Yasir Qadhi – Islam in Scandinavian Countries

			Many of you asked me about my trip recently, I was in the Scandinavian countries. This was my second
trip there. So as you know, I like to observe different Muslim communities. And I think it is
important for every community to learn about others to benefit to understand the trajectories,
because what I find is that the cultures, the societies, the politics actually influences the
problems of the Muslims in their own regions. And every single country has its strengths and
weaknesses. And every Muslim minority has its potential, and also its threats. And I think it is
very beneficial for every Western community in particular, to look at what is happening in other
		

			countries and to benefit from what they can and to learn from the experiences. So I will summarize,
it's just introduction, I will summarize my own observations of Islam and Scandinavian countries.
Now, firstly, what are the Scandinavian countries, the Scandinavian countries are Denmark, Norway
and Sweden. And these are generally speaking, one bloc of culture, one civilization, obviously,
within them, they have differences. But in reality, compared to the other worlds and civilizations,
this is basically you can call it the Norse culture, the Nordic culture, the Vikings, this is that
trajectory. And of course, as you're aware, Europe has many subdivisions. And the Vikings were a
		

			completely separate history and religion, then the bulk of Europe. By the way, before we get to
modern Norway, Vikings and Islam. There's another top one day inshallah we'll talk about that.
Actually, a recently delivery just introduced the concept, Vikings out of all that the Europeans,
they actually had quite a lot of interactions with the Muslim world, and they interacted, we find to
this day, every few years, we uncover a new treasure in those lands of Arab and Muslim coins, which
indicates they were interacting with civilizations and Muslims, you probably saw was it three years
ago, BBC had a massive
		

			article about a North Nordic Princess 1200 years ago, uncovered with a ring with the name of Allah
on it. This is in Norway in Sweden, you will find the original still in the Stockholm museum, you
will find it that you will find the ring she's she's a princess, and she's wearing a ring that has
the name of Allah on it. This led to a lot of specialized speculation is was there Islam in Sweden
factor that matters? No. But listen to this. Arab civilization Muslim civilization was looked up to
it was the pinnacle. And so the princesses would wear the jewelry purchase from Arab lands. And so
we have that type of interaction. We also have the the Vikings would also obviously raid Muslim
		

			lands. This is also the case and there was warfare and minor warfare as well. There's also a very
interesting story, maybe one day we'll talk about it, a group of Vikings got
		

			cut off from the main group, and they remained it and de Lucia and Muslim Spain, and they embraced
Islam, and they lived in Seville initDB Lea, and so there was an area of fish philia. Still to this
day known. This is the area of the Vikings who converted to Islam. So you have a whole bunch of
Vikings who became Muslim, and they lived in Muslim Spain. This is again 1000 something years ago.
In any case, that's another trajectory. Let's go down to modern Scandinavia, the Scandinavian
countries Oh, before I move on, I must mention one other historical fact many of the youth know it.
The I busted Khalifa sent a share an alum, a historian and an ambassador to travel through these
		

			lands. His name is Ahmed bin fatherland. This is a 1200 years ago, and that was 100 years ago. And
why did he send a chef because a group amongst them amongst that region there? They're known as the
rural cars they converted to Islam, so they petition the Khalifa. Can you send us a chef to teach us
Islam? This is beyond the Viking lands, not in Viking lands. So an ambassador a share analemma
Hatfield traveled through Viking lands to get to this what is now Bulgaria full guard. And this is
still to this day, that communities there are Muslims. That's a separate ethnicity, not the not the
Vikings, but he lived amongst the Vikings. He lived amongst them and he chronicled what he saw. So
		

			he becomes one of the earliest eyewitness accounts of life, customs, culture, language of the
Vikings. And He then wrote about this and it is preserved in Arabic documents. Of course it has been
translated to English many books have been written you can find them on on Amazon Ahmedabad online.
And in fact, believe it or not, Hollywood actually made a movie about this person. Back in the 90s I
think it's called what the tribe 13th trial 13 where some of the the 13th warrior, they actually
made a positive movie. You know, usually Hollywood has nothing but negative. This guy might have
been frontline. They made a whole movie about him.
		

