Islam in Sweden

Since the late 1960s and more recently, Muslim immigration from the Middle East, Balkans and Horn of Africa has impacted the demographics of religion in Sweden, and has been the main driver of the spread of Islam in the country.

[5] According to a 2019 report from the Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities, there were 200,445 Muslims in Sweden who practiced their religion regularly; this count came from those registered with Islamic congregations.

[21] 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.

[25] 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.

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.

[36] 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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

[61] 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.

Tro och Solidaritet was to further Islamic interests such as legislation and contracts concerning Muslim holidays, instituting a tax-financed training for imams via the National Agency for Higher Education and rules in working places for the Jumu'ah (Friday prayer).

[68][70] A number of Swedish academics member of Antirasistiska Akademin (ArA), among them Edda Manga and Maimuna Abdullahi (also of MMRK) criticized the decision of MUCF to withhold further state aid to the organization.

[52] In 2019, the administrative court of appeal upheld the decision to deny state aid to the organisation on the grounds that its representatives on occasion had made remarks incompatible with democracy and was ordered to repay 1.4 million SEK.

[75] Muslimska Mänskliga Rättighetskommittén (MMRK) (loosely translated: "Muslim human rights committee") an organization modeled after the UK-based organisation Cageprisoner.

Kaplan was forced to resign from the Swedish Cabinet due to his association with advocates of violent attacks on Armenians and connections to Islamist militants in Turkey.

The Quilliam Foundation, composed of defectors from extremist organizations, Hizb ut-Tahrir does not believe in democratic and open societies and that they hide their intention to abolish democracy in the West.

Together with Muslim Youth of Sweden, Ibn Rushd organizes the annual event Muslimska Familjedagarna (MFD) where proponents of sharia law have been invited to seminars.

[101] 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.

[109] 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.

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] 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.

[114] 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.

[117] US authorities had tipped off their Dutch colleagues that Altaf had spread Islamic State propaganda from Sweden under the alias "Abu Bakr Al-Janabi".

"[135] Investigating journalists at TV4 reported that self-appointed morality police in migrant areas such as Rinkeby, Tensta, Husby and Hjulsta harass women for wearing skirts, owning dogs or going out alone without the company of a male.

[138] Swedish social anthropologist Aje Carlbom [sv] and parliamentarian Abderisak Aden, who has founded the Islamic Democratic Institute (Islamiska demokratiska institutet), have both stated that they believe that at least part of the leading members of SMR support Islamist ideologies and are influenced by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

When the representatives were aware of being filmed, they stated that they supported values such as gender equality; however, when two undercover journalists posed as Muslim women with difficulties in their marriage, the answers from the majority of the visited imams were different.

Since about half of the visited mosques receive state or local funding, they are expected to promote basic values of Swedish society, such as equal rights between genders and to counteract discrimination and violence.

[144] In March 2014, Malmö Municipality withdrew financial support to a local association because they invited a Syrian lecturer who says that homosexuality should be punished by death to a charity event.

[148] In May 2015, radical preacher Said Rageahs was invited to the mosque in Gävle where he promoted the views that whoever insults Mohammed should be killed along with apostates and advocated segregation between Muslims and non-Muslims.