Islam in Sweden

Nasir Mosque, first mosque in Sweden, was built in Gothenburg in the 1970s by the Ahmadiyya Movement.

Gothenburg Mosque

Pre-Islamic Arabic coins originating from the Middle East have been found at Iron Age burial sites.[8] Archaeological findings have also shown Viking contact with Islam dating back to the 7th–10th centuries, when the Vikings seem to have been trading with the medieval Islamic world, among others.

The Swedish census in 1930 listed 15 people as belonging to the group "Muslims and other Asian faiths". Although the number of Muslims themselves are not known, one estimate suggests a maximum of 11 but could have been as low as 2.[9]

In modern Sweden, the first registered Muslim groups were Finnish Tatars who emigrated from Finland and Estonia in the 1940s. Islam began to have a noticeable presence in Sweden with immigration from the Middle East beginning in the 1970s.[10] Further waves of immigrants came to Sweden from the former Yugoslav republics, and more recently from Somalia.

Sweden has a number of mosques providing the Muslim communities in Sweden places of worship.[11] The first mosque in Sweden was the Nasir Mosque, built in 1976 in Gothenburg by the Ahmadiyya. It was followed by the Malmö Mosque, 1984, and later, the Uppsala Mosque in 1995. More mosques were built during the 2000s, including the Stockholm Mosque (2000) and the Fittja Mosque (completed 2007), among others. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Libya have financially supported the constructions of some of the largest Mosques in Sweden.[12][13]

The first meeting between Muslim youth organizations across Europe first took place in Sweden in 1995, in which the Foreign Ministry of Sweden worked with Sveriges Unga Muslimer to hold an international conference titled "Islam in Europe." This led to the creation of the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO).[14]

As of the year 2000, an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 people of Muslim background lived in Sweden, or 3.5% of total population;[15] thereby included is anyone who fits the broad definition of someone who "belongs to a Muslim people by birth, has Muslim origin, has a name that belongs in the Muslim tradition, etc." regardless of personal religious convictions,[16] of whom about 100,000 were second-generation immigrants (born in Sweden or immigrated as children).[17] In Sweden registration by personal belief is not common and is normally against the law, thus only figures of practising Muslims belonging to an Islamic community can be reported. In 2009, the Muslim Council of Sweden reported 106,327 registered members.[6]

In December 2008, riots broke out in Malmö in the Herrgården section of Rosengård, when the landlord did not renew the contract for the premises of a local mosque. Angry youths occupied the premises for three weeks, at the end of which police coming to evict the occupiers were confronted by about 30 occupiers, including radical Muslims and activists affiliated with the radical leftist Antifaschistische Aktion.[18] The occupiers attacked police with pipe bombs and rocks and the incident rapidly escalated, with protestors arriving from other cities and officials calling in riot police.[19][18] Rioters set fire to cars, wagons, kiosks, building sheds, recycling stations, and bicycle sheds.[20] After two nights of rioting, 200 adult Malmö residents organized by the Islamiska kulturföreningen (“Islamic Cultural Forum”) moved into the streets to mediate, causing the youthful rioters to desist.[19]

In September 2018, the mosque in Alby, Botkyrka via its Green Party member Ali Khali delivered an offer to the Moderate Party where the 3000 votes of the worshippers would be given to the Moderate Party in exchange for planning permission to build a new mosque. The Green Party forced Khalil to leave the party after the finding was made public by Swedish Television.[21]

In September 2018, the Social Democratic Party in Karlshamn revoked the membership of a Muslim politician after translations from Arabic showed that the politician had campaigned for the supremacy of Islam over Swedish customs, against vulnerable children being taken care of by social services and that women with Arabic heritage should wear the Islamic veil. The statements were verified with interpreters.[22]

In April and May 2019, five senior members of the Swedish Muslim community were detained by the Swedish Migration Agency by orders of the Säpo security police.[23]

In December 2019, the municipality of Skurup banned Islamic veils in educational institutions. Earlier, the municipality of Staffanstorp approved a similar ban.[24]

In 2018, preschools in Biskopsgården district were reprimanded by the Municipality of Gothenburg after Göteborgs-Posten newspaper had found out that 4 out of 5 kindergartens stated they were willing to force girls in their care to wear the Islamic hijab if the parents requested it.[25] The newspaper found a willingness by preschools to force at 27 of the 40 investigated institutions in Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm.[25]