			A long time ago, 20 to 25 years ago, and it's actually a very positive movie, portraying how Islam
was a superior culture compared to Europe and compared to the Vikings, and how he actually benefited
them, and you learn their language. So there are interactions between Islam and the Viking
civilization. By the way, the Viking culture was a different religion, different ethnicity,
different looks than the rest of the Europeans, and they embraced Christianity much later than other
segments of Europe, nonetheless, now let's get to our modern Scandinavian countries, you should all
be aware that Scandinavian countries have a very different system of government of laws of politics,
		

			they are a type of social democracy, which means some of the highest taxation rates in the world,
all of them, and also some of the best perks of all of the world. Norway is regularly voted to be
the best country on Earth, in terms of standard of living, right, you pay very high taxes 70% 60%,
the income disparity is very little everybody gets a similar wage, middle upper middle class,
everybody gets a very similar wage. But then the perks over there are massive health care,
absolutely free and very easy. The education system, there's no concept of paying, there's no
concept, they're shocked that why would the government not give free education to the PhD to the
		

			anything? What do you do medicine, engineering, whatever you want to do, all of it is taken care of
by the government. Also, one of the things that you should be aware of is that Scandinavian
countries in general, unlike America, and England, they are very monocultural. So the bulk of the
people, one ethnicity, one culture, and they have a lot of history, this is all going to impact our
study of Islam. Because when you have one massive, monolithic population than outsiders really are
outsiders, right. That's one of the big differences that we have in America, America is a land of
immigrants, the only indigenous people that are being forced to live in reservation camps in this
		

			country, otherwise, everybody's an immigrant. And this is one of the biggest perks and positives of
this country that nobody can claim that we have been here for 2000 4000 years, whereas in
Scandinavia, that they can claim that and the Muslims are very recent immigrants also realize these
are very small countries. The population of Greater Dallas is actually more than the population of
Denmark as a country, and Norway as a country, our greater Dallas, who knows how many people live in
the greater meaning the whole conglomerate of Dallas, all of Dallas? How many people are we?
		

			Seven to 8 million? Correct? Yes, all the Greater Dallas seven to 8 million, all of Norway, 5
million. All of Denmark 5 million, Sweden's a little bit more 10 million. So you can imagine now the
quantities are much smaller. In a one entire country. This changes everything. Because when you have
a small group of people all speak the same language all look the same, ethnically, they're the same,
then you have outsiders, what's going to happen? What's happening in these countries is going to
happen as we see. Now, within the last 30 years, Islam has gone from zero to the second largest
religion in all of these three countries. This is a very important historical fact. In the 60s,
		

			Islam was almost non existent in all three of these countries in the 60s and 70s. Hardly any Muslims
were talking about less than point 1%. Within the last 30 years, Islam has gone from almost zero to
believe it or not 10% in every major city and capital, Stockholm, 10%, Oslo 10% Mama, another small
city are the second largest city in Sweden, maybe 13 14%. It's phenomenal. Now what's going to
happen though, when so quickly, you have a bunch of people coming, look different, speak different,
act different. That's why these countries are very different than so many other European countries.
Now, why has there been mass migration? Where did these Muslims come from? Two main sources and all
		

			three of these countries. The first batch in the 70s and 80s. These countries really needed cheap
manual labor. They needed workers. It's not like many other countries where you have, you know,
people migrating illegal Harvard might be those countries, you have to get the visa to get there. So
they decided to actively bring groups of people to do the lowest jobs in the factories, manual
labor, and they chose some countries, primarily amongst them was Pakistan. They actually do
		

