The Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden, South London, is Britain’s largest mosque complex, with capacity for 10,000 worshippers. Completed in 2003, it was commissioned and constructed by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, an Islamic revival movement originating in British Indian Punjab in the late-19th century. Now with an estimated 10-20 million adherents worldwide, it has a strong missionary tradition. In 1926, the community established the Fazl Mosque, Britain’s first purpose-built mosque, also in South London.
Historically, mosque building in Britain was characterized by the appropriation of existing structures, such as houses and disused churches, but as the Muslim population expanded in the post-colonial era, drawn to inner cities in response to labor shortages, mosques became progressively grander in scale and scope. Baitul Futuh, which means “House of Victories” in Arabic, is emblematic of this ambition, occupying the site of a former milk bottling plant on industrial backlands sandwiched between railway lines.
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