WALKERSVILLE -- The zoning board of this Frederick County town adjourned without reaching a decision last night on a controversial proposal by a Muslim group to use a 224-acre tract of farmland as a religious retreat.

Although it was clear the board was leaning toward rejection of the request by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community when deliberations resume tonight, officials of the group remained publicly optimistic.

"I am hoping for the best," said Ahsanullah Zafar, president of the community, which has its headquarters in Silver Spring. "I know there is good in the hearts of men."

But the fate the proposal seemed clear from the early moments of last night's hearing, when Dan Thomas, the board chairman, said the Muslims' annual retreat, which could attract up to 10,000 people, was in fact a convention. The town's zoning laws prohibit a convention on agricultural land, even as a special exception, he noted.

Later in the evening, during a discussion about whether the project would meet water and sewer regulations, board member Vaughn Zimmerman said, "It's not like we're picking on anybody; it's a policy we have."

The religious nature of the group was never mentioned, but it was one reason that more than 100 residents turned out for the hearing. For several months, the Ahmadi have been conducting a campaign for the zoning change in this town of 6,000 by trying to distance themselves from images of violent Islamic extremism.

Imam Daud Hanif said the retreat, like the group itself, is peaceful. "We call it the Jalsa Salama," he said. "It is a function where the community's members from different parts of the country will participate."

Hanif said the group also wants to put a mosque on the grounds to be used by Ahmadi in nearby areas, as well as hold additional annual retreats, including one by a youth group that could bring in 2,000 people.

"We have tried to explain to them what we are, that our mission is a very peaceful mission," he said. "We are trying to do service wherever possible, wherever it is needed, voluntarily.

"We inculcate that teaching in our membership," Hanif added. "We all belong to one God. We are trying to bring every human being closer to God. ... As we are all one as human beings, we should have no trouble with each other. We should be living amicably in society."

Hanif said the Ahmadi specifically reject the idea of jihad as any sort of armed struggle, the theological underpinning of acts of terror attributed to Islamic terrorists. "Jihad should be within oneself," he said. "It is a war against tendencies within oneself that should be contained and made into good, to service to other human beings, to creating peace."

Whether this message had any effect on the people of Walkersville was not clear. "There has been a lot of sentiment against it," said Ralph Whitmore, the town's burgess, or mayor, since 1999.

"They have been around, talking to people, but I don't know if they have changed any minds," he said. "They have made clear they are not the usual Shiites or Sunnis. They have clarified themselves as something of the Mormons of the Muslims."

That is an apt description. As the Mormons point to Joseph Smith, the Ahmadi point to the revelations of a 19th-century prophet, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, as the basis for their religion. And, just as many more traditional Christians disagree with Mormon beliefs, many Muslims reject the positions of the Ahmadiyya.

Like the Mormons in the 19th century, the Ahmadi have also been the subject of persecution. Most in this country are refugees from Pakistan, driven out of that country by Islamic fundamentalists.

Much of the theological difference centers on the status of Ahmad, who died in 1908. The Ahmadi consider him an Islamic prophet, but many in mainstream Islam say there can be no prophet after Mohammed.

A 1974 Pakistani law proclaiming that Muslims are those "who believe in the finality of the Prophet Muhammad," was a basis for declaring that the Ahmadi are not Muslim - which led to much of the persecution they suffered.

Publicly, at least, most objections to the Ahmadi proposal focused on the number of people it would bring to this rural area. "The board is trying to do everything legal," said Whitmore, cognizant of the fact that any finding against the Ahmadi could raise constitutional questions about freedom of religion.

The Town Council would handle any appeal of the zoning board decision.

michael.hill@baltsun.com