			Those buckston peasants and laborers not we're not talking engineers and computer scientists know,
they needed factory workers. And so they went to certain areas in the Punjab in the villages I'd
like we want to give. So it became, and also some other pockets, Bosnian some places in Turkey. But
all of these were manual laborers, right. And again, this is an awkward topic. But when you bring
people that are not college educated, it is what it is. They're going to live differently, act
differently. It's just the reality. It's an awkward topic. But it needs to be said here, right? So
the first batch was all people who are coming to work in the factories, initially, they weren't
		

			allowed to bring families, then the grumbling and dishonor, they didn't want them to marry locals.
So they allowed them to bring to bring families, right. So this is the first batch in the 70s, then
in the 80s, and then 90s, these three countries decided they needed more people to come. Why,
because their birth rate is amongst the lowest in the world, their birth rate is amongst the lowest
in the world, they need people to come. So they decided that they're going to actively allow
refugees from war torn countries to come. And where were the war torn countries in the 90s, which
countries in the 90s, Somalia and Afghanistan and Iran as well that the political refugees came
		

			right, and the 2000s Iraqis. So one of the largest batch of immigrant Iraqis is in the Scandinavian,
these Nordic countries, right. And again, these are all Muslim lands, because these are the refugees
fleeing, and these countries want fresh blood, they want any people to come. And so they brought in
10s of 1000s of people from these lands, the majority of whom happened to be Muslim realized they
didn't actively pursue, you know, we want Muslim, they wanted people, they want people to come and
they want their country to thrive. And who's going to come because it's really cold guys, I was
there now. And it was freezing cold, right? The sun doesn't set in some of these places, you have to
		

			realize it's, you know, the, sorry, the sun doesn't rise, excuse me, in the winter times, in the
northern cities, is like, you know, perpetual dark and perpetual night, they were telling me that in
Ramadan in some years is 20 to 23 hours of fasting. Like in some cities, they were saying that the
if thought and the Sahara is organized for the same batch of people, they come they break fast, they
prey throw away, they eat to hoard, they prefer to they go home, literally one batch come in come
out. That's it, because that's how it goes over there. So in some ways, these countries are very
difficult to live in. Right. But in other ways, obviously, there are many perks over there. So what
		

			has happened. And again, I have to be a bit generic here because they're three separate countries,
each one has slightly different issues. So I'm being a little bit Birdseye so please, if somebody
wants to come in, I have many critics along with Stan, they want to nitpick, I'm trying to be teach
you some broad ideas. I'm not being 100% accurate to all three of them, but generically, what I'm
talking about, unfortunately, what we see there is a massive divide between the indigenous
population and between those that are coming from Muslim backgrounds. And the majority of immigrants
are from Muslim backgrounds and all three of these because again of the reasons that I said, and so
		

			because this is a homogenous culture, one culture, one ethnicity, one group one history, and they
all look the same talk the same act the same, anybody who doesn't look like them, and they're all
mashallah seven foot tall, blond haired, blue eyed. Just kidding. They're, they're not seven foot,
but they're six foot seven, every one of them that mashallah this tall, what not, they're all
different. And then you have all of us coming along, we stick out like sore thumbs, right? We are
totally different from them. So what has happened this quick, you know, influx of refugees and of
immigrants has changed the dynamics. And by changing the dynamics, what has happened? far right
		

			parties, far right parties have become extremely popular. Nobody could have predicted because these
three countries, all of them were left leaning in the 70s and 80s. There's an interesting point
here. These three countries were the most liberal, the most left leaning 3040 years ago. Now, all
three of them. They have some of the most far right parties becoming mainstream, some of the most
blatant Islamophobia and that's where there's a reputation, like, especially Denmark, you'd all
know, Denmark, how many things happen in Denmark, there's this reputation. I'm not saying that's
correct. But there's a perception that Islamophobia is the worst in these countries, maybe only
		

			after France, and perhaps there's an element of truth, but there's also obviously a bit of an
exaggeration. Another thing we need to understand is that these countries, their role of the
government is not like America. The people expect their government to be involved at every level. We
call it a nanny state, the nanny they take care of you
		