The percentage off self-identified Muslims in Sweden from 1930 until 2016

Although there are no official statistics of Muslims in Sweden, estimates count 200,000—250,000 people of Muslim background in 2000[15] (i.e. anyone who fits the broad definition of someone who "belongs to a Muslim people by birth, has Muslim origin, has a name that belongs in the Muslim tradition, etc."[16]), roughly estimated close to 100,000 of which are second-generation.[17] Of the first-generation Muslims, 255,000 are thought to be Sunni, 5,000 Shi'ites, no more than 1,000 Ahmadiya, Alevi and other groups and probably no more than 5,000 converts – mainly women married to Muslim men.[26] In 2009 a US report stated that there are 450,000 to 500,000 Muslims in Sweden, around 5% of the total population, and that the Muslim Council of Sweden reported 106,327 officially registered members.[27] Swedish estimates are rather 350,000, including nominal Muslims and people from a Muslim background.

Such numbers do not imply religious beliefs or participation; Åke Sander claimed in 1992 that at most 40–50% of the people of Muslim background in Sweden "could reasonably be considered to be religious",[28] and in 2004, based on discussions and interviews with Muslim leaders, concerning second-generation Muslims born and raised in Sweden that "it does not seem that the percentage they consider to be religious Muslims in a more qualified sense exceeds fifteen percent, or perhaps even less".[29] Sander re-stated in 2004 that "we do not think it unreasonable to put the figure of religious Muslims in Sweden at the time of writing at close to 150,000".[30] Professor Mohammad Fazlhashemi at Umeå University estimates "a good 100,000".[31] About 25,000 are regarded as devout Muslims, visiting Friday prayers and practising daily prayers.

Muslims in Sweden most often originate from Iraq, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, the Iraqis being by far the largest group in 2015.[32] Most Iranians and Iraqis fled as refugees to Sweden during the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. The second-largest Muslim group consists of immigrants or refugees from Eastern Europe, particularly from former Yugoslavian countries, most of them being Bosniaks, who number 12,000. There is also a sizeable community of Somalis, who numbered 40,165 in 2011. They are followed by Muslim refugees from Syria and Somalia, two very rapidly growing groups. Two other groups, residing in Sweden for a decade longer, are people from Turkey and Lebanon.

Pew Research Center estimate differs from most other sources and lists the number of self-identified Muslims in Sweden at 810,000 (or 8.1% of the total population) for the year 2016.[33] About a third of these are believed to practice their religion.[34] In order to predict the number of Muslims in Sweden in the year 2050, they looked at three scenarios: zero migration, medium migration (with no new refugees, but same levels of other immigration as recently), and high migration (same total level as 2015-2016). In the year 2050 the number of Muslims in Sweden would be 1,130,000 (or 11.1% of the population) under the zero migration scenario, 2,470,000 (or 20.5% of the population) under the medium migration scenario, and 4,450,000 (or 30.6% of the population) under the high migration scenario.[33] Michael Lipka, editor at Pew, considers the zero and high migration scenarios unlikely. The prediction has been criticized by researchers for not considering that birth rates among immigrants is expected to decrease, and that many immigrants later migrate to other countries or return to their birth countries.[35] On the other hand, the prediction has not considered current asylum seekers waiting for decision, undocumented immigrants and people in a state of impediment to expulsion.[36]

In 2017 Swedish Security Police reported that the number of jihadists in Sweden had risen to thousands from about 200 in 2010.[37] Based on social media analysis, an increase was noted in 2013.[38] BBC reported in 2016 that more than 300 people in Sweden have gone to fight in Iraq and Syria, which makes Sweden a high exporter of jihadists per capita.[39]

Helena Benaouda, a Swedish Finnish woman who converted to Islam, attending a royal wedding. She was head of Muslim Council of Sweden 2004-2014.[40]

There are no official statistics on the exact number of Swedish converts to Islam, but Anne Sofie Roald, a historian of religions at Malmö University College, estimates the number of converts from the Church of Sweden to Islam to be 3,500 people since the 1960s. Roald further states that conversions are also occurring from Islam to the Church of Sweden, most noticeably by Iranians, but also by Arabs and Pakistanis.[41]

The first known convert to Islam was the famous painter Ivan Aguéli who was initiated into the Shadhiliyya order in Egypt in 1909. It was Aguéli who introduced the French metaphysician René Guénon to Sufism. Aguéli is more known among Sufis by his Muslim name Abdul-Hadi al-Maghribi. Other well-known Swedish converts to Islam are Tage Lindbom, Kurt Almqvist, Mohammed Knut Bernström and Tord Olsson. Lindbom, Almqvist and Olsson are also initiates into various Sufi orders. Bernström translated the Quran into Swedish in 1998.

