Ansarullah New Zealand held a most successful Qur’an Exhibition in Hamilton Gardens on 16th May 2015. This was the first exhibition held outside the Auckland region. Some 106 members of the local public took part, including the local Member of Parliament, Mr David Bennet.

A team of Ansar and Khuddam from Auckland, assisted by members from the Hamilton Branch, set up the display in a beautiful garden venue in the morning. Members of public started arriving even before the starting time of 10.30am to see the professionally displayed Qur’anic banners and well laid out 47 copies of the Holy Qur’an in different languages, including a sample of a copy in braille.

In addition to the display, the PowerPoint presentations were done my Maulana Shafiq Ur Rehman. He said the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community deemed it necessary to go out to the public to inform them of the true and peaceful nature of Islam as contained in the Holy Qur’an, against the background of conflicts and actions of ISIS, Boko Haram and other groups whose actions present very distorted and horrifying picture of Islam. He also talked of the authenticity of the text of the Qur’an, the recording of the revelations by the early scribes as they were revealed and subsequent collection of all writings in one volume of the Holy Qur’an which captured the complete and original passages revealed to the Holy Prophet Muhammad pbuh by angel Gabriel. This occasion also provided an interesting Q&A opportunity which the visitors seemed to relish as much as they enjoyed the refreshments served to them.

We received numerous positive comments from the visitors about the Exhibition.  Many of them said there were much wiser about the religion and were pleased they had come.

The exhibition closed at 3.30 pm. This was followed by a joint Zuhr & Asr prayers in the hall, before the team returned to Auckland.  

Our prayers and appreciation go to all those volunteers, young and old, who helped in the logistics, transportation, setting up, cooking and assisting in whatever manner to make this event a huge success. Amin.