			Right, which means the government is expected to monitor what you say. It is expected to physically
enact laws that protect their culture. Unlike America, we have the First Amendment. Unlike America
where we're expected to be individualistic, those governments are expected to protect overall the
the cohesiveness of society. They're expected to get involved in everything and every facet of
society, I'm going to tell you something, it's going to blow your mind up. The government actually
takes charge of all religious institutions, any religion can come and open their temple, their
mosque, their synagogue, and write down who comes and the government will pay. Depending on the
		

			number of mousseline the number of synagogue, Temple worship, the government will fund your center
of worship anybody in Norway, you can declare I'm a member of this church. And when you declare the
church will get I don't know how much maybe $200 a month or something. Do the math. If you have 1000
people coming? Right? The government will pay the masjid monthly 3040 50,000 words the epic board
members, this is why this is why there's no fundraising over there.
		

			There is no fundraising, but every person has to declare on the one message it they cannot go 345
messages right. One temple, one church and you register so the mousseline are registered and every
Masjid is eager that come to our Masjid because by coming Can you imagine if epic started doing
that? collecting your information and you have to register and then the government is going to give
us funding. This is how it works over in Norway, at least in other countries, there's other funding
in Norway in particular, you are literally to this day, the Masjid of Norway are funded by the
Norwegian government not just the masjid is any temple. Now, you will say Masha Allah Tabata kala
		

			but what happens when others fund
		

			control, control? Because, you know, the golden rule as her by, you know, the golden rule. He who
has the gold gets to make the rules. That's the capitalist golden rule. He who has the gold gets to
make the rules when Norway is going to give money to the masjid.
		

			Norway now has the right
		

			to dictate.
		

			And previously, they didn't care about dictating any to any, any, any church temple, but things have
changed. And so all of a sudden, what is happening now, if you want money from us, you cannot preach
anything against our values. Now, what is against our values?
		

			Morality, sexuality,
		

			even hijab and segregation
		

			because this is against the values. These countries have banned the burqa. They banned the niqab.
Right? It's fine to wear the niqab over there is not allowed. So it's a huge crisis now because the
culture firstly, the Muslims themselves, generally speaking, compared to us, socially, economically,
they're not like us understand why the where did they come from? Right? socio economically, they're
not like us. They're working different types of jobs. Secondly, well, the taxation is so high.
Thirdly, they're not accustomed to the culture of giving. They're accustomed to the culture of
receiving. So fundraisers like we do are almost unheard of. They're not used to it. So now the
		

			government has pretty much control. And this is now one of the biggest crises that they were facing.
They were trying to get my advice like, I have no, I've never expected this type of problem. We
thank Allah, no matter how difficult our fundraisers are, we thank Allah that because of that, we
have independence. Nobody can tell us what to say. Right. Let me tell you one, a very sad thing that
is happening right now. So in Sweden, I told you this this nanny state in Sweden, what you can do,
any community can come together and say we have 3040 50 kids, we're going to have a school, the
government will build the school, pay for it, pay the teachers, every community can build his own
		

			school. I mean, obviously you have conditions but basically you come together you have the
conditions, and the government will finance your school for you. So throughout the 90s 2000s Muslims
came together, the government funded, I don't know 3040 50 schools. The government funded it. Sadly,
every one of them has been shut down in the last year.
		

			Every one of them there is no Islamic school.
		

			Will in Sweden are mustn't forget Muslim school anymore. Why secret terror laws? You guys are? We
can't tell you the details they told us they told them, we cannot tell you the details. But whatever
it might you know what it is this Islamophobia, guilt by association, or what you're teaching values
of so now, and and you know, we read in the news and I read in the news, how can the government shut
down Islamic schools? When I went there I found out well, they can shut them down because they're
the ones funding them. They're the money's coming from them. Because I was wondering even when I
read it, I couldn't understand how what right? Does the government have to shut down schools? Well,
		

			obviously, if it's their money, it's their right, what do you say about that, right. And now the
Muslims don't have a single Muslim school in all of Sweden. And the problem comes, they're not
accustomed to the culture of fundraising. They're not accustomed as it is low income, high taxes on
top of that, to build your own school, it is phenomenal expense in those lands. So they're going
through all of these crises, what to do with this and that. So this is one of the things we need to
understand about these countries is that, yes, there are a lot of perks to live there. But at the
same time, because of that, there's also there's also a bit of a control over there. Now, another
		

