Meet the Doomsday Cult Taking Over the World

• The leader of a doomsday cult in Crewe, England, called the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, claims we are "hours" away from a "flood of blood."
• The "Messiah" lives with over 200 followers and tells them to sell their homes and follow him. They refer to him as "Master."
• Abdullah Hashem claims to be the "long-awaited savior of mankind" who has performed miracles such as resurrecting people from the dead.
• "I’ll show you a way to kill him with no one knowing about it,” Hashem told a follower whom he asked to kill someone.
• According to several former members, Hashem has sex with women in the group and coerces them into sexual acts. He also arranges marriages.
• Hashem also talks about space aliens, the Illuminati, and human-sized rabbits that live on other planets who keep humans as pets.
• The leader takes blood from new members for a loyalty oath. He mixes it all in a jar that he stores in a replica of the Ark of the Covenant.
• The cult reaches 120 million people on two satellite TV stations, 48 social media channels, and several YouTube channels in five languages.

Two young men from Mooresville, Indiana, infiltrated cults and made documentaries to expose them. Their work was covered in Wired and local outlets, at the University of Indianapolis, and by FOX News's Angela Ganote. Now they run one of the largest doomsday cults in the world.

Be Scofield is a prominent cult reporter who exposed Love Has Won which led to the hit HBO series. She is the author of Hunting Lucifer: One Reporter's Search for Cults and Demons. Her work is cited by the NY Times, Rolling Stone, People, Netflix, and more. Please leave a tip $$.

By BE SCOFIELD

4/21/25

"I am inviting you to the seventh and final covenant between God and mankind," Abdullah Hashem tells his followers in a speech inside an orphanage turned cult headquarters. The compound is in Crewe, England, just outside of Manchester. "Accepting this covenant is the only thing that will save you from the punishment which is about to come down upon mankind. Covid was only the beginning of that punishment. More plagues and diseases will be unearthed and unleashed upon you."

Hashem is wearing all black and a black beanie that partially covers his eyes. He has a greying beard and mustache with long hair draping out from under his hat. In front of him sit around 70 followers who stare up at him on a tall podium. They, too, are all dressed in black. He delivers his doomsday prediction with authority in a deep, resounding voice.

"Accepting this covenant is the only thing that will save you from the punishment..."

"Strange illnesses that were never seen before will fall down to the earth with comets and meteors," Hashem continues. "Sicknesses that are worse than the Black Death will sweep the globe. Wars will cover the entire globe. People will eat people out of hunger. The beasts of the earth will turn against man." In another video, he warns of a "flood of blood" coming. "Mere hours or days away from a full flood pouring on the face of the earth. It is not a flood of water; it is a flood of blood."

According to this self-proclaimed messiah, we are undoubtedly living in the end times. Each era in history has been guided by prophetic figures such as Noah or Jesus. Because man is sinful, the covenant is broken and must be renewed. Now God has sent Abdullah Hashem as the Mahdi, a divine messenger who appears in the last days to restore peace and justice according to Islamic tradition.

"We believe you have to believe in him to attain salvation, but you also have to have obedience to him so we can create a utopian society for everyone on earth," Caroline Hoeren, the group's head of legal, said in a talk. New members are required to publicly "pledge allegiance" to Hashem. Thousands of people around the world have taken to TikTok and social media to recite the oath. "Upon this I shall live. Upon this I shall die. And upon this I shall be resurrected again," the statement concludes. Following the pledge, members are required to "actively spread the truth and help bring as many souls as possible to the true religion."

"We believe you have to believe in him to attain salvation."

Hashem's website states believers must support him "with everything they have." In one video he says, "We're looking for people that are willing to sell their homes, come be a part of the community, and follow me." Hashem asks them to "leave behind their own lives of self-interest" and says they are required to "support God with their wealth." In one talk he explains how followers should prioritize him and the mission over their families. Many have sold their homes and donated all their money to their prophet. "Those who own properties such as houses or land must sell it in order to donate it to the cause of the establishment of a Divine Just State," Hashem states in his book. "Supporting the Qaim comes by any means necessary.” One talk by Hashem is called "The Mahdi Forbids Personal Wealth."

Abdullah describes his doomsday prophecies

Hashem paces in front of a fire at night with over 40 disciples, all dressed in black, listening intently. "If you truly believe, then there shouldn't be any price that you wouldn't pay to come and support me and carry this burden," he tells the group in a serious tone. "There's no other way to support God other than to come and support you," a female devotee responds.

