Islam in Iceland

The Pew Research Center estimated that the number of Muslims in Iceland was below its 10,000 minimum threshold,[clarification needed] and official statistics put the figure at under 1,300, or 0.33% out of the total population of 385,230.

[citation needed] The long-distance trading and raiding networks of the Vikings will have meant that various Icelanders, like the Norwegians Rögnvald Kali Kolsson or Harald Hardrada, came into direct contact with the Muslim world during the Middle Ages;[5] indirect connections are best attested by finds of Arabic coins in Iceland, as also widely in the Viking world.

[citation needed] From around the late thirteenth century, a fantastical version of the Islamic world is prominent in medieval Icelandic romance, partly inspired by Continental narratives influenced by the Crusades.

[15] The Muslim Association of Iceland (Félag múslima á Íslandi) was founded in 1997 by Salmann Tamimi, a Palestinian immigrant; it was officially recognised on February 25.

In 2000 the Muslim Association applied to purpose-build a mosque in Reykjavík; after a long process, permission for building was granted on July 6, 2013.

[15] The Islamic Culture Centre of Iceland (Menningarsetur múslima á Íslandi) was founded in 2008 by Karim Askari, originally from Morocco, and as of 2014 has 305 members.

[21] Many public expressions of Islamophobia have in the second decade of the twenty-first century been focused on opposition to the creation of a purpose-built Reykjavík mosque.

Opposition to Islam is often presented in terms of support for gender equality, a discourse which in Kristín's assessment is 'used as a way to dwell on the criticism of Muslims in general, and to the glory of European societies'.