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YALLA! LET’S REDECORATE THE TREE
YALLA!
L E T ’S R E D E CO R AT
E THE TREE
– s w e d e n a n d t h e m u s li m c u lt u ra l s p h e re
Mighty is he who hath knowledge
Ferdousi (940–1040)
YALLA!
LE T’S RE DE CO RATE
TH E TR EE
44 contributions in five chapters
1
➾
10
➾
20
➾
25
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32
➾
44
living together
LO V E T R A I N ( 6 ) by Nadia
Jebril ➾ LO V E PO E M ( 8 ) by Nizar Qabbani ➾ T H E M O ST B E A U TI F U L P LA C E O N
E A R T H ( 9 ) by Per Axel Nordfeldt ➾ M U S LI M W I T H O U T A L LA H ( 1 4 ) by Pelle
Kronestedt ➾ S I X Q U E STIO N S TO C E Y LA N ( 2 2 ) by Gufran Al-nadaf ➾ B E N OT
S W I F T TO CO N D E M N ! . . . ( 2 3 ) by Hafiz ➾ LI V E A N D L E T LI V E ( 2 4 ) by Javeria
Rizvi ➾ W H AT ’S T H E POI N T ( 2 7 ) by Ramsis James Assal ➾ “ H O N O U R K I L LI N G S ”
( 2 8 ) by Åsa Eldén ➾ I M PO SS I B L E LO V E ( 3 2 ) by Ranna Kas Hanna
11
a new world
T H E T H R E AT TO D E M O C R A CY ( 3 4 )
by David Sandberg ➾ A M U S LI M I N K R Y L B O ( 3 8 ) by Jenny Berggren ➾ K A B U L
( 4 1 ) by Shakila Emami ➾ M E DI A I M A G E S A N D H I STO R I C A L I M A G E S ( 4 2 ) by
Alexander Cavalieratos ➾ I S LA M O P H O B I A ( 5 0 ) by Anne Sofie Roald ➾ W H AT A R E
R A CI STS ? ( 5 2 ) by Taher Ben Jelloun ➾ H A LA B JA ( 5 4 ) by Evin ➾ W H E N T H E F U N D A M E N TA LI STS C A M E TO TO W N ( 5 5 ) by Cekdar Kaya ➾ H O W CO M E ? ( 5 7 ) by
Daniel Harlid ➾ LO O K I N G AT I T F R O M A N OT H E R A N G L E ( 5 8 ) by Christina Zaar
21
the shawl
T H E R I G H T TO W E A R A S H A W L ( 6 4 )
by Hidayet Tercan ➾ H E A D CO V E R I N G S I N I S LA M ( 6 6 ) by Anne Sofie Roald ➾
I O F F E R YO U . . . ( 7 2 ) by Jila Mossaed ➾ W I T H O R W I T H O U T A S H A W L ( 7 3 ) by
Elnaz Baghlanian ➾ O , I F LI B E R T Y. . . ( 7 4 ) by Ahmad Schamloo
26
common history
I S LA M I S N OT A S A LI E N
A S W E T H I N K ( 7 6 ) by Ingmar Karlsson ➾ DI D A R S A M A L E T DI N ( 8 6 ) by Gufran
Al-nadaf ➾ S R E B R E N I C A ( 9 1 ) by Gellert Tamas ➾ S A B R A & S H ATI LA ( 9 5 ) by
Rawia Morra ➾ R E F L E CTIO N S O F A N E W CO M E R ( 9 6 ) by Gufran Al-nadaf ➾ M Y
H E A R T. . . ( 9 9 ) by Ibn al-’Arabi ➾ N A DI A O N T H E G O ( 1 0 0 ) by Pelle Kronestedt
33
faith
M A N Y S I M I LA R I TI E S A N D S O M E M AJO R DI F F E R E N C E S ( 1 0 8 ) by Christer Hedin ➾ DI F F E R E N T R O OTS I S CO O L ( 1 1 6 ) by Eivor
and Sonia at Tensta Upper Secondary School ➾ I N N O C E N T A S C H A R G E D ( 1 1 8 ) by
Surkan Kilic ➾ L E A V I N G T H E R E LI G IO U S S A N D PI T ( 1 2 0 ) by Pierre Durrani ➾ O N
W I N E ( 1 2 3 ) Koran quatations, Swedish proverb, Omar Khayyam ➾ Ö ST R A R E A LS
U P P E R S E CO N D A R Y ( 1 2 4 ) ➾ T E N STA U P P E R S E CO N D A R Y ( 1 2 6 ) ➾ I S LA M I S A N D
I TS O R I G I N S ( 1 2 8 ) by Bitte Hammargren ➾ FI G H TI N G O V E R DI F F E R E N C E S ( 1 3 4 )
by Mehrnoush Khoshnevis ➾ O N C H I L D R E N ( 1 3 5 ) by Gibran Kahlil
( p a g e n u m b e rs i n b ra c kets )
fo re w o rd
T H I S B O O K F O C U S E S on people with roots in Muslim cultures.
In articles, interviews, essays, poems, quotations and pictures,
young people, experts and journalists examine themes such as
living together, a new world, the shawl, our common history, and
religious faith.
The book is being distributed to all students in their first and
second years at upper secondary school in Sweden, and also to
interested organisations. It is available at www.ud.se and has been
translated into Arabic and English. The aim is provide a basis for
discussion: What do we know about one another? How do we live
together? Do we have prejudices and if so can we do something
about them?
Muslim cultures vary considerably, and so do Muslims. One
often gets the impression that ‘Muslim’ is a concept—but there are
substantial differences between individuals depending on their
denomination and culture. The same applies to Christians and
Jews. In this book, we meet the secularised and the believers, the
young and the old, contemporary and historical figures, all with
their own widely differing perspectives. Most are easy to identify
with. Others may be harder to understand, like the three boys who
refused to observe the three minutes’ silence held after 11 September—although they are against terrorism.
Cultures only partially explain why we are the persons we are.
This book is about cultural interaction. Ultimately, it’s about being
a human being.
Anna Lindh
Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs
3
a w o rd i n p a s si n g
Fa t i m a
Davi
d
!
YALLLEA
T ’S
Mohammed
R E D E CO R AT E
THE TREE
Björn
Eva-L
ena
Ali
T H I S B O O K I S not so much about the Islamic religion as about
what happens when people meet in our increasingly multicultural
and multireligious world. If it gathers dust on the bookshelf, we’ve
failed. We hope you’ll read it, perhaps starting with those parts
that look interesting, possibly skipping a page here and there and
reading another chapter twice instead—and above all we hope
you’ll think about what’s in the book and discuss it with others.
The views expressed in the book are solely the responsibility of
the contributors themselves. To aid us in our task we brought in
students from two upper secondary schools in Stockholm, Tensta
and Östra Real. We have also had the support of a reference group
to discuss our ideas and drafts with, comprising experts, journalists,
cultural workers, young people and Foreign Ministry staff. In addition, we have received valuable assistance from the Ministry of
Justice, the Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications,
the Ministry of Education and Science, the National Agency for
Education, the National Board for Youth Affairs, and others.