"I saw him resurrect my wife from the dead," a follower of Hashem says in a video. "You have to have faith that I can bring her back to life with the power of God," he told him. The group has over two dozen videos posted attesting to his ability to perform miracles. Others claim he healed their terminal cancer or incurable illnesses. Hashem made the moon disappear, one woman says. Another claims he saw angels flying across the sky to testify for him. "I saw him turn leaves into living animals," a woman says.

A former senior member, "Yasir," who followed Hashem for ten years and lived in the U.K. compound for several years, told me during an interview that Hashem had arranged many marriages of members in the group. "Someone new would come in, and he'd pair them," he told me. The group discusses Hashem arranging marriages in their videos.

"There's no other way to support God other than to come and support you."

Hashem was coercing women into sex, according to several former members. "Mylan" (alias) lived with Hashem and his community in Germany for four years. "Two women had sex with Abdullah in Germany," he told me. "One was married, the other was single. They filed complaints against him with the police, saying he manipulated and coerced them".

Another man named Franck, who lived in the German community, created a website exposing Hashem. "When a brother and his wife decided to leave the community because Abdullah sexually abused her several times and other sisters, I was one of the first to be aware of why they were leaving," writes Franck. According to him, Hashem required a married woman to perform oral sex on him to be forgiven for sexual thoughts he said she had about other members. "Then he told her that if she reveals this to anyone, she will lose her soul, her daughter will kill herself by falling and breaking her neck, her husband will die, but she will stay alive," Franck says.

"Several women who left the community say that he was sexual with them," Yasir told me. Hashem has been married since 2012 and has four kids. Yasir said six years ago there was a YouTube channel with several videos from women alleging sexual misconduct on Hashem's part. He alleges Hashem required members to perform sexual acts in front of other members as well. Another former follower alleges that Hashem made him perform sexual acts with another man within the group.

Hashem claims in his book Goal of the Wise that paradise refers to earth and that “there is no right or wrong.” He writes that within this paradise, boys are “also for sex” for both “men and the women.”

"A flood of blood is coming"

"Sell your home and follow me"

Yasir and another former follower told me that Hashem coerced a woman into getting an abortion. Tasleem joined the community and was soon paired with a husband by Hashem. When she got pregnant, she was "over the moon" excited. When the husband left the community, Hashem allegedly made her terminate the pregnancy. The group put out a 30-minute video claiming God terminated the baby in the form of a "miracle" miscarriage. "The man who apostated asked her to keep the baby, but obviously we know this community belongs to God," a follower said in the video.

"Abdullah told me to put my arm in a cutting machine," Mylan told me during an interview. "He told another member to jump from a third-story building and someone else to jump into the fire." Yasir told me Hashem made him go to a strip club and drink alcohol and filmed him. Both things were challenging for him given his traditional Muslim upbringing. He says Hashem then told him to go to a prostitute, which he refused.

"The highest members of the sect are asked to report everything to Abdullah Hashem regarding the actions of other members," Franck says. "When a member is suspected of hypocrisy or doubt, he is spied on and watched by the other members by order of Abdullah."

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Space Aliens and Conspiracies

Hashem lives with over 200 followers in the former Webb House orphanage in Crewe, near Manchester. It's been transformed into a global media hub. His group, the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light, broadcast their message to over 120 million people in Africa, the Middle East, and Europe on two satellite TV stations. They also have several YouTube channels and 48 social media accounts in five languages. The group has a daily morning show called "Rise Up" where believers share their testimonies.

The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light is a quasi-Islamic new age movement that radically deviates from traditional Muslim beliefs. Women are not required to wear head coverings, praying daily or weekly is not required, LGBTQ members are allowed, and they claim the holy Kaaba is in Petra, Jordan, not Mecca. Hashem calls scholars of Islam "the worst creatures under the sky" and attacks them regularly in his talks. He also claims 99% of Islam is wrong. One researcher describes the group as “a syncretic faith mixing psychedelic consumption, New Age beliefs, soul reincarnation, ancient Egyptian gods, and space aliens.”

"All those who have obeyed me have obeyed all the prophets and messengers."

As a result of their unorthodox beliefs, members have been harassed, threatened, and imprisoned in Muslim countries for "denigrating Islam." 18 followers were arrested in Algeria, with three being sentenced to one year in prison and the rest given six months. 13 members were tried in Iran for "crimes against the state," including “causing corruption in the land” and “stirring propaganda against the regime.” In 2023, followers clashed with unruly border guards in Turkey as they tried to flee into Bulgaria to escape religious persecution. Several followers have allegedly been killed and tortured recently for their "faith" in Abdullah.