Several mosques have been built in Sweden since the 1980s, with notable ones in Malmö (1984) and Stockholm (2000). The Bellevue Mosque and the Brandbergen Mosque in the 2000s came to public attention as recruitment and propaganda centers for Islamist terrorism.[42][43]

In recent years, Islamic places of worship have increasingly been subject to vandalism. Swedish historian Mattias Gardell from Uppsala University sent a survey to 173 mosques, with 106 responding. 59% reported being subject to some sort of physical attack.[44]

The following are some of the places of Islamic worship that can be found today in Sweden.

Mosque in Malmö

The beginning of nationwide Islamic (Sunni) institutions in Sweden dates back to the creation of FIFS (Förenade Islamiska Församlingar i Sverige) in 1973–1974. In 1982 and 1984 two splits, due to internal rivalries, cultural differences, personal conflicts and funding, brought to the creation of SMF (Svenska Muslimska Förbundet) and ICUS, today IKUS (Islamska Kulturcenterunionen i Sverige). Others national institutions are BHIRF (Bosnien-Hercegovinas Islamiska riksförbund), founded in 1995 by Bosnian refugees, IRFS (Islamiska Riksförbundet), also since 1995, and SIA (Svenska Islamiska Akademin), founded in 2000 by the former ambassador Mohammed Knut Bernström, with the task of establishing in the future an Islamic university in Sweden, charged with imam education. SIA also publishes since February 2001 the periodical Minaret in Swedish.

There exist also the women association IKF (Islamiska Kvinnoförbund i Sverige), the youth association IUF (Islamiska Ungdomförbundet i Sverige) and the imam association SIR (Sveriges Imamråd). IIF (Islamiska Informationföreningen) is a member association of FIFS aiming at providing information about Islam in Sweden; 1986–2000 it published Salaam, whose editorial board has always been dominated by women, mainly Swedish converts.

National and target organization have also created umbrella organizations in order to simplify their relationships to the state. FIFS and SMF have created in 1990 SMR (Sveriges Muslimska Råd), of which SUM is also member. The IKUS umbrella organization is named IRIS (Islamiska Rådet i Sverige) and includes also IKF, IUF and SIR. Above all, IS (Islamiska samarbetsrådet) deals with financial issues with the commission for state grants to religious communities (SST); it includes FIFS, SMF, IKUS, ISS and SIF.

Islamic Association in Sweden

Islamic organizations in the FIOE-IFiS network in Sweden

The Islamic Association in Sweden, (Arabic: الرابطة الأسلامية في السويد) (Swedish: Islamiska förbundet i Sverige, IFiS) was formed according to the records of the Swedish Tax Agency, the protocol of the constituent meeting of The Islamic Association in Sweden (IFiS) on January 27–28, 1995 in the presence of Ahmed Ghanem, Mostafa Kharraki, Mahmoud Aldebe, Zoheir Berrahmoune, Mahmoud Kalim and Sami al-Sarif.[52] The initiator is the Stockholm organisation Islamiska Förbundet i Stockholm, which runs Stockholm mosque and was found 1987.[53] IFiS headquarters are located at Stockholm Mosque.[54] According to the IFiS charter, it is a founding member in the Muslim Brotherhood-associated umbrella organisation Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe whose guidelines it follows.[54][55] It has started the following organisations, either alone or together with others:[56]

• Islamic Relief in Sweden
• Muslim Youth of Sweden
• Islamiska informationsföreningen (IIF) (tr: Islamic information society)
• Union of Muslim Students in Sweden (Al Khawarizmy),
• Imam's Association
• Sweden's Islamic Schools (SIS)
• Muslim Woman Association
• Sweden's Muslim Scouts
• New Moon Cultural Association
• Quran Reader Society
• Ibn Rushd Study Association
• Muslim Council of Sweden (SMR)[57][58][59]

Omar Mustafa is chairman of IFiS since 2011. On 7 April 2013 he was elected to the party committee of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which was noted by anti-racist magazine Expo as Mustafa, as chairman of IFiS, had invited Salah Sultan and Ragheb Al-Serjany both of whom had spread antisemitic views in al Jazeera interviews and that he also "likes" Egyptian imam Yousef Al-Qaradawi on Facebook.[60] During the Easter of 2013, IFiS invited Yvonne Ridley and Azzam Tamimi to a seminar to a conference it organised together with Ibn Rushd and Sveriges Unga Muslimer.[60] As a result of the discoveries, Mustafa left the Social Democratic Party committee and party.

