Reproducing and Performing Diaspora through Ijtema: The Ahmadiyya Community in Finland

What is it about?

It is ethnographic research exploring how the Ahmadiyya Muslim diaspora enacts and reproduces itself through the yearly Ijtema (congregation) in the face of displacement and persecution. In simple terms, the Ijtema is a structured yearly competitive Ahmadiyya event where participants display the religious knowledge they acquire throughout the year. As a persecuted minority, the Ahmadiyya community utilizes the Ijtema to reaffirm its religious and cultural identity across generations in the diaspora through oratory, rhetoric, and poetry. Drawing on Harvey Whitehouse’s theory of modes of religiosity, this study examines how the event integrates doctrinal practices—such as structured rituals and religious education—with imagistic elements, including emotionally charged experiences that cultivate deep communal bonds. Thus, the Ijtema functions as a ritual space where religious knowledge is transmitted and communal fusion is achieved through various competitions utilizing memory functions and shared practices.

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