STO C K H O L M , 1 8 F E B R UA RY 2 0 0 2
Gufran Al-nadaf, project manager/editor, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Mårten Andersson, editor, freelance
Martin Högström, graphic designer/picture editor, freelance
Eva-Lena Gustafsson, project assistant, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Stefan Amér, political advisor, Ministry for Foreign Affairs
4
1
➾
10
li v i n g
to g et h e r
1
love train
by Nadia Jebril
W H E N I M A R RY, the first thing I’ll do is take an Interrail trip with
my husband. Out into the world! Anywhere, just the two of us.
I believe in love, I dream about it a lot. There are people who look at
me and think that because of the way I live and dress—I wear hijab,
a shawl—I’ve ruled love out of my life. That I’m not allowed to love,
or even to choose my life partner myself. There are even those
who go so far as to claim that dressing like this robs me of my own
sexuality, as though sexuality was a privilege granted to all other
women on this earth as a matter of course...
I’ve decided not to have a boyfriend, to avoid relationships until
I meet the right person—someone I’ve chosen because of my religious convictions. As a Muslim, marriage means a great deal to me,
for a number of reasons. Apart from the fact that you can’t be
together with someone of the opposite sex physically until you’re
wed, being married means that you have a companion for life who
shares all your ups and downs and complements you in every
respect. Getting married is the only way for two Muslims who are
fond of each other to express their love fully and completely. I often
think about the freedom that such a relationship gives you to
do things you’ve wanted to do with someone you liked but were
unable to before—like dating.
This may sound strange to many people. Marriage is something
you usually think about when you’re 30 or 40, not when you’re 19.
We young people are expected to go out and enjoy life now—marriage can wait. But what make me different from just any other
teenager is that this is precisely the kind of life I intend having with
my husband. Going off on Interrail trips, going to art exhibitions
and plays, flying to Australia, scuba diving, or hiking in the Alps.
Marriage doesn’t represent an obstacle—in my life and the lives of
6
many other Muslims, the opposite is the case. I’m showered with
questions when I tell people how I’ve imagined all this. How do
Muslim men and women meet? How are you to know if you’re suited
to each other in the long run? Can Muslims only marry Muslims?
What do you do while waiting for the love of your life? These are
questions I can only answer from what I’ve seen and learnt from my
sisters. Another question I often get is whether I can choose my own
husband or if he is chosen for me by my father or brother.
So how do Muslim women and men meet? There is no general
answer to this question. We meet like everyone else, but perhaps in
different circumstances. We meet in mosques, in the library, at
school... I know a couple who met while waiting in line at their local
chain store. There are many ways for us to meet, but the big difference between non-Muslims and Muslims is that in our case both
partners know how far you are allowed to go. Out of respect for our
parents and family, if things get serious we usually tell them we’ve
started seeing someone and that the relationship may lead to
marriage. Whether or not we’re suited to each other in the long run,
only God knows. You have to trust your feelings and pray a lot. Pray
that you’ll meet someone who will feel the same for you as you feel
for him, someone you can be yourself with and who shares the
same values and—most important of all—the same faith.
That he believes in what I believe in, feels for what I feel—this is
absolutely essential. And finding someone who shares what means
the most to you is beautiful. The love that grows out of such an
encounter, I believe, is the kind of love that lasts. This also helps to
answer the question of whether your partner has to be a Muslim.
If you think that Islam is very important, you want to be with someone who shares this view. It’s that simple. All right... but what do you
do while waiting for the love of your life to appear? Many people
find the right person when they are very young, while for others it
takes longer. Among both Muslims and non-Muslims, there are those
who pick and choose, test different partners, while others stand firm
and wait. One of my closest friends feels exactly the same way as
me about relationships, and she’s not a Muslim. I have a lot of friends
7
with differing views about what I’m doing and other Muslims are
doing. Some think it’s sad that we’re “missing out on so much”, while
others fully agree with our way of looking at things, “as free relationships don’t bring you much more than a headache, ultimately”.
Whatever view you may take of people who prefer to wait, three
things are for sure: the choice is theirs, it doesn’t have to exclude
love and if it is due to religious conviction there is nothing for it but
to respect this. As far as my father’s and my brother’s involvement in
my choice of future is concerned, it’s like this: if I hear that someone
is interested in me, I send my brother along to check him out. My
father’s primary concern will be whether the person I meet has
enough money saved up, so that I get my Interrail trip. He doesn’t
want me to be disappointed.
Nadia Jebril,19, works at the Sensus adult education association
meet Nadia on pages 100–106
2
LOV E P O E M
The day I met you I tore up all my maps
all my prophecies
Like an Arab stallion I smelled the rain of you
before it wet me
Heard the pulse of your voice
before you spoke
Undid your hair with my hands
before you had braided it
Nizar Qabbani (b 1923)
3
beautiful
p l a c e on earth
the most
– young people caught
in a conflict
b y Pe r A x e l N o rd fe l d t
D E V E LO PM E N TS I N T H E Middle East are generating bigger and
blacker headlines from month to month. Terror, oppression, suicide
bombings, fear and revenge are creating a spiral of evil that seems
to be plunging the region closer to the abyss, slowly but surely. How
can one feel anything but despair and powerlessness in the face
of such a conflict as this, where dialogue has been replaced by
political manoeuvring and clamorous unilateral action.
But what is it like being young and having to live with this? Is
there any room for hopes and dreams when death and terror are
never far away? To find out, I arranged to interview Hagar Edlund
and Hanin Shakrah at a café in central Stockholm.
“Both the Israelis and the Palestinians have lost their senses,”
says Hagar. “Emotion rules nowadays, nothing else counts.
“The situation is strained, to say the least,” adds Hanin with a
bitter laugh.
Hagar is 23 and Israeli. Her mother is an Egyptian Jewess, her
father a Swede and a Christian. The couple settled in Israel, but
Hagar was born in Sweden. When she was five, the family moved
back to Israel, to Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam. This is a community
9
set up at the initiative of a Christian priest, Bruno Hussar, to show
that Arabs and Jews can live together and work hand in hand for
peace. The name means ‘The Oasis of Peace’ in Hebrew and Arabic
respectively, and the people living there respect one another while
at the same time cultivating their own distinctive characters and
cultures. At present, Hagar is studying economics at Södertörn
University College.
Hanin Shakrah is 20 and a Palestinian. This means that she
comes from a family which lived in the region that became the
state of Israel in 1948. Palestinians either live in the occupied zones
(Gaza, the West Bank, Eastern Jerusalem) or are refugees. Israeli
Palestinians—Arabs—are Palestinians with Israeli citizenship.
Hanin’s family comes from Safad (Hebrew: Zefat). In the same
year as the state of Israel was founded, the family was forced to
flee to Syria, where three successive generations have now lived in
refugee camps. Hanin came to Sweden with her parents at the
age of four and is currently studying Oriental studies at Uppsala
University. At the beginning of 2000, she went to Palestine for the
first time, but was unable to visit Safad until this year. She is the
only member of the family to have been there since their flight.
Both Hagar and Hanin describe themselves as political leftists.
Neither of them practise their religion in an orthodox manner.
A young Israeli woman and a young Palestinian woman, both living
in Sweden. What is ‘home’ to them?
“Israel,” replies Hagar, “it’ll always be Israel.”