As religion a few decades earlier was viewed as receding phenomenon, during the decade leading up to 2016 religion was again in the mainstream discourse due to international conflicts being interpreted in religious terms. In the last SOM survey in 2016 by Gothenburg University, the perception of Islam among the public had become more negative.[99]

In 2006, a survey by the SOM Institute showed that half the Swedish population was negative towards Islam, where 7% expressed a positive attitude, 40% were undecided and 53% were negative. The poll showed that 48% were positive towards Christianity, the most positively rated religion.[100]

In 2007, a study by the Integrationsverket government agency showed that 55% of respondents among the population of Sweden expressed reservations about moving to districts where many Muslims live.[101] This was the same as for 2005.[101]

In 2014, a poll by Gävle University College found that when asked about their attitudes towards veils, in the case of the niqab and the burqa, 84% responded that the niqab was unacceptable and 81% saw the burqa in the same light, a compact resistance to these. The chador was deemed unacceptable by 37% and a "clear majority" found the hijab and the shayla acceptable, 65.0 and 65.2 percent respectively. The report stated that "The question seems to arouse strong feelings against oppression versus the right to wear the clothes you want." The poll showed a slight increase in acceptance for the public wearing of veils. It also stated that "a clear majority (64.4%) of the Swedish population consider Muslim women to be more oppressed than other women in Sweden.".[102] Of the respondents, 26% expressed resistance to all kinds of Islamic veils.[102] In 2017, the Swedish National Board of Student Aid (CSN) eased its longtime grants and loans to students going to Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia, a religious school for missionaries proselytising the wahhabist variant of Islam. An investigation by Dagens Nyheter found that 71 students had travelled from Sweden with CSN funding since year 2000. The ban of grants was due to that neither women nor non-Muslims in general are allowed to study at Madinah and the ban encompassed all studies at all institutions being hostile to democracy.[103]

According to a 2018 poll by Sifo, 60% of the 1000 participants wanted to ban the Islamic call to prayer using loudspeakers, while 21% responded they should be allowed and 19% were undecided.[104]

The Swedish Security Service estimated that there may be about 2,000 Swedish adherents of the puritanical Salafist movement within Sunni Islam.[105] The Salafi movement is split between inward-looking purists and passivists, versus those who are militant.[106] This last group is further divided into those who advocate militant defensive jihad in defense of Muslims, and those who advocate an offensive jihad along the lines of Al-Qaeda or ISIS.[106] The majority of Salafists are passive and inward-oriented, while a small minority are oriented towards offensive jihadism - as opposed a so-called defensive jihad against outside aggression.[106] Unlike in other parts of Europe, there are no Salafi organizations which openly preach jihad in Sweden - Salafi thought is instead spread by informal networks.[106]

In Salafist circles, while topics in the main are uncontroversial, derogatory views towards women, homosexuals, non-believers, and Western governments are frequently expressed. Also it is stressed that Muslims should not integrate into wider Swedish society.[107] The Swedish Defence University concluded in its 2018 report on Salafism in Sweden that since according to Salafi doctrine only following the religious laws is allowed, Salafism is an anti-democratic movement. In contrast to non-Salafis, Salafist preach in Swedish.[108]

In the Stockholm area, non-militant Salafists are predominant in the Tensta and Rinkeby areas among Salafists, while a militant and al-Qaeda supporting movement was predominant in Skärholmen, Alby and Norsborg.[108]

According to the Swedish Defence University, since the 1970s, a number of residents of Sweden have been implicated in providing logistical and financial support to or joining various foreign-based transnational Islamic militant groups. Among these organizations are Hezbollah, Hamas, the GIA, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, Ansar al-Sunna and Ansar al-Islam.[109]

In the 2000s, according to Europol, Islamists in Sweden were not primarily seeking to commit attacks in Sweden, but were rather using Sweden as a base of operations against other countries and for providing logistical support for groups abroad.[110]

In 2010, the Swedish Security Service estimated that a total of 200 individuals were involved in the Swedish violent Islamist extremist milieu. According to the Swedish Defence University, most of these militants were affiliated with the Islamic State, with around 300 people traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the group and Al-Qaeda associated outfits like Jabhat al-Nusra in the 2012-2017 period.[109]

