly incidents.

The visit was well organised. There were exhibitions, videos and refreshments. We were taken around, in a small group, by a very pleasant & competent young lady; a young lady dressed mainly in black and whose seriousness reminded me of that of the young lady who took us around the Florence Synagogue (see October 4th 2008). And, just as at Florence, it had been deemed necessary to have airport style scanning machinery at the entrance, although it was not turned on yesterday. But there the resemblance ended; while the synagogue was quite like a Christian church, the mosque was nothing like one. Two very large and empty spaces, the grand one with a dome for the men and the more comfortable one for the women. Nicely done but bare, although a lot of attention had been paid to matters ecological and audiovisual, the ladies' room getting a live feed from the mens' room.

One point of interest for a bookish person was their library, an eclectic mix of religious, computing and general. Good coverage of all the big religions. I think I even spotted a Koran in Polish. But the thing that was new to me was multi volume books with the spinal decorations running across all the volumes, a wheeze which went rather well with their colourful taste in cover design.

Back home we were amused to learn that FIL used to take parties of student nurses from the Maudsley there during the late fifties, as part of their hygiene module. Presumably, at that time, the place was a model of dairy hygiene & efficiency.