			point I want to mention here is that in the last 2030 years, as I said, these countries have gone
generally from being far left to actually becoming more sympathetic to the right. And the perhaps
the most blatant example of this is Denmark. in its in its wanting to it's provocative cartoons, for
example, right, and banning the slaughter of animals. They banned the ABA, and when they banned it,
Norway and others, so followed suit, you cannot purchase halal meat in any of these countries. Where
do they get it from? They have to import from other countries. It's unbelievable. You cannot
slaughter they say it's inhumane. You must beat or kill or stun the animal. Right? And you cannot
		

			slaughter the way we slaughter. And again, all of this is happening for the last 10 years. All of
this is new that's happening here. So they have to import their halal meat, which is why it's super
expensive to have halal meat over there. But head so this is some of the negatives over there. Of
course, perhaps the greatest negative incident that happened was the massacre of by Anders Brevik.
One of the four right in Norway, right in Norway, too. So again, this is you, y'all remember when
that madman bombed in Oslo, and then he went to some island off of Norway, and he killed almost 70
teenagers, right. Anders Brevik. This is around 10 years ago, in 2011. This is a very key symptom of
		

			the rise of the far right. This person, very sane, very rational, very lucid. He wrote a manifesto
100 Page manifesto. You can read it. It's been translated, you can read it. And in it, he said that
our ancestors, the Vikings fought against these people. We had our own culture, we have our own
heritage. Now, the left wing government is committing cultural and ethnic genocide. He used the term
genocide. Our identity is being gone. Look around you. He said, You see these brown skin whatever he
didn't say brows, maybe he didn't know with the Muslims. You see them everywhere. Where's our
culture gone? And whose fault is it? The left wing party. So he attacked, not the Muslims. He didn't
		

			attack the mosque like the guy in New Zealand. The guy New Zealand attack the Masjid. This guy. By
the way, the guy in New Zealand was inspired by this guy. The guy in New Zealand read the manifesto
of Anders Brevik. It's a very academic manifesto. Yeah, he wanted to write this book. The goal of
the terrorist attack was so people read is this writing. It went viral in the far right community.
And it's a very dangerous manifesto. So he wrote that the left wing party is destroying our
heritage. And so I'm going to make a point by shooting at them. So he bombed in Oslo, some outside
the parliament, and then he took a boat, there was a youth conference. So suppose suppose the
		

			Democratic Party, right? Suppose the democratic Democratic Party was having a teenager's conference
somewhere. That's the equivalent of what he attacked. He wanted to give the shock and awe message of
killing children. These are teenagers, not even adults. There was no armed police over there. There
was nothing that's why for an hour and a half, he was armed to the teeth. He went through the whole
woods just killing children. These are 15 1417 years old, so tragic. majority of them were obviously
not even Muslim, maybe one or two are Muslim, but the majority of them were just, you know, people
of society. They're part of that Democratic Party, the Socialist Party, and his goal was to send the
		

			message that this part
		

			He is betraying who we are now. Allah subhanaw taala works in ways beyond this incident was actually
one of the biggest causes of the backlash against the far right. This incident, believe it or not
calmed many people down, that actually this rhetoric is going too far. And it actually helped some
common sense and bringing about a sense of, you know, unity. And because Muslims didn't do it, if
you remember when it began, everybody say Muslims, Muslims turned out to be a far right, you know,
local person that did it, right. So this incident actually caused Norway to be slightly different
than Denmark. And it helped curb Islamophobia in Norway to a certain extent, but Denmark and then
		

