Islam in Denmark
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[edit] Population
Approximately 2%[1] - 5%[2] of the population of Denmark is Muslim. Islam is the largest minority religion in Denmark. [3] Denmark has a significant Christian majority, with Protestants making up more than 92% of Danes[citation needed] with the Evangelical Lutheran Church being the state church. In 2005, 83,5% of the population were members of Folkekirken, the Christian state church.[1]
Freedom of religion is part of the law in Denmark, and as of 2005, nineteen different Muslim religious communities had status as religious societies, which gives them certain tax benefits. However, unlike most Western countries, Denmark lacks separation of church and state, resulting in economic and cultural privileges for Folkekirken not shared by Muslim or other minority communities. [4]
The majority of the Muslims living in Denmark are first-generation immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
There are three phases to the Muslim immigration to Denmark: the foreign workers, the asylum seekers and those coming through marriage.
During the early 1970s, many Muslims emigrated from Turkey, Pakistan, Morocco, or Yugoslavia in order to find work in Denmark. Denmark stopped free immigration in 1973.
In the 1980's and 1990's Muslim asylum seekers came to Denmark. In the 1980's mostly from Iran, Iraq, Gaza and the West Bank and in the 1990's mostly from Somalia and Bosnia. Some of those who sought asylum had been charged with terrorism in their home countries[5].
The asylum seekers compromise about 40% of the Danish Muslim population. [3]
Currently almost all Muslims who emigrate to Denmark do so as part of family reunification, by marrying a Danish resident. Denmark has passed a law in recent years making family reunification harder. The new law requires the couple to both be above the age of 24 and requires the Danish spouse to show that they are capable of supporting both themselves and the new immigrant.
[edit] Religious Issues
In 1967 the Nusrat Djahan Mosque the first Mosque in Scandinavia, was built in Hvidovre, a suburb of Copenhagen. It is used by Ahmadi believers, but is not regarded as Muslim by many shia- and sunni Muslims, who see the movement as heretical.
Other mosques exist but are not built for the explicit purpose. It is not forbidden to build mosques or any other religious buildings in Denmark but there are very strict zoning laws. One piece of land has been reserved for a grand mosque near Copenhagen, but financing is not settled.
It could easily be financed e.g. with Saudi money, but then it would become an Arab mosque, and most Muslims in Denmark are not Arabs but Turks, Kurds, and Bosnians.[citation needed]
Seven Danish cemeteries have separate sections for Muslims. Most of the Danish Muslims are buried in those cemeteries, with about 70 being flown abroad for burial in the homeland. A separate Muslim cemetery was opened in Brøndby near Copenhagen in September 2006[6].
[edit] Schools
The first Muslim private school was founded in 1978 - Den Islamisk Arabiske Skole and accepted students from any country. Today there are about 20 Muslim schools, most of which are located in the major cities. The Muslims schools are big enough today to enable catering to students according to their country of origin. In the 1980s schools for Pakistani, Turkish and Arabic speakers were founded. In the 1990s Somali, Palestinian and Iraqi schools were founded. Today 6 or 7 nationalities dominate the Muslim schools.
The biggest school is Dia Privatskole in Nørrebro with about 410 students. Two Pakistani schools teach in Urdu as mother tongue and several Turkish schools have Turkish instruction. Most other schools cater to Arabic speaking students. [7].
[edit] Conflict
As a country with a highly homogeneous indigenous population and without a history of immigration until the last decades of the 20th century, Denmark, like several countries in Western Europe, is dealing for the first time with the presence of a substantial and visible minority. As first and second generation immigrants, many drawn from the ranks of refugees, Muslims in Denmark have failed to achieved the economic and political power proportional to their population; for example, due to high crime rates, they remain over-represented among prison populations and the unemployed, and under-represented in higher education, and among permanent residents holding citizenship and the right to vote. Some ethnic Danes feel threatened by aspects of Muslim culture, setting the stage for conflict. Partly as a reaction to this threat, recent years have seen the rise of a political party with nationalistic and anti-immigration policies. This party currently supports the ruling centre-right Liberal-Conservative coalition which has implemented stricter policies in order to reduce the number of immigrants to Denmark. Most importantly by enforcing stricter criteria for granting permanent residency to mixed couples if one of the spouses has not lived in Denmark before (known as the 24 year rule, since it only applies to persons younger than 24). Other policies have been aimed at providing access to immigrants in the labour market, and promote competency in the Danish language.
Much media attention has been focused on arranged marriage, practiced by some Muslims, and laws have been implemented trying to prevent this practice. The choice of some Muslim women in Denmark to wear or not to wear various traditional head covering, e.g. in the workplace, has also been the subject of debate. In public schools, instruction takes place in Danish, and the government opposes the use of other languages of instruction in Danish primary schools. However, Muslim schools where Danish is not the primary teaching language do exist.
A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten printed 12 caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in September of 2005. Those cartoons sparked an international controversy, ultimately resulting in the scorching of two Danish diplomatic missions, a boycott of Danish goods in several countries, and a large number of protests in the Muslim world. The violent protests abroad have caused rising support of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party and, by some accounts, a more critical approach towards Islam in Denmark. Public protests by Danish Muslims were few and peaceful, and there were no reports of torched diplomatic missions by Ethnic Danes.
[edit] Terrorism
Denmark's first terrorism trial ended in Feb. 2007. Of four people suspected of planning terror attacks in Copenhagen, three were freed due to insufficient evidence and one was sentenced to 7 years due to being a minor.
[edit] Organizations
- Foreningen af Demokratiske Muslimer (The organization of democratic Muslims) [2] is a newly established organization.
- Forum For Kritiske Muslimer (Forum for critical Muslims) [3] with a membership below 50 [8]
- Islamisk Trossamfund, represented by Ahmed Akkari.
- The Network (Denmark), Tanwir Ahmad, represented by Sherin Khankan.
- Muslimer i Dialog (Muslims in Dialoge) [4] which is run by Noman Malik and Abdul Wahid Pedersen. Their spokesman is Zubair Butt Hussain.
[edit] Noted Danish-Muslims
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ CIA World Factbook
- ^ United States State Department
- ^ a b http://www.islam.dk/content.asp?art_id=28
- ^ (Danish) http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51549.htm
- ^ Jihad in Denmark, Danish Institute for International Studies
- ^ After 15 years of wrangling, Muslims get their own burial grounds in Brøndby, Copenhagen Post
- ^ Historien om de muslimske friskoler, DR
- ^ (Danish) Naser Khader, "Demokratisk lakmusprøve," Politiken, 2006 February 18.
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