“Palestine,” says Hanin. “I didn’t think it would be as I’ve never
been there. But when I arrived there it felt as though the whole
family had come home. As though my journey wasn’t just mine but
everyone’s.”
What does having—and not having—a state of your own mean?
“Having a state means independence, having rights, living in a
democracy,” says Hagar thoughtfully.
“Not having a state means not having an identity,” says Hanin.
“I tell people I come from Palestine. But when I can’t point it out on
the map, it’s difficult to explain. When people sound me out, it feels
10
as though they’re questioning my existence. When we were
studying religious history at school, Biblical Palestine felt like an
acknowledgement, a confirmation. There was actually something
called Palestine, it had a name.”
“I feel guilty about this,” says Hagar, “towards you and towards
all Palestinians. I think the situation is terrible, that I have a state
and you don’t. You really should have a state of your own. At the
same time, I find it a little strange your saying that Palestine is your
country, when you didn’t grow up there. I may have been born in
Sweden, but I grew up in Israel. You should feel at home in Sweden
rather than Palestine.”
“At home I wasn’t brought up in a Swedish culture,” counters
Hanin. “I feel tolerated in Sweden, but I don’t feel at home here.
I don’t feel as though I’m a part of the place in any way. There was
quite a lot of cultural conflict when I got to Palestine, too, but
somehow we understood one another. People there were warm
and open in a way that made me feel I belonged.
“I consider it a tremendous provocation when Jews say that
they are in Israel by right of birth. My family comes from those
parts but isn’t even allowed to visit the country.”
Hagar’s solution to the conflict involves Israel retreating to the
borders that applied before the war of 1967 (when the West Bank
and Gaza were occupied). Hanin thinks all Palestinian refugees
should be entitled to return and live in Israel, a viewpoint that
Hagar objects to strongly.
“It’s unrealistic,” she says. “Some of the refugees must be allowed
back, but not all. The Israelis can never agree to that as it would
result in the Palestinians constituting a majority.”
“What’s the problem?” asks Hanin. “You yourself are living proof
that coexistence works—you lived in Neve Shalom.”
“Neve Shalom is a bubble,” replies Hagar. “We could live together
there—many of my best friends are Palestinians—but in the whole
of Israel, never. There’s too much distrust and suspicion. The only
solution is to divide the country up.”
Hagar’s views and her close contacts with Palestinians are often
11
regarded with scepticism by other Israelis.
“Sometimes they call me a Palestinian,” she sighs.
Trying to work out a comprehensive, viable solution to the
problem is no easy matter in itself, but the conflict is having
a powerful impact on people’s daily lives, in Sweden as well.
“I’m often met with suspicion when people hear that I’m from
Israel,” says Hagar. “Some guys are impressed by the fact that I did
military service (and how I hated being a soldier!), but people often
withdraw and don’t want to discuss politics with me. I try to
explain my position and say what I feel, but somehow or other
I always end up having to defend Israel.”
“Do you get frightened when you see Palestinians?” asks Hanin.
“Here in Sweden? I’ve got nothing against them, but they’ve got
something against me. There are some situations where I definitely
don’t want to say I’m from Israel or that I’m Jewish.”
“I get really scared sometimes,” says Hanin. “There was a guy
who came up to me after a debate and asked where I was from.
“Palestine,” I said. “I’m from Israel,” he said. I thought my heart
would stop. Not that I expected him to jump on me, but suddenly
I wasn’t standing in front of a person, I was standing in front of
Israel. He became a symbol. This has happened several times, both
in Sweden and when I was in Palestine. OK, so he’s in this bar now,
but in a couple of weeks’ time I may come across him as a soldier at
a roadblock.
“When I was in Palestine, I was angry the whole time,” says
Hanin. “When I got back to Sweden, I was tired, completely exhausted as a result of all the anger I felt about the whole situation. What
hope do those people have for the future?”
“My dream is the same as Hanin’s,” says Hagar. “A state where
people of all faiths can live side by side in peace.”
“It’s not just a dream, for me,” Hanin interjects. “I think we can
help bring about such a solution. It’s fear that makes people unable
to see the Other’s viewpoint.”
“I want to live in Israel when I’ve finished studying here in
Sweden,” Hagar continues. “I want to start a family, but not if my
12
children are going to have to do military service and be exposed to
the kinds of conflicts and risks you find there today.
“Things are difficult at the moment, there’s less scope for tolerance. But my friends and I are keeping at it. We go on arranging
meetings where Israelis and Palestinians can get together, discuss
the problems, listen to one another and discover that we’re all
human beings.”
“I want to live in Palestine,” says Hanin. “I want to be able to
land at Ben Gurion Airport without anyone asking me what I’m
doing there or what religion I have—because I’ve come to my
country. I’ve now applied to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
and to the university in Palestine as well. I want to go there, and
I want to help change things.
“It’s the most beautiful place on earth. We can’t just let it be
submerged in darkness like this.”
Two young women. Hagar with her feelings of guilt about
a situation she cannot be blamed for, Hanin with her anger over
the way things are. Despite all the differences, they have similar
dreams and goals, and they are united by a strong sense of
injustice, a feeling that a great wrong has been committed and
must be put right.
As the interview ends, they swap phone numbers and begin
discussing the possibility of a joint trip to Israel/Palestine. The road
to a solution of the Middle East conflict is a long and extremely
arduous one. But if the journey is to be embarked on at all, it must
surely start here—with the willingness of people to meet and try to
understand one another.
Per Axel Nordfeldt is a freelance journalist
»Better wide-open eyes than a wide-open mouth« Turkish proverb
13
4
p h oto Pe l le K ro n e s te d t
Muslim without Allah
C E Y L A N H O L A G O is 22 and works as a journalist
at Sveriges radio, on the P3 programme Doris.
YA L L A ! followed her around for a few days to find
out who she is.
Ceylan grew up in Bergshamra outside Stockholm
Slam dunk, Yalla!
»
I have great respect for all religions, but Islam
is closest to me as my roots are Turkish. I’m not
a practising Muslim, though. My family has
never been religious—but we have other values
and we’re very active politically.
»
When I fall in love, I really fall, and that’s only happened once in my life. For me, being able to laugh
with the person I love is tremendously important.
Someone’s waiting for Ceylan at home
»
I’ve nothing against people having
sex before marriage but I respect
those who prefer to wait.
In action at P3, Doris
»
My job means a lot to me. At the radio, I get the
chance to reach people I’d probably never come into
contact with otherwise. And I learn an incredible
amount every day.
Together with friends and her sister, Ülkü, who runs the Ali Baba club.
5
six questions to
Ceylan Holago
b y G u f ra n A l - n a d a f
“Being secular yourself, how do you feel about Islamic fundamentalism?”
C: I’m against all forms of fundamentalism. As I’m not a believer,
I can’t understand why people sometimes go to extremes in the
name of religion. In this connection, it’s important to remember
that you find fundamentalism in other religions as well.”
“Can you understand those who resort to terrorism?
C: No, that’s another galaxy for me. I’m against all forms of violence,
even if I can sometimes understand that people get angry about
certain things.
“Why do you think some young people are attracted to Islamic
fundamentalism, for instance?
