Islam in Sweden

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Islam is the second biggest religion in Sweden after Christianity. The Baltic Tatars were the first Muslim group in modern Sweden. The faith arrived relatively late to the country primarily through immigration from countries with large Muslim populations (such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Somalia and Lebanon) in the late 20th century. Most Muslims in Sweden are either immigrants or descendants of those immigrants. The majority of them are Arabs, most of them are from Iraq. Second biggest Muslim group are immigrants or refugees from former Yugoslavia, most of them Bosnians and Albanians. The second biggest Arab group are some Moroccians, but not all Muslims from Iraq or Morocco are Arabs, among them are Kurds and Berbers, too. The Moroccian republican Ahmed Rami produce his controverse Radio Islam from Sweden.

There are no official numbers of how many Muslims there are in Sweden but estimates put the figures between 100,000 and 400,000 which represents about 1%-4% of the total population.

There are several mosques in Sweden with notable ones in Malmö and Stockholm. When the mosque in Uppsala was constructed it was the northernmost mosque in the world.

The Nasir Mosque of the Ahmadiya Muslim Community in Gothenburg is another notable mosque. It was the first mosque to be built in Sweden.

[edit] External links

• Muslims in Sweden
• Links: Islam in Western Europe: Sweden