The Ahmadi have had a presence in Britain since 1913. In 1926 money raised by Indian women selling their jewellery paid for the beautiful Fazl mosque in Putney, the oldest purpose-built mosque in London, which was used as a shelter during the Blitz. Today there are 30,000 followers in Britain.

They have always been keen on promoting the positive side of Islam. Many Londoners will recognise the slogan "love for all, hatred for none", which occasionally appears on buses, but the 21st century has brought a new need for public relations. As Dr Basharat Nazir, the UK press secretary, says: "Since 9/11 people have become frightened of Islam. We recognise and appreciate that. We're saying there is an issue, but this is not what true Islam is." He laughs: "When we started collecting for the poppies three years ago people were worried — they thought we were up to something else."

The Ahmadiyyas believe that Islam has been distorted down the centuries, and in addition to their opposition to religious violence they place great emphasis on questioning and learning. Because of this they came to be highly literate and were disproportionately well-placed when partition came to India.

"We were very much involved in the creation of Pakistan," says Rafiq Hayat, national president of the Ahmadiyya in Britain. "At that stage the community had a lot of influence." 

All this came to end under President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was "sucked in by the mullahs" and had the Ahmadis declared non-Muslim — something, Hayat says, he had no authority to do. Many Muslims today do not consider them Muslims, although theologically they are perhaps closer to mainstream Islam than, for example, Baptists or Quakers are to Catholic Christianity. Perhaps a better comparison is with mainstream Judaism and Christianity in the first centuries after Christ; maybe the Ahmadiyyas will one day separate to form an entirely different faith.

The irony is that the Ahmadiyyas are exactly what optimistic liberals hope and imagine Muslims in general to be. When Muslims deny them as co-religionists they provide an argument for Westerners who say that Islam is incompatible with secular, pluralist democracies. Many Muslims appreciate this, but there are problems.