C: Perhaps young people are more easily attracted to different
lifestyles. And that includes different subcultures. Maybe they’re
looking for some kind of identity.
“Are there any social patterns involved here, do you think?”
C: I think the influences we’re exposed to affect us a lot. People are
drawn to each other in various ways, looking for somewhere to
belong, and some may be tempted to go to extremes.
“Can and should society take steps to prevent such a development?
C: At school we were taught too little about the different religions.
So information and a more varied type of religious instruction at school
might be a good idea. It would help people to think more clearly.
“What is the best possible solution, in your view?”
C: People are quick to condemn others. Naturally, I believe we
should all be allowed to have our own ideas and convictions, but in
a disciplined way, not through fundamentalism or terrorism.
22
6
Be not swift to condemn!
Be forbearing! Forgive!
Consider thy own guilt!
Were we to know more about one another
forgiveness would come easily.
And neither pride nor arrogance would endure.
Hafiz (1320–1389)
7
live and let live
by Javeria Rizvi
T H E R E ’ S A S W E D I S H saying that closely resembles the English
‘live and let live’. By implication, this means you should accept diversity and not interfere with how other people choose to lead their
lives. A simple enough concept, perhaps, but in practice things have
turned out differently and thrown Swedish society into confusion.
The media, the authorities and the courts have joined in conjuring up a static image of the ‘Muslim immigrant girl’ and the life
she leads. She is stereotyped as an oppressed, cowed and helpless
victim. Such an image doesn’t help this girl much, nor is it very
subtle. The public debate on ‘honour killings’, for instance, has been
one-sided and has frequently assumed the character of a battle
against a specific culture—usually Muslim culture. Culture and
tradition are used as an excuse for certain kinds of behaviour, and
religion thus becomes a scapegoat for the kind of deep-rooted
oppression of women that is to be found both in Sweden and the
rest of the world.
But it was not until the summer of 2001, when I returned to
Sweden after completing my studies abroad, that I realised how
‘honour killings’ and the public debate on the subject affected me
personally.
An unpleasant incident on the underground train from Mörby
Centrum shattered my belief in my own Swedish identity. A welldressed woman in her thirties sitting opposite me smiled kindly.
I smiled back. She said she thought the train was going slowly,
didn’t I agree?
“No,” I said.
Whereupon she made the peculiar observation: “I suppose from
a Turkish viewpoint you think the train’s going really fast, don’t you?”
It took me about half a minute to realise what she meant, and
24
the smile quickly vanished from my lips.
“I’m not Turkish,” I said.
“Where are you from, then, Iraq?”
“I’m from Sweden,” I replied.
“Then what’s your religion?”
“Islam!!!!” I said in a firm voice, realising what a negative ring
this was likely to have in her ears.
“So how come you’re allowed to stay out so late? What do your
parents think about that sort of thing? Don’t they get angry? Don’t
they beat you? Don’t you feel sorry for girls like yourself?”
The woman was neither stupid nor drunk. She simply wanted
to provoke me. But why? It made me so angry that I just wanted to
shout at her, but instead I remained calm and asked her the same
questions as she had asked me. Naturally, she didn’t answer, claiming
only to be interested in Iraqis. She said she wanted to know what
life was like for “you girls” and was planning to make a documentary film about those of us who were “liberated”. By then I was
unable to contain myself any longer and told her she was a racist.
It was wrong of me to judge her like that, but my emotions
got the better of me. Why couldn’t she just mind her own business
and let me mind mine—live and let live?
The following day, I was having dinner with some friends and
acquaintances and told them about the incident with the woman
on the underground. I tried to explain how much it had upset me.
To my surprise, almost none of them understood why I was so
upset. A discussion about Muslim women rapidly ensued and I was
showered with questions about why we wear shawls and why
people commit ‘honour killings’. No-one asked me about my faith
or my spiritual life, they were only interested in the outer aspects.
A heated discussion taught them a lot of new things about Swedes
who are ‘different’.
During the years I spent abroad, about a dozen young immigrant women were murdered by male members of their family.
The murders were brutal and the punishment legitimate. ‘Honour
killings’ are neither standard practice nor endorsed in the Koran.
25
Blaming violence against women in immigrant or Muslim communities on religious or cultural tradition is far too easy an excuse.
And anyway, which Muslim culture are they referring to? You never
hear people talking about a single, unified Christianity, for example.
Although Sweden today is a country with more than 350,000
Muslim inhabitants, prejudice and misunderstanding concerning
Muslims and their ‘culture’ is widespread. In the struggle to help
what are termed immigrant girls, a misleading and over-simplified
image of young Muslim women as a whole has emerged. Many of
them are unwilling to give up their culture or their religion despite
holding critical views about them. This is because religion and
culture are often an important part of your identity.
At the same time, all of us—Swedes, immigrants and Muslims
—must tackle these problems and not be afraid of reacting
forcefully.
Being a second-generation immigrant, I am a skilled ‘social
navigator’. I have learnt how to strike a balance, to tread a path
between the two cultures I live in. This is a quality that is often
forgotten—instead, young immigrant women like me are viewed
as victims. No-one wants to be regarded or treated as a victim.
I may be vulnerable. But I’m not weak.
Javeria Rizvi, 24, is a law graduate specialising in Third World studies.
26
8
W H AT ’ S T H E P O I N T
If life’s just play
Where’s the bucket and spade
If life’s just for fun
Why are most people crying
If you only live once
What’s the point
If death’s the end
Where’s eternity
If we were born to die
Why live
If we were born to live
Why die and not reawaken
Why is there love
If it’s not eternal
Why spread hatred
When life’s so short
God did not create us in vain
So let’s pray together and love one another till we die.
Ramsis James Assal, 18, a student at
Tensta Upper Secondary School, Stockholm
9
»h o n o u r k i l l i n g s«
in the land
of equality
b y Å sa E l d é n
D U R I N G T H E W I N T E R of 1996–97, the people who composed
Sweden’s newspaper headlines learned a new word, hedersmord—
“honour killings”. Press, radio and TV reported a series of murders or
murder attempts on young women. In Stockholm, a woman from
Turkey was stabbed by her brother outside a discotheque. In Umeå,
a young woman from Iraq was strangled by her brother and a cousin.
In Eskilstuna, a Kurdish woman was severely stabbed by her 16-yearold brother. In Hällefors, a Palestinian woman was murdered by her
father. All these cases were described in the media as having one
thing in common: the men who attacked and murdered these young
women viewed their “sexual” behaviour—their contact with young
men, for instance, or their “indecent” clothing—as shameful. The
shame was not the young women’s alone but “contaminated” the
family as well. Murder was the only means of restoring family honour.
Among the men who committed the murders and assaults were
Muslims, Christians and atheists, Arabs, Turks and Kurds. Yet the
media often described the crimes as extreme manifestations of
Islam or Arab culture. Honour killings were portrayed as a direct
consequence of an alien religion or culture—one, it was implied,
that represented the very opposite of the culture of gender equality
found in Sweden.
28
But do cultures and religions in fact “govern” people’s actions?
Does a man who murders and assaults people really have no
choice? If he has a choice, how are we to view such “alien” actions—
a father, brother or uncle murdering his daughter, sister or niece?