In his book The Goal of the Wise, which is the "sacred text" of the religion, Hashem delves into an array of conspiracies and beliefs about aliens. He claims George Washington was actually Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati. The book also claims George W. Bush was the grandson of the occult author Aleister Crowley. Hashem teaches that prior to Jesus being crucified, he "swapped souls" with Simon of Cyrene. Jesus then married Mary Magdalene, and she gave birth to their child, Prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism. The body of Jesus was crucified, but it was Simon's soul that suffered through it.

"The vicegerent of God is above the laws."

Hashem claims in his book that there are aliens having sex with humans and creating hybrid babies on the planet. He says many of the unsolved murders and abductions are caused by these aliens. "You can tell when someone is overtaken by one of these species because of their eyes," Hashem says in a video called "Different Types of Aliens & Planets." "This is one of the easiest ways to find out if somebody is inhabited by an extraterrestrial mind or if the person is a shapeshifter."

He also states that humans are kept as pets on other planets. "There is an intelligent species on that planet, but they resemble rabbits on our planet," he says in a video. "Rabbits that wear clothes, speak, have a language, have a culture, have a civilization, have homes, have jobs. And their pets are the humans."

Followers claim miracles including bringing back the dead

A Suspicious Disappearance

German native Lisa Wiese married Abdullah Hashem's brother after joining the group and converting to the faith in 2012. Wiese lived with Hashem and the group in the early years when they were based in Dokki, Egypt, near Cairo. She relocated with the group in 2015 to Germany, where she lived for several years.

In March 2019, Wiese traveled to India with Ali Muhammad, one of Hashem's closest 12 disciples. Mylan told me it was Hashem who sent Wiese to India with Muhammad. Hashem referred to him as "my stone." Muhammad returned, but Wiese never did, and he fled the country before ever speaking to police. In 2022, three years after her disappearance, news reported that Interpol in India was in contact with German authorities. Her family had been speaking to the media for years as well. "She wouldn't have left without telling us," her sister told the press.

Yasir told me that Hashem once asked him and another member to kill a man who had an affair with the wife of a follower. "I'll show you a way to kill him with no one knowing about it," Hashem told them over a private group chat. When they refused, he said to them, "You have no faith." Yasir said there was another disturbing incident. “He sent his believers in Turkey to use knives to kill an Iraqi guy who had left and was making videos exposing Hashem."

In a screenshot of a group chat, Hashem tells the husband, "Or you will kill her," referring to the man's own wife. Hashem is grilling him on what sexual activities his wife partook in. The husband responds using the term "master" for Hashem, which is common for his followers.

Franck alleges Hashem would ask members if they would kill for him. "One day while I was in Abdullah Hashem's office with Brother Marc, he first asked Marc, 'If I ask you to kill Franck by planting a knife in his throat, would you do it?' Then he asked me, 'If I order you to plant a knife in Marc's throat, would you do it?' I said, ''I don't know.' So he replied that this is not a good answer."

Yasir knew Lisa Wiese. He described her as a "very nice person, a stable, kind woman." He said over time Wiese was broken down, as was common with Hashem's followers. By 2019 she was disenchanted and wanted out. Yasir said Hashem was defaming Wiese in the months before her disappearance. And then in March of that year, she traveled to India with Hashem's closest disciple. "He would do anything for Abdullah," Yasir told me.

"I'll show you a way to kill him with no one knowing about it." - Abdullah Hashem

The ex-wife of the group's co-leader, Joseph McGowen, recently spoke out on a TikTok live conversation. McGowen is the "Bishop" of America but lives with Hashem in the Crewe compound. The pair can often be seen together in videos. His wife said Hashem's followers would do anything he asked, including suicide. She also said the supposed miracles were bogus. She watched a woman who was sick get better as she went to the hospital, not because of the miracles he claimed to have performed on her.

Mylan also filed complaints with the authorities. He told me it was because of his complaints and the complaints of the women who were sexually abused that led Hashem to flee Germany for Sweden.

They Infiltrated Cults; Now they Run One

Who are the two men behind the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light? Their past reveals an explosive secret to their cult-building success. It began in the late 1990s in Mooresville, Indiana, a small town suburb of Indianapolis. Hashem and McGowen attended the local high school and bonded over filmmaking, comedy, and esoteric ideas. They soon became best friends. Hashem then went to Indiana University for comparative religions, and McGowen attended nearby Ivy Tech, studying sociology. The young men would share a strange destiny.

