On 29 April 2026, some 500 police officers descended on the headquarters of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL) in Crewe, England, launching a dramatic raid that ignited months of turmoil. In its wake came a tangle of accusations and rebuttals—authorities alleging abuses, devotees and lawyers contesting every charge, and hostile groups attacking the Crewe premises while shouting Islamophobic and racist slogans. This volume offers the first comprehensive study of AROPL. It traces the movement’s emergence from Shi‘i Islam while examining the bold theological departures that set it apart from mainstream Islamic traditions: its acceptance of reincarnation, its advocacy of LGBTQ+ inclusion, its reimagining of sacred symbols, and its rejection of certain ritual obligations. Several chapters reconstruct AROPL’s distinctive doctrinal architecture. Others provide a detailed account of the 2026 raid and its aftermath. By situating AROPL within wider debates on religious pluralism, legitimacy, authority, and the marginalization of minority faiths, this book illuminates the pressures shaping new religious movements and the forces arrayed against them.

Massimo Introvigne is one of the leading international scholars of new religious movements and the managing director of CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions in Torino, Italy. He has written more than 70 books on the sociology of religion and religious pluralism. In 2011, he served as the OSCE (Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe) Representative for combating racism, xenophobia, and religious intolerance. 

Karolina Maria Kotkowska is an Assistant Professor in Cultural and Religious Studies at the Institute of Comparative Studies of Civilizations at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on esotericism and new religious movements. She is the author or editor of monographs and of over forty scholarly articles.

Márk Nemes, deputy director of CESNUR and a lecturer at the Hungarian Academy of Arts and at the Hungarian Baptist Theological Seminary, Budapest, specializes in art theory, methodology, and the study of new religious movements, with particular attention to mythmaking, eschatology, and new theological narratives.