A few winters later, honour killings are once splashed across the
tabloids’ newsbills. Fadime—who openly defied her Kurdish family,
reported her father and brother to the police for threatening her
and told her story to the media—is murdered by her father when
meeting her mother and sisters in secret. A wave of anger sweeps
across Sweden, memorial services are held, headlines are huge and
for several days the episode overshadows all else in the press and
on television debate programmes.
Almost exactly a year before Fadime’s father shot her to death,
sentence was passed on two Swedish-Kurdish men who had
murdered their niece. This particular girl left her upper secondary
school class in the spring of 1999 in the belief that she was going
to Iraqi Kurdistan that summer to find a husband. On a number
of occasions the previous year, she had run away from home in
protest after her father and brothers tried to force her to break
with her friends. Now she was ready to go to Kurdistan to get
married, not perhaps because she wanted to but for the sake of
domestic peace. She wouldn’t listen to friends who were concerned
about her and asked if she wasn’t worried that her father and his
brothers might harm her—perhaps kill her—in Kurdistan. She
replied: “Don’t worry, I’m going with my family.”
When the autumn term began, she was dead. She had been
murdered by her father and his brothers in the family home in
Iraqi Kurdistan. Her sister described to the Swedish police how one
of the uncles fired a gun at the girl’s head while the father and his
other brothers held back the mother and the sister who tried to
save her.
The murder resulted in court proceedings in Iraq but later in
Sweden as well, after the sister and the two uncles had returned. At
both trials, the two men denied the charges, claiming that the girl’s
father was the murderer. When asked why he had killed her, they
29
gave different versions in the two countries. At the Iraqi trial, the
uncles said the father had killed his daughter to “erase the shame”,
because she had “lost her chastity” and to “restore the family’s
honour”. In Sweden, however, they claimed that he committed the
murder because he was “mentally ill”, had been exposed to torture
and “was in bad shape” due to unemployment and alienation in
Sweden. The Swedish court chose to believe the sister’s version that
the father and his brothers had planned and committed the murder
together. The two, who pleaded not guilty, were jailed for life.
Why did the two brothers offer different explanations of the
crime in Iraq and Sweden? Why did they cite family honour in Iraq
but mental illness and alienation in Sweden? Was it to make others
view them and their crime in a more lenient light? Was it a case of
believing that different justifications for violence against women
are more acceptable in different cultures?
A male Kurd who murders or assaults his daughter can find
sympathy for his actions among other Kurds—or perhaps among
Sicilians, Iranians, Pakistanis, Brazilians—if he says he was forced to
murder her in order to save his family’s honour. He can say that
people were talking about his daughter, about her mini-skirts and
her high heels. There were rumours that she had been meeting
young men and had no doubt lost her virginity; people called her
a “whore”. He can cite cultural ideas whereby women with bad
reputations like his daughter are considered shameful; they bring
disgrace on the whole family, and on the men of the family in
particular. In Iraq, “honour” can be a culturally acceptable motive
for violence against women.
Swedish politicians like to congratulate themselves on having
achieved the highest level of gender equality in the world. But in
Sweden, too, women are murdered by men close to them—not
usually a brother or father but often a husband or partner. Almost
half of all Swedish women have been subjected to male violence at
some time or other. But no-one would ever dream of saying that
Swedish men beat women to protect their honour. Often, however,
male violence is said to be caused by what the two uncles described
30
at their Swedish trial: mental illness, unemployment, alienation
or perhaps alcoholism or drug abuse. Violence against women is
a consequence of the male attackers’ individual and/or social
problems—this is a culturally viable explanation in Sweden. This
explanation suits us perfectly: it allows us to retain our image of
Sweden as a Garden of Gender Equality. If Swedish men who beat
women have personal problems, the violence has nothing to do
with Swedish culture.
Different societies use different explanations in seeking to
make men’s crimes against women seem less terrible—perhaps
even acceptable. Family honour, mental problems and jealousy
are just some of them. Viable explanations can be drawn from
Arab, Kurdish, Swedish or Danish cultural ideas (or from Christian,
Muslim or Hindu religious doctrine) affirming a man’s right to
decide over and control a woman—and sometimes his right to
decide whether she is to live or die.
But people can also choose to take a stand against such cultural
ideas. A man who beats and murders a woman cannot escape
responsibility for his deeds by citing unemployment or alcoholism
or drug abuse, or defence of his family’s honour. There is no excuse
for beating or murdering a daughter, sister or wife. Men can choose
not to.
Åsa Eldén is a postgraduate student at Uppsala University
»Roses and thorns grow on the same bush« Turkish proverb
31
10
impossible love
by Ranna Kas Hanna
S O MA NY H O R R I FYI N G things have happened lately. Most recent-
ly the terrible “honour killing” of Fadime. She was a strong woman
who fought for what she believed in—love. I’m a girl who was born
and raised in Sweden. My parents originally came from Syria and
we are Christian Syrians. I’m fortunate as there’s no such thing as
‘honour killings’ amongst us Syrians in Sweden—but no such
thing as boyfriends or boys who are just friends, either. If you have
a boyfriend you’re supposed to be engaged if you want to be
together without ‘ruining’ the family’s reputation. This is a burden
we girls have to bear. My parents are strict but they only have our
best interests at heart. If I were to come home with a boy, my father
would welcome him with open arms but he would probably check
to see whether he was a suitable match. My sisters and I must
never go behind our parents’ backs as there’s nothing worse than
sneaking about and lying.
In my view, Fadime’s father is one of the weakest people on this
planet—along with everyone else who thinks like he does—as he
couldn’t stand the pressure. He chose to take his daughter’s life
rather than grapple with his demons. Why, I wonder. What was it
that made Fadime’s father pull the trigger, why was he unable to
withstand the taunts, how could his love turn to hatred? One of
the causes of this murder was ignorance.
I know that Fadime’s in a better place now. She’s my heroine—
she died for love and for what she believed in.
Ranna Kas Hanna, 18, is a student at Östra Real Upper Secondary
School in Stockholm
32
11
➾
20
a new world
11
the threat
democracy
to
b y D a v i d S a n d b e rg
“ I S L A M I S A T H R E AT to our democracy”. This was the headline in
a polemical article by Lennart Persson in the Swedish paper Nerikes
Allehanda on 9 October 1992. At the time, Persson was chairman of
the local town planning committee, and as such was one of the
councillors due to decide whether or not to allow a mosque to be
built in Örebro. His message leaps off the page: as long as there is
oppression in Muslim countries, Muslims must not be allowed to
build mosques here. The article sparked a controversy. New articles
appeared in response. Those who opposed Persson’s views argued
that he was failing to respect the principle of freedom of religion.
This caused a Christian pastor to respond that Islam is a religion
full of threats, war and persecution. In a letter to the local council,
he wrote: “In Sweden, we uphold freedom of religion but there
must be limits beyond which people’s safety and security come
first.” How a mosque poses a security threat is not explained in the
pastor’s article. This is a frequent argument among the opponents
of mosques—that Muslims practising their religion may present
a threat to Swedish society. Some even argue that Muslims are a
threat to democracy.
Freedom of religion is a basic freedom of our democratic
society. It means that we all have the right to practise our religion.