In 2003 Hashem wrote and directed a 50-minute comedy movie called "Apache Tears," and it played at the local Regal Cinemas. One of the stars was a 22 year-old Abbi Crutchfield, who would go on to be a well-known comedian and TV personality, appearing on Hulu and NBC, among others. She told a local reporter the film "has a lot of twists and turns...and deals with dark matters in a light way." 

The pair's first venture into filmmaking was a series of short videos called "Duddit's Adventures" about a character based on McGowen. Next, the two men teamed up for a film on Bigfoot, one of the many odd subjects they were into.

Things took a turn in 2005 when Hashem asked McGowen to join him in Las Vegas to infiltrate the Rael cult annual convention. Their plan to pose as curious students making a film for class worked. They got in with their cameras. "The duo carried digital recorders and posed as hopeful inductees making a student film," Wired magazine reported. "What they really wanted was to tape incriminating activities of a group they suspected was coercing people to join the organization to get their money." Hashem told Wired he first heard of Rael when they famously claimed to have cloned a baby in 2002. The film, Little Claudy, premiered in November 2006 at Indiana University, where Hashem was attending.

Wired further reported in 2007 that the Rael cult was suing the two filmmakers and Indiana University for one million dollars. The two men had signed an agreement saying all footage belonged to the Raelians and could only be used with their permission. They also alleged the filmmakers semi-blackmailed them by demanding Rael step down, admit his lies, and return all donations, or they would release the film.

The two amateur filmmakers appeared on an Indianapolis FOX 59 news segment to discuss the documentary. "I'm a weird guy myself, and I'm interested in weird things," Hashem told Angela Ganote. "We actually worked on a documentary before about the Yeti, Bigfoot, so we decided the next step would be the UFO cult." Their hometown paper, which had previously profiled "Apache Tears" and the men's foray into stand-up comedy, also covered their Rael film. The Indianapolis pop-culture magazine Nuvo ran a cheeky cover story called "The title of this story is NOT UFO sex cult sues IUPUI."

Riding on the success of their first film, the men set up Falseprophetbusters.com and began searching for their next story. They soon found it in a Las Vegas man by the name of Prophet Yahweh. He was the leader of a Black Hebrew Israelite movement and claimed he could summon UFOs in the sky. He referred to himself as a "Master Salvation Teacher" and told his followers they could only be saved through him. ABC News even filmed him appearing to summon a UFO on camera. Once again, local news featured their new documentary on the front page.

"We want them done. We want to keep kids from being sucked in by this."

“This is for us to continue slaying these dragons,” Hashem told the press. “This is leading into a career. We’re really building up our reputation for debunking the false prophet, UFO phenomenon." The men were clear in their denunciation. "We don't want their money; we want them done," Hashem said. "We want to keep kids from being sucked in by this." McGowen echoed him. "I want this out there so parents can see what's going on and protect kids." Hashem said, "We are like CIA agents for God; we're on the front lines, and we have to do what's necessary to expose these frauds."

With film school in sight and media covering their work, it seemed Hashem was on track for a career in film. Things devolved in 2007, however, when his direction took a turn toward conspiracies. McGowen and Hashem traveled the country extensively for their next creative production, "The AntiChrist Dajjal will be a Reptilian ShapeShifter." In 2008 Hashem produced "The Arrivals," which "brought to light the deception of the system of the New World Order." It claimed most of the major pop stars were "tools for the Illuminati." His films were regarded as "YouTube phenomena" by the online truth movement of the time.

In a 2011 interview, Hashem claims the authorities began investigating him for his films. "I learned that the FBI raided the house of my former web admin living in the States and seized all computers and materials relating to my old site," he said. "I was informed that they were questioning her about me and about this sudden surge of anti-government/Illuminati videos, and the FBI asked if I was a sheikh and questioned my whereabouts."

Around 2008, McGowen allegedly had a falling out with Hashem. A series of confessional blog posts he had made were reposted online. It's unclear how long the split lasted, but in 2017 McGowen made a series on Pizzagate that "reached millions around the world" before it was "snuffed out." His next series was called "Globalist Purge." In one of his posts, he warned of Hashem's dark side. "Abdullah has a God complex," he wrote. "He kept me down and used many mental and emotional tactics to make me come back to him whenever I tried to get away."

