Stockholm Mosque

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The Stockholm Mosque

The Stockholm Mosque, inaugurated in 2000 and located near Medborgarplatsen on Södermalm, is Stockholm's largest Islamic place of worship.

Originally built as an electric power station (Katarinastationen) and located adjacent to the small park known as Björns trädgård ("Björn's Garden"), the building was designed by the Art Nouveau architect Ferdinand Boberg and completed in 1903. Already influenced by "Moorish" Islamic architecture in its original version, the listed building was converted to a mosque during the 1990s. The project was delayed because of protests and appeals. The mosque can accommodate 2,000 people and the building includes a library, bookshop, gym, offices, lecture halls and a large kitchen.

It is headed by its leading imam Sheikh Hassan Moussa of the Islamiska Förbundet i Stockholm organisation.

1 Controversies
2 References
3 External links

[edit] Controversies

[edit] al-Qaradawi conference

In July 2003 the Egyptian Islamist scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi was invited to speek at the mosque in a conference arranged by the European Council for Fatwa and Research (founded by al-Qaradawi). Also present at the conference was Rashid Ghannouchi, leader of the banned Tunisian Islamist party al-Nahda. During the conference al-Qaradawi expressed his support of suicide attacks against Israeli civilians which he called a "necessary holy war".^[1] He further stated:

Even if an innocent child is killed as a result of this holy war then it is not deliberate but rather because of the neccessities of the war. Neither in the future will these so called civilians stopped be intruders, evil, tyrants and oppressors."^[1]

The sermon was reported to the police by Liberal Party politician Fredrik Malm.^[1]

[edit] Sermon translations

In May 2004 the journalist Salam Karam wrote a critical report^[2] accussing the mosque of deliberately mistranslating and/or leaving out controversial parts in the Arabic–Swedish translations of the sermons held in the mosque by Imam Hassan Moussa. For example, the phrase "U.S. rapes Islam" was translated by the interpreter: "We condemn the U.S. torture of Iraqi prisoners."^[2] Another controversial part which was left out in the translation was the following:

"The U.S. will pay the price for all the martyrs who have died in Palestine. There are those who spread lies in the media and say that we in the mosque don't consider the former Hamas leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, to be a martyr. He is indeed a martyr – the martyr of the martyrs. I want to send that word to everyone in Sweden."^[2]

The mosque denied the accusations, claiming that they had only left out these parts due to "time issues".^[2]

[edit] Anti-Semitic tapes

In November 2005 Swedish radio revealed that a bookshop in connection to the mosque had sold audio tapes with strong Anti-Semitic content.^[3] On one of the tapes, with the assasinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin on its cover, Jews were described as a "disease", the "brothers of apes and pigs" and that the only solution to the Jews were Jihad.^[3]

"Oh Allah, exterminate the Jews, Oh Allah, exterminate the Jews, Oh Allah, exterminate the Jews! Oh, Allah, curse them and expel them and let them be whipped with suffering. Oh Allah, over heaven and earth!"^[3]

The Swedish Chancellor of Justice (Swedish: Justitiekanslern), Göran Lambertz, decided to convey a preliminary investigation regarding hate speech (Swedish: hets mot folkgrupp).^[4] During the police raid a number of cassettes, CD-discs and a video tape were confiscated.^[4] On January 2, 2006, Chancellor of Justice Lambertz decided to close the investigation. According to Lambertz the statements made on the tapes were, although "highly criticial of the Jews", not a violation of Swedish law and because they have to be viewed "in the light of the historical and present conflict in the Middle East."^[4]