Seeking to restrict this freedom in the name of democracy seems
a contradiction.
34
The question is, what happens to democracy if a handful of
politicians or a pastor are allowed to choose who it is for? And if
they are, is democracy still democratic? And what happens when
they base their assessments on acts of violence? Acts for which
Islam is blamed, but which hardly enjoy the support of all the one
billion people who embrace the Muslim faith.
Ann-Christin Harman is an expert on comparative religion.
When the mosque in Stockholm was due to be built in 1998, she
was one of those who went round informing neighbours and
others affected by the project. As she sees it, the media have helped
whip up fear and opposition. News reporting about Islam often
focuses on violence and oppression. And terrorist acts. Islam is
something menacing. With this image in mind, it is not strange
that people are reluctant to see a mosque going up next door.
“They see Muslims portrayed as violent, fanatical and tyrannical,”
says Hartman. “In our perception of Islam, Swedish culture tends to
be held up as its opposite. The good as opposed to the evil. It’s as
though Islam represents everything we don’t want to become.”
This image is based on a highly simplified view of reality but
nevertheless helps make Islam appear a threat. Something we have
to protect ourselves against.
There are five mosques in Sweden today. A few more are at
the planning stage. All the projects have led to protests. These have
included letters to newspapers and appeals against municipal
planning decisions. Even when the number of those who protested
publicly has not been very large, some of the protestors have taken
drastic action. On the night of 14 August 1993, someone set fire to
the mosque in Trollhättan, which was totally destroyed. In Malmö,
someone released a pig in the mosque. When the Stockholm
town planning committee was to take a decision on the mosque
there in February 1995, a number of threatening calls were made
to City Hall.
Ann-Christin Hartman believes the protests are caused by a
fear that Islam may “take over” in Sweden. The mosque issue thus
becomes a struggle between the Islamic and Christian cultures. In
35
Stockholm, the conflict centred on the mosque’s minaret and the
church tower on the nearby St Catherine’s Church. People did not
want the minaret to be built higher than the church tower. According to Hartman, many people are afraid that “Christian Swedish
values” such as democracy, gender equality and freedom of religion
will disappear if further mosques are built.
A recurring argument is that in a number of Muslim countries,
Christians are oppressed and prevented from building churches—
so what gives Muslims the right to build mosques in a Christian
country? But the situation is not that simple. The provincial newspaper Smålandsposten, refuted this argument in an editorial on
7 April 2001, pointing out that Christian churches are to be found
in most Muslim countries. This is also confirmed by the Church
of Sweden.
The argument can be turned on its head: if Muslims are not
allowed to build mosques here, is it likely that Christians will be
allowed to build churches in Muslim countries in the future?
David Sandberg works for Quick Response, a media watchdog
sponsored by the youth branch of the Swedish Red Cross.
FACTS: There are five mosques in Sweden today, in Malmö,
Trollhättan, Västerås, Uppsala and Stockholm. Further mosques
are planned, at least in Göteborg, Skövde, Växjö and Örebro.
Although freedom of religion is enshrined in the Swedish
Constitution, only 41 per cent of Swedes feel that immigrants
should have the right to practise their religion, according to
a poll conducted by the SOM Institute in 1999.
Today a man was knocked down by an Arab ›
36
i l l u s t ra t i o n b y J e s p e r W a l d e rs te n
12
a muslim
in Krylbo
b y J e n n y B e rg g re n
H O R N DA L P E O P L E — you know what they’re like. A bit thick.
That was how Mehmet Kaplan and his friends in Krylbo saw it
when they were due to start school and have classmates from the
neighbouring village.
Today, more than 20 years later, he likens the way Swedish society views Muslims to his critical attitude towards his classmates.
As chairman of the Swedish Young Muslims Association he comes
across the same kind of fear of the unknown, both in journalism
and in the community as a whole.
“The media have two ways of describing Muslims, either as
sweet and loveable or as something scary,” he says.
The sweet and loveable version includes an element of indulgence, as though “we of course know better than the Muslims”. As
an example, Mehmet Kaplan cites the case of a teacher who told a
newspaper interviewer that pupils were allowed to defy the rules
of their religion and drink water at school during the Muslim fast
as long as they promised not to tell their fathers and mothers. As
Mehmet Kaplan sees it, the teacher is thereby failing to take the
parents seriously, treating them as though they were stupid instead
of giving them a chance to explain.
Mehmet Kaplan prefers to be taken seriously. He would like
to see serious media reporting on how Muslims pray instead of
pictures taken out of context simply showing men on their knees.
38
He feels that such pictures give the impression that Muslims are a
bit dense and that they unthinkingly allow themselves to be oppressed by the Koran.
“I can’t identify with such images—the Muslims I know in
Sweden are proud people.”
He says that press reporting tended to take the indulgent line
when there were fewer Muslims in Sweden. When they only prayed
at home in their living-rooms, the media could afford to find prayer
mats and shawls exotic and amusing. Today, however, the children
of these Muslims have grown up. And they want to live and be
allowed space on the same terms as everyone else. They want a
prayer mat at work, just as smokers are allowed smoking rooms.
They want a mosque. They want to wear headshawls without having
to defend the practice.
“In which case, someone will have to give up some of their space
to make room for us to pray.”
And the indulgent attitude, says Mehmet Kaplan, then turns
into one of suspicion.
He compares the way (Swedish) society treats Muslims to the
way (male) society treats women. Women are praised and patted on
the head as long as they do not represent a threat to male power.
But when they are given a job because they have the best qualifications for it, male support tends to vanish.
Women can either react by thinking, “Get used to it, lads”—or
they may have a bad day and lose heart. Mehmet Kaplan describes
the same mixed feelings among Muslims.
He says Muslims, just like women, encounter suspicion when
they are no longer manageable and easily indulged. He says that
media attitudes tend to harden when Muslims are no longer content
to pray at home, when they want to build mosques and take their
rightful place in society just like everyone else. According to Mehmet
Kaplan, Muslims are then described as a threat, and their religion is
portrayed as a brutal regime symbolised by women in shawls.
Mehmet Kaplan emphasises that the Koran does not require
women to wear shawls. What, then, does the shawl represent for him?
39
“It represents submission—but not to the man, to God. Just as
you submit to God by washing before you pray.”
He appreciates, however, that a young feminist girl may regard a
classmate wearing a shawl as oppressed. For a girl with that kind of
impression, he would like to arrange a meeting with one of the young
women who wear shawls through choice, and who do so proudly.
But he also discusses at length the Muslim girls who live in
conflict situations, and sometimes are directly threatened, because
they wish to lead their lives according to values that are not acceptable to their fathers. He agrees that such problems do indeed exist
and that Muslims themselves have failed to take them seriously
enough. But he feels that it should be emphasised more clearly in
the public debate that this applies only to a few girls, not to all
young female Muslims.
In other cases where Islam is presented as a menace, the subject
is often the sexual mutilation of girls or terrorist acts, two phenomena that in Mehmet Kaplan’s view have nothing to do with the
Muslim faith. He does feel, however, that some things have changed
for the better in the media field following the terror attacks in the
US last September. Islam and the Muslim community are no longer
presented in such a simplified light, and some media are showing a
greater eagerness to try and understand Muslims.
