Abstract

For religious minorities, collective rituals play a vital role in uniting participants into cohesive moral communities, especially in secularizing societies. The transmission of religious knowledge and the maintenance of identity pose significant challenges, especially for persecuted minorities like the Ahmadiyya. This ethnographic study explores the role of emotionally charged rituals in fostering identity fusion and lifelong loyalty within the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, a persecuted religious minority. Grounded in Harvey Whitehouse’s theory of modes of religiosity, the study focuses on the 2023 Jalsa Salana in Stuttgart, Germany. The study examines how the Jalsa Salana reinforces fused identities and extreme group bonding through participant observation, interviews, and qualitative content analysis. Despite facing significant challenges as a “minority within a minority,” the Ahmadiyya community has maintained a strong presence in Germany since the 1940s. The Jalsa Salana, an annual congregation, is pivotal in aligning personal and group identities through spiritually charged experiences and enhancing social cohesion. This study provides insights into the mechanisms of social cohesion within minority religious groups, emphasizing the transformative power of collective rituals in maintaining and strengthening religious identity and social structure.