Abdullah Becomes the Mahdi

In late 2008, Hashem left the U.S. for his home country of Egypt. Mylan said it was due to the Rael lawsuit and death threats they had made towards him. In Egypt, Hashem joined a group of young men who followed Ahmed al-Hassan, a self-proclaimed messiah and Mahdi who arose in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq in 2003. The group was called White Banners of the East. Hashem claims to have helped build out their social media and website, Saviorofmankind.com. McGowen made it to Egypt at some point as well and also became a follower of al-Hassan.

In 2015, Hashem broke off from al-Hassan and launched his own splinter group called the Black Banners of the East. Most of the men followed him in his new effort. "I went forward in 2015 for the very first time, and I claimed that I was Abdullah in the will," Hashem says. "And that I am coming to you with the authority of the will of the Prophet Muhammad." Hashem lived with a group of a few dozen others from around the world in a multi-story apartment.

"I'm the one who came to you displaying dozens of miracles that hundreds of people testified to."

Hashem soon relocated to Germany, where he continued to build a following. They lived in Bergische-Claudbach and Köln. But now Hashem was claiming to be Ahmed al-Hassan's "spiritual son." Hashem's book, The Goal of the Wise is in large part "dialogues" between himself and al-Hassan. These are fanciful and fabricated conversations about everything from alien/human hybrids and Bigfoot to a convoluted history of humans on earth. In 2015, al-Hassan's group issued a "Declaration of Dissociation" from Hashem, which they renewed in 2023. They denounced the "imposters, liars, and hypocrites, including Abdullah Hashem, Ali al-Ghuraifi, and their group (The Black Banners)."

In Germany, Hashem and his followers operated three restaurants, a bar, and an antique store. Mylan said members worked 17-hour days for only $200 a month. They'd often go to bed at 3 a.m. only to wake up at 7 a.m. to start over again. “Abdullah would get angry and hysterical when the earnings of the restaurants were low," Mylan told me. "He was greedy, always wanting more and more money.” He said Hashem drove fancy cars and wore expensive jewelry. Mylan said there were around 250 members living near the group in Germany.

In 2019, the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light relocated to Sweden. The group purchased a farm and homestead near Orebro and bought several homes nearby. They hoped to establish their utopian community, which they called the "Divine Just State." Yasir says that while in Sweden, the group was using DMT, hash, and LSD. He said the members shared their experiences of the drugs with him. Soon after arriving, a story appeared in the local press stating locals had concerns about who the new community was. A few years later, it was reported the farm had been raided by SWAT and police. Over the coming years, there were more raids on the compound and homes.

"In my opinion, this appears to be a doomsday cultic group with megalomaniacal aspirations." - Dr. Janja Lalich, cult expert

The police captain, Per Lundback, was interviewed in 2023, and he said the group was setting up fraudulent businesses to employ their members. "We also received a legal aid request from German police who wanted help interrogating some of those who lived there, and it concerned a murder in India," he said. They also had received "several reports" about "suspected crimes."

In 2022 the group purchased the former Webb House orphanage in Crewe, England, for 2 million pounds. The story was covered by local media after the group announced it wanted to remove the historic railings and gate on the property. The building soon became their headquarters and the foundation of their global proselytizing efforts. Hashem lives with over 200 followers in the gated compound where everyone works for free.

"If a person chooses to live with the divinely appointed Messenger in his community, they must accept all the laws and judgments which are placed by that Messenger." - Abdullah Hashem

In March 2024, Yasir saw a detailed PowerPoint presentation in the U.K. compound that laid out the group's plans to build a Rajneeshpuram-type commune in Nevada. "We will have our own police, laws, and guns; we will be like an Osho-type of community," the members said. The group is currently registered in Reno, NV, as a 501(c)(3) religious organization. According to their public financial records, they brought in 1.4 million in donations in 2023 and have assets worth over 4 million.

In 1979 a self-proclaimed Mahdi stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca with 500 armed men, holding tens of thousands hostage for several weeks. It ended in a bloodbath with over 400 followers and police being killed. Hashem speaks of finding his 313 chosen men, which is the same number of soldiers the Mahdi has in Islamic tradition. Perhaps it is in Nevada, with their talk of having weapons, where Hashem will raise his army.

Hashem and McGowen have taken elements of their films on Rael, Bigfoot, Prophet Yahweh, and conspiracies and blended them into an Islamic UFO doomsday cult that is determined to take over the world. "He knows the methods used by the film industry, how to play with music for the emotions, how to pass a message in the minds of the watchers with pictures; he also knows how to act himself," an ex-member warns.

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If you have any information regarding this story, please contact Be Scofield at [email protected]