At Friday prayers in Chino recently, about 220 men, including doctors, engineers, lawyers and scientists, crowded into a carpeted room listening to Shamshad's sermon. (The women, who are similarly accomplished, are kept strictly separate.)
Pakistan's only Nobel Prize winner, physicist Abdus Salam, was an Ahmadi who moved to Europe. His son-in-law, Dr. Hamid Rahman, is a member of the Chino mosque and an orthopedic surgeon.
He said there are at least 3,000 Ahmadis in California.
When the prayers ended, Naser Noor emerged to put on his shoes. The 39-year-old Rancho Cucamonga banker is originally from the city of Peshawar, a bastion of Islamic militancy.
"You never revealed your faith or it could blow up on you," he said. "When I went back in 2008, it was totally intimidating."
A video posted on YouTube shows what appear to be police standing by as a group of men uses chisels and paint to remove Arabic and Koranic phrases from an Ahmadi mosque in the east-central city of Faisalabad. Meanwhile, distraught Ahmadis prostrate themselves in tearful prayer.
Such incidents have caused many to feel a deep sense of estrangement from their homeland.
"When I heard about the law making us non-Muslims, I felt I was no longer from Pakistan," said Anwer Khan, general secretary of the mosque. "I don't hate it because I am from there, but I lost my love for my country."
Still, he says, he has hope.
"We have 15,500 mosques all over the world. We opened 123 mosques this year. So who is winning?" he said.
"Hatred always loses. Love always wins."
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