“People aren’t interested in clichés any more,” he says. He finds it
hard to understand those who feel that the growing number of
Muslims represents a threat to Christianity. Partly because Islam
and Christianity often share the same fundamental values, he says,
and partly because it is not a matter of taking over but rather of
being allowed in on equal terms. Just like in the case of women
fighting for equality of the sexes. He feels that women must first
have more executive power if Sweden is to become a fairer place—
after which it will be time for equality between cultures.
Jenny Berggren works for Quick Response, a media watchdog
sponsored by the youth branch of the Swedish Red Cross.
40
13
KABUL
It was a black day
when I left my country
It was five o’clock in Kabul
early in the morning
There was a curfew
No-one went with us to the station
Do you know why?
No-one had said a word
We weren’t allowed to tell anyone
that we were leaving
Someone might report us
We didn’t know friend from enemy
Leaving your country is like dying
Never again would I see my loved ones
Never again sit and laugh and joke with my friends
Never again see the snow-capped mountains
ringing the town like a fence
Never again see the indescribably blue sky
and be dazzled by the strong sunlight
Leaving your country is like dying
My heart still lies there in shreds
Shakila Emami, from ‘In the Heart of Tensta: Poems, Tales
and Images from Tensta Upper Secondary School’
14
media images
and historical
images
b y A le x a n d e r C a v a li e ra to s
“The militant Muslim movement Hamas today urged ‘Muslims
and Arabs around the world’ to attack Jewish targets during Easter.”
“The concept of honour killings is found mainly in the Middle
East. In Jordan, an estimated 30 women a year are murdered in
this way.”
“...many young British Muslims are ready to take part in the
Taliban’s war against the US-led alliance.1”
TH E A B OV E Q U OTATI O N S come from articles in Sweden’s biggest
evening paper, Aftonbladet. We recognise the theme: over there, in
the Muslim countries, brutal acts of violence are being committed
all the time, and Muslims living in the West are also prone to violence. But is that really the case?
Media research shows that of all reporting on Islam in the news
programmes Aktuellt, Rapport and Nyheterna (TV4) a few years
ago, 85% was violence-related. By comparison, only 25% of the items
in the overall volume of news reporting had to do with violence.2
The problem is not whether the above quotations are true or
42
not. Rather, a collection of true articles taken together can misrepresent reality. It is the selection of true images that creates the
lie: when we in Sweden hear about Islam in news programmes, it is
almost always in connection with violence. For many who do not
have a personal relationship with Islam, the constant repetition of
the word Islam itself, or of Allah, becomes associated with violence.
We choose to see violent Muslims. Otherwise we would have
been told about Muslims who are also parents, children, working
professionals, people of differing views and so on, instead of only
suicide bombers and persecutors of women.
But why do we prefer to see only violent Muslims?
T H E FA C T I S that there is a special branch of research concerned
with precisely this question. Edward Said, a Palestinian-American
professor of literature, declares that over the past few centuries
Europeans have carved out a European identity for themselves by
simultaneously cultivating an image of a diametrically opposed
identity, the Oriental one. Europe thus becomes a collective concept
defining ‘us’ as opposed to ‘them’—them being the world’s Orientals
(a term used mainly to describe Arabs, but also Persians, Indians,
Afghans and Chinese). The defining mark of the European identity
is its superiority to all non-European peoples and cultures. When
Europeans choose to see Arabs as violent, they are seeking to
affirm their identities by saying: ‘they’ are violent, uncivilised nonEuropeans, ‘we’ are peaceloving, civilised Europeans. By viewing
Arabs and Muslims as a menace, Europeans develop a sense of
community among themselves. This whole approach has its most
recent roots in the colonial era and in Europe’s need to justify its
brutal treatment of colonised peoples. At the time, it was said that
Arabs and Africans needed European leadership, that they were
unable to manage on their own.
All this may sound exaggerated, but a couple of examples from
the colonial era may serve to illustrate the point.
Fredrika Bremer, a leading figure both in Swedish literature and
in the struggle for women’s rights, described a trip she made to
43
Palestine in 1859. Her attitude towards Arabs and Islam reflects that
of most Swedes and Europeans at the time. The Arabs, she wrote,
“are destroying all culture and sense of wellbeing in Palestine. To
command respect, European consuls and missionaries are having
to establish colonies and defend themselves by force of arms
against this plague of locusts; but this does not represent much
of a problem as the Arabs are not the least bit courageous.”3
The Arabs destroy all culture and sense of wellbeing, she says, and
they are like locusts—in other words they lay waste to all in their
path. Her comments, made just before colonisation of the world
began in earnest, reflected the European view that non-Europeans
were inferior and thus could be treated with whatever brutality was
required. In those days, Palestine, the Holy Land, played a more
central role in the Christian faith than it does today. It was here that
Jesus was born, lived and was crucified. What upsets Fredrika Bremer
is that the cradle of the Christian faith is in the hands of Muslims.
When describing the problem of Islam in the following terms, her
point of departure is that Christianity is the only correct faith:
“The Mohammedan concept of God, so like that of blind fate,
heartless and senseless, and the bleak resignation, the lack of
hope and of peaceful improvement...are indeed corrosive,
murderous forces in the life of a people.”4
Later in the 19th century and well into the 20th, other Swedes followed in her footsteps and made pilgrimages to Egypt and Palestine
where they searched for traces of Jesus and the stories of the Old
Testament. The image of Arabs as an inferior people ‘laying waste to
all culture and sense of wellbeing’ persists. Oscar Dreiwitz provided
the following account in 1923:
“Ancient Cairo, which dates back thousands of years, is of
characteristic Eastern design. The streets are extremely narrow
and dirty. All manner of refuse is tossed into the street, and if
you are fortunate enough you will be involuntarily doused by
someone emptying a pail of slops from a roof or window.”5
44
Yolanda Colliander described in 1913 how the Egyptian children
called after her:
“‘Bakschisch, bakschisch!’ Much of the pleasure and delight of
travelling in Egypt is dispelled by these never-ending calls for
‘coins’. I have seen children feeding at their mother’s breasts
break off and stretch out their hands asking for ‘bakschisch’.”6
Just as today, these narrators were concerned with singling out
certain aspects of what they saw and preferably exaggerating
them. But instead of focusing on violence—even if there was much
talk in those days, too, of how violent the Arab was—such accounts
emphasised time and again the absence of proper hygiene and how
greedy people were in Egypt or Palestine. In the streets of Cairo you
have to zigzag your way through the waste and excrement and
duck flying slops while even babies at their mother’s breast beg
money from you!
To call Islam Mohammedanism, as Fredrika Bremer did, is to
belittle the Muslim faith. By their choice of words, Christians sought
to portray Islam as a cult of personality centring on its founder,
Mohammed. In this way, and through stories about the dirty, greedy
Arabs, they wanted to show that Islam was a heathen, immoral
religion in comparison with Christianity.
The Europeans’ sense of identity embraced an image of Europe
as a pillar of modernity, civilisation and culture in contrast to the
‘Orient’, which represented underdevelopment, primitive behaviour
and savage landscapes. When Fredrika Bremer and the Swedish
pilgrims described the people of Egypt and Palestine as dirty, primitive and heathen, this was an affirmation of their own Swedish and
European superiority.
