Videos have emerged of people from across Europe and America recording pledges of allegiance to a secretive Islamic doomsday sect based in Crewe — just as its heavily fortified headquarters was raided by hundreds of police officers investigating allegations of rape, forced marriage and modern slavery against its self-declared “new Pope” leader.
The TikTok videos show would-be converts from Poland, Spain, France and the United States reading out formal statements declaring their faith in Imam Mahdi, professing that the Mahdis are “the proof of Allah” and pledging their allegiance to the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, known as AROPL. The group’s website directs prospective members to upload exactly such videos as the means of joining — a recruitment method that has continued even as the sect’s leader faces serious criminal allegations.
That leader is Abdullah Hashem, a 42-year-old Egyptian-American also known as Aba al-Sadiq, who was among ten suspects arrested when approximately 500 officers descended on Webb House, the group’s Grade II-listed £2 million compound in Crewe, in a coordinated operation supported by Europol, the Swedish Police Authority and the Irish Garda. Following a court hearing, a judge imposed interim slavery and trafficking risk orders on Hashem and four others. All ten suspects — seven men and three women in their thirties and forties from Mexico, the UK, the US, Spain, Egypt, Sweden and Italy — have since been bailed pending further inquiries.
The investigation was triggered after police were alerted in March about a woman now living in the Republic of Ireland who alleged she had been raped and sexually abused at the compound. All alleged offences relate to a single female victim during her membership of the group in 2023. Cheshire Police have emphasised that the investigation is not into the religion itself and that there is no wider risk to the public.
Hashem founded AROPL in 2015, having previously made documentaries exposing cults in the United States — a background that strikes many as strikingly ironic given what the group he subsequently built has become. He declares himself to be both the Mahdi, a saviour figure from Islamic end-times prophecy, and the rightful Pope, and has amassed more than 100,000 followers and subscribers across TikTok and YouTube. In one video addressed directly to Christians, he says: “Hear me and obey. I am a messenger sent to you from Jesus Christ. There is no one else but me that you are obliged to obey.” The camera then pans to a crowd chanting for him beneath a caption reading: “The new Pope is here.”
The sect blends Islamic theology with conspiracy theories involving the Illuminati and claims that aliens secretly control US presidents. Followers testify in videos that Hashem can perform miracles — making the moon disappear, resurrecting dead relatives, turning leaves into living animals and curing cancer. His scriptures instruct followers to donate their entire salaries, keeping only what is needed for basic living, and to sell their homes to fund his vision of a “divine” state. Former members who spoke to The Guardian described intense pressure to cut ties with family and the outside world. One woman said she handed over all her wedding gifts; another donated approximately £33,000.
Approximately 150 members currently live at Webb House, including families with children who are home-schooled on site. Residents nearby told the Daily Mail of an intimidating atmosphere, with beanie-wearing security guards — all AROPL members wear black beanies, which Hashem calls his “crown” — patrolling electric gates and directing bright torches at passers-by at night.
AROPL was previously based in Sweden, where 69 members had residency permits revoked after businesses linked to the group were found to have provided fraudulent visas, though the group’s lawyers deny this. The sect has charitable status in the United States and has an application pending before the UK Charity Commission. Mainstream Muslim groups have long distanced themselves from AROPL.
Hashem has denied the most serious allegations. “Nobody has ever been harmed, coerced — we don’t eat babies, we don’t take blood, none of this stuff is true,” he said in one video. His lawyers said members living at the Crewe centre are encouraged to maintain family links and that the group advocates mainstream NHS medical advice.