			Sweden have gone the exact opposite way. Sweden was one of the most welcoming of refugees, because
they genuinely had those notions of the 70s were one word, we're one together, we want to have
everybody different, then when all of these last 2030 years have happened. Now, it looks like Sweden
is beginning to regret what did we do now. And so they're curbing and they're forcing, you have to
become like our culture. They're kind of putting all of these laws in place. But the good news is
that hamdulillah the Muslim community is now maturing up, as you can understand, and I don't want to
be critical of other Muslim communities that that I go to, but generically speaking, one of the
		

			problems of Western Islam, Western Muslims, one of the biggest problems and especially in these
countries, is the division that exists amongst the Muslims themselves. You have to understand this
is first generation immigrants can you imagine the people who migrated from villages in Punjab and
from villages in Ethiopia, those people are now here in one country, what do they have in common?
Nothing, they have nothing in common. So ethnically, the divisions there are much more pronounced
than in America. You have the Pakistani Masjid. You have the Ethiopian masjid, you have the Turkish
masjid, you have the Bosnian Masjid. So ethnically big divisions, and they can even communicate in
		

			their mother languages. And many of them are struggling even they're learning the language of the
people very complicated language, as you know, but hamdulillah they're now learning Iraqis, they've
just come 10 years ago, Afrikaans have come right now. They're not get what language are they going
to speak with anybody? So actually, we say Oslo is 10% Muslim, Stockholm is 10%. Muslim. Yes, it is.
10% of the city is Muslim, but they're not united, ethnically massive divisions. And then one of the
worst problems of the whole world within our OMA sectarian divisions and you know, I have been a
very vocal critic, the same sectarian differences back home, have now been imported. And you have,
		

			believe it or not, while there's so much Islamophobia, the betrayal, the masjid, they're the
Deobandi Masjid. They're the W Masjid there, the earlier this Masjid there can you believe? And this
is the reality, right? And you laugh at this, but I'm telling you, what do you expect is going to
happen now? Right? And but this is the elder generation. When I went Alhamdulillah, massive crowds
coming the new generation is coming diverse people are coming and insha Allah other than new born
and raised, this is not going to end on a positive note. Those that have been born and raised in
those lands, their vision is changing. And they have a sense of identity. Alhamdulillah when I went
		

			to Norway, in Oslo, they're building the largest community center modeled after epic. They literally
said we're modeling it after epic. And they want to have, by the way, every city I went to, they
were so happy at epics vision, epics, Masjid, epic 2.0 Every seat city that Hamdulillah we are
Alhamdulillah always told to give Salaams to all of you and to our shoe, and everything is going
hamdulillah they're monitoring us. But in Norway, seven eight $9 million project funded by
themselves and the Muslim communities around the world, not funded by the government. They're not
going to take money from the government. They're seeing now what's happening. And I visited I taught
		

			the class that I did this hero class I did. I taught it in their center, mashallah four or 500
people packed to the audience. They're building a massive structure for them a massive structure
from ground up. No, no government control independent. So Al Hamdulillah. Now we are seeing a
resurgence. The youth are coming to Islam. The Islamic identity is very strong amongst the youth.
And they recognize that they have a role to play here. And of course, they're born and raised there.
They speak the language fluidly. So alhamdulillah my humble assessment is that their struggles are
very different than ours. And in some ways, they have it more difficult, but in some ways they have
		

			it easier because the cities are much smaller than Dallas and what
		

			but not Stockholm is less than a million. Right? And in Stockholm if you have 10% Muslim, I was in
the city of Malmo my Alma has was spelled with an O but has pronounced Mollema. And they said that
if the Swedish population maintains its negative, and the Muslim population maintains Muslims have
mashallah the average of what 567 kids right the average mashallah is a secret weapon. I say that
the prediction is this is the held secret weapon geyser. So we don't really take the video and
miscut halaal secret weapon, it's not our fault. We have more kids, guys, you want to do whatever
you want to do. It's all Hello Alhamdulillah. So if the projection continues, I was told by one of
		

			the local councillors there that within one generation, it is very likely that this city will almost
be half Muslim. Because this city is just not there. The locals are not reproducing. It's not our
fault. I mean, it's not. I don't know why they're getting irritated at us. It's not our fault. We're
having kids, right. So it's not even so the point is what's going to happen to the majority now,
finish off on this negative note, you know, the Swedish Quran burning? You're hearing this
happening, right? I passed by the place where the guy did it. And he did it in a district of
Mollema. That is 90% Muslim.
		