In the Stockholm area, all networks involving jihadists are also involved in ordinary crime such as theft, burglary, and blackmail whereby they acquire income.[108] Income received from illegal narcotics trading are also used finance jihadist activity as sympathizers with an ideology which uses violence to reach a higher goal will automatically be drawn into crime.[111] In the Stockholm area, individuals who have joined jihadists in Syria and Iraq have predominantly been male, whereas in Gothenburg they have been both male and female.[108]

In 2017, Swedish Security Service director Anders Thornberg stated that the number of violent Islamic extremists residing in Sweden to number was estimated to be "thousands".[112] The Danish Security and Intelligence Service judged the number of jihadis in Sweden to be a threat against Denmark since two terrorists arriving from Sweden had already been sentenced in the 2010 Copenhagen terror plot.[113]

In March 2018, Kurdish authorities reported they had captured 41 IS supporters with either Swedish citizenship or residence permit in Sweden, of which 5 had key positions in the organization and one was the head of the ISIL propaganda efforts.[114]

According to interviews with authorities in November 2018, about half of those who joined the Islamic State and other groups in the Syrian Civil War had returned to Sweden. Some of the returnees are still radicalized and constitute a security threat.[115]

Under the alias "Abu Bakr al Janabi", an individual located in Sweden translated Islamic State material. As such, he was interviewed by Vice News and The Guardian. In December 2017, 30-year-old Alftaf Yasin Tarid, a KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumn who was born in Iraq, travelled on a flight from Stockholm to Schiphol and he was later arrested when travelling in a car in Rotterdam after meeting other individuals.[116] US authorities had tipped of their Dutch colleagues that Altaf had spread Islamic State propaganda from Sweden under the alias "Abu Bakr Al-Janabi". In December 2018, the trial began which went unreported in Swedish media. In January 2019 he was sentenced to three years in jail for disseminating IS propaganda.[117][118]

In June 2019, two imams, Abo Raad active at Gävle mosque and another active in Umeå were deported due to them promoting violent extremism.[119] The son of Raad was also to be deported along with other individuals involved in the Islamist scene in Sweden bringing the total to five.[119]

Some Muslims have been victims of violence because of their religion.[125] In October 1991, Shahram Khosravi, a 25-year-old student of Iranian origin, was shot in the face outside the Stockholm University by John Ausonius.[126] In 1993, two young Somali immigrants were stabbed and a local mosque in the city was burned down.[127] The perpetrators of the stabbing were said by police to have been motivated by racial hatred.[128]

The Imam Ali Islamic Centre in Järfälla, the largest Shia mosque in Sweden, was burned down in May 2017 in what police suspect was arson.[129]

• Ahmadiyya in Sweden
• Halal-TV
• Religion in Sweden
• Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy
• History of Islam in the Arctic and Subarctic regions

• Sander, Åke (1990), Islam and Muslims in Sweden, Göteborg : Centre for the Study of Cultural Contact and International Migration, Gothenburg University
• Sander, Åke (2004), "Muslims in Sweden", by Muhammad Anwar, Jochen Blaschke and Åke Sander, State Policies Towards Muslim Minorities: Sweden, Great Britain and Germany Archived 2016-01-27 at the Wayback Machine, Berlin : Parabolis

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Islam in Sweden.

• Alwall, Jonas (1998), Muslim rights and plights : the religious liberty situation of a minority in Sweden, Lund : Lund University Press, pp. 145–238
• Carlbom, Aje (2006). "An Empty Signifier: The Blue-and-Yellow Islam of Sweden". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 26 (2): 245–261. doi:10.1080/13602000600937754. S2CID 143923155.
• Carlbom, Aje (2003), The Imagined versus the Real Other: Multiculturalism and the Representation of Muslims in Sweden, Lund: Lund Monographs in Social Anthropology, pp. 63–163
• Nielsen, Jørgen S. (1992), Muslims in Western Europe, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 80–84
• Sander, Åke (1993), Islam and Muslims in Sweden and Norway: a partially annotated bibliography 1980–1992 with short presentations of research centres and research projects, Göteborg: Centre for the Study of Cultural Contact and International Migration, Gothenburg University
• Sander, Åke (1997), "To what extent is the Swedish Muslim religious?", in Steven Vertovec and Ceri Peach (eds.), Islam in Europe: The Politics of Religion and Community, London: Macmillan and New York: St.Martin's, pp. 179–210