			Everywhere you see hijab, bees and throbs and beer, the whole city, you're like, where am I? Every
falafel shop, you know, is over there, every shawarma, your everything is over there. And you're
like, Am I in Sweden? Or I'm in Bethesda or Damascus? Where am I? The entire, you know, subdivision
is Muslim. So what's going to happen this far right guy is going to say what's going on here, right?
And so he literally stood smack in the middle, they showed me I saw the video footage a few weeks or
months ago, they showed me that exact location. It's literally in front of all the, you know,
apartment complexes of the Muslim community there he and he wants to provoke what's going to happen.
		

			And again, it's awkward to say this, but what do you think is going to happen? These are these are
teenagers that are coming from war zones. These are actual Afghans that have seen blood actually
Iraqis that have seen the invasion, what do you think they're going to do when this person comes and
burns the Quran in front of them. So obviously, they the police had to be caught, you understand? I
mean, but he wants this. And he's willing to die like Anders Brevik is lifelong, he's willing to
die, because he thinks this is how I'm going to send the message to the people that they need to
wake up here. So there's a lot of tension in those lands, but at the same time, the Muslim and this
		

			needs to be set as well, awkward reality. So we do have groups of Muslims that are saying and doing
things that are very problematic. I don't blame them, because they're not, they have just come from
overseas. And they're just, you know, learning the language. And they don't understand long term
vision. So they're acting and saying and doing things, and they're attracted to interpretations of
Islam that are, again, it's, you know, it's going to be a reaction. If you're not going to want me
to call us then I'm going to go down a very radical route. So unfortunately, when the jihadi groups
were active, 10 years ago, Scandinavian countries did have quite a lot of young men go there.
		

			Because when society calls you terrorists all the time, I'm not excusing them for what they did. But
these youngsters are attracted to those ideologies to so radical interpretations of Islam, hardline
and church Islam are actually common amongst the youth there. Because once society is going to treat
you like this, you're going to absorb those values. If you're not welcome, you're going to say,
Hollis, I don't want you guys, I'm gonna go there. And mature people on both sides need to
understand this is not the way forward, mature people need to understand this is not the way forward
on a positive note. And this will conclude because Scandinavian countries don't have foreign
		

			lobbies, like our country does. The one positive thing, generally speaking, they're far more pro
Palestinian. They're much more open to the reality, because they don't have concentration of the
other group over there. They don't have that. And they don't have foreign lobbies, and they can see
the reality for what it is. So to give you an example, Sweden 20 years ago, was one of the first
European countries to have a permanent ambassadorial position for Palestine. They literally said, We
don't care. There's a Palestinian state, and they had an Embassy in Jerusalem. They had their
ambassador for Palestine, and in Sweden, they had a Palestinian representative. What other country
		

			did that right, Sweden had that Norway, as you should be following the news, one of the most vocal
critics of Israeli tactics right now, right? So you see they're not influenced by
		

			These other groups so to be honest and fair, this is not pure Islamophobia because they're fighting
for the truth. What it is they see are some people see their culture, their lands being changed, and
so they want to react in this vicious manner. The solution the goal is the Muslim communities need
to be at the forefront and they need to embody the reality of our faith by being productive members
by integrating the way we're supposed to while maintaining our religious and our ethical values. And
in sha Allah, Allah, my tour this time, gave me a lot of Good Hope and good you know, vision, the
community is thriving in spite of all the opposition, there are good people in the government there
		

			wise leadership amongst the Muslims, and I feel inshallah to add that in these lands because they're
smaller lands and concentration is so high. We're going to see a very interesting development of
Muslims in the Scandinavian regions. May Allah subhanho wa Taala protect them and all of us and
until next time somebody can
		

			either
		

			be Irma's de here, down seni one tells
		

			me what to feed
		

			Sunday. What
		

			feels cool to me.
		

			Jenny dasa, down to
		

			me down