S U C H I D E N T I T Y- A F F I R M I N G images of the ‘Other’, however, are
not unique to European culture. Let us take a giant step back
through history, to the year 920 AD, to see what an ancient Arab
culture had to say about other peoples and religions:
“They are the vilest of Allah’s creatures: they do not wash
45
themselves after defecating or micturating, nor after sexual
intercourse, and nor do they wash their hands after meals.
They are as wayward donkeys.”7
These words come from an Arab diplomat, Ibn Fadlan, who met
Swedish Vikings on his travels and wrote an account of his impressions when he returned home. He goes on to describe these men
of the north in the following terms:
“One has intercourse with his slave girl while his companion
watches. Often, a whole brood of them behave in this way in
each others’ presence...Every day they wash their faces and
heads in the dirtiest and most repulsive water imaginable.
The manner of this is as follows. Each morning a slave brings
in a bowl of water and gives it to her master. He washes his
hands, face and hair and disentangles it with a comb in the
bowl. He then blows his nose and spits in the water—verily,
there is no filth that he does not confine to this same water.
When he is finished, the slave carries the bowl to the next
man, who repeats the process. And thus she carries the bowl
round from one to the other until all in the house have used
it. And each and every one of them blows his nose and spits in
the bowl wherein he washes his face and hair.”8
Hardly a flattering account. How are we to interpret Ibn Fadlan’s
words? Were the Vikings immoral and primitive pigs? It would help
us to remember that Ibn Fadlan himself belonged to the upper
crust of Arab society and belonged to a culture in which people
ritually washed themselves five times a day. To win the approval of
his own kind, and not least to provide some excellent entertainment, he represented the Vikings as a people whose behaviour was
diametrically opposed to what was acceptable in Arab culture.
Bearing in mind that Ibn Fadlan describes not only the Vikings but
also most of the people he comes across as immoral pigs, we must
assume that the image of the dirty Viking who spits and blows his
nose may be no more than a powerful exaggeration based on the
46
fact that the Vikings were not as interested in personal hygiene as
he was. When he goes on to describe their religion, he is intent on
ridiculing them:
“They make their way to a tall stake driven into the ground and
bearing a humanlike face ... fall to their knees and pray, saying
... ‘I come to thee with these gifts’ and with these words he
places them before the wooden image and says, ‘I want you to
give me a merchant rich in dinares and dirhems who is willing
to buy from me all I wish and does not oppose what I say!’”9
Ibn Fadlan goes on to describe how the Viking, if his wish is not fulfilled, moves on to the next wooden figure with his gifts and asks it
for help instead. When the Viking offers meat as a sacrifice and the
dogs eat it up at night, Ibn Fadlan describes how the Viking believes
that it is the wooden god that has consumed the offering. Ibn Fadlan
clearly looks down his nose at the Viking practice of worshipping
‘wooden images’. To him, praying to a wooden figure or having more
than one god was inconceivable. It is obvious from his account not
only that he finds the Vikings greedy in their prayers but also that
he considers them pretty foolish. In this lies an implicit homage to
his own religion, Islam. To orthodox Muslims like Ibn Fadlan and his
readers, this account of the Vikings’ religious practices was confirmation that their own religion was the only right and proper one.
What else causes him to describe the Vikings as he does? To
answer this question we can look at another part of his account, in
which he compares the Vikings to palm trees, presumably because
he finds them taller than the average Arab.10
So if the Vikings were taller, they in turn might compare Ibn
Fadlan with something shorter than a palm tree—a tree stump, for
instance, or a child. How Ibn Fadlan describes the Other, therefore,
depends upon his perception of himself, and the Other thereby
becomes a form of self-affirmation or a reverse reflection. In other
words: a person is only tall once he or she comes across someone who
is short and can be used as a comparison. The negative aspect of such
comparisons is that the Other is frequently invested with all the bad
47
qualities that the person concerned wishes to be dissociated from,
such as dirt, smut, immorality and stupidity. This image suited
Ibn Fadlan’s purposes and self-perception. So it served to represent
the Vikings.
TH IS, TH EN, IS how an Arab government official in the 10th century
described people from the region that later became Sweden. Today,
in contrast to Ibn Fadlan’s time, when only a few people could read
his accounts, we learn about foreign cultures through various kinds
of media that have a powerful impact on society.
TV, newspapers, magazines and books overflow in our modern
world and the images that confront us constantly shape our perceptions concerning other cultures. There are a number of examples
showing how the prevailing literary culture describes the Other. For
the past couple of centuries, the West has largely prevailed in this
respect but as we saw in the case of Ibn Fadlan this was not always
the case. We have seen how the way one portrays the Other is
dependent on one’s own self-image and that people tend to invest
in outsiders all the bad qualities that they themselves wish to be
dissociated from. So we are forced to conclude that a fair picture of
foreign cultures is to be found neither in the historical accounts
of Ibn Fadlan, Fredrika Bremer or the Swedish pilgrim, nor in the
general media image presented today. The Swedish media, through
its images of violent Muslims, is confirming a Swedish and
European sense of identity by showing that this identity is under
threat and that it is also superior to that of the Arabs or Muslims.
Edward Said, the Palestinian-American researcher and professor,
calls this Western outlook Orientalism.
In Fredrika Bremer’s and the other pilgrims’ day, Swedes sought
to emphasis the image of dirty, uncultured and primitive Arabs and
Muslims. In Sweden today, we emphasise violent Arabs and
Muslims. The choice of image become a distortion of reality that
suits Sweden’s self-image.
Alexander Cavalieratos is a student at Södertörn
University College in Huddinge
48
REFERENCES
Fredrika Bremer, Lifvet i Gamla Verlden. Palestina och Turkiet,
4:e delen, Stockholm, 1859.
Yolanda Colliander, Ögonblicksbilder från en resa i Orienten,
Helsingfors, 1913.
Oscar Dreiwitz, Med kamera och penna genom faraoners och
Israels land, Stockholm, 1923.
Håkan Hvitfelt, ‘Den muslimska faran: om mediebilden av islam’,
in Ylva Brune (ed.), Mörk magi i vita medier, Stockholm, 1998.
Sigrid Kahle in the preface to Edward Said, Orientalism,
Stockholm, 2000 (Swedish pocket edition).
Edward Said, Orientalism, Stockholm, 2000 (Swedish pocket
edition).
Stig Wikander, Araber Vikingar Väringar, Lund, 1978.
www.aftonbladet.se
1
The quotations have been taken in chronological order from
Aftonbladet’s web editions of 8 April 1998, 7 January 2002 and
17 November 2001.
2
The figures are for 1991-95 and are taken from Håkan Hvitfelt,
‘The Muslim Peril: On the Media Image of Islam’, in Ylva Brune
(ed), ‘Dark Magic in White Media’, Stockholm, 1998, pp 79.
3
Quoted by Sigrid Kahle in the foreword to the Swedish pocket edition of Edward Said’s book, Orientalism, Stockholm, 2000, p 21.
4
Fredrika Bremer, Lifvet i Gamla Verlden, Palestina och Turkiet,
Del 4, Stockholm, 1859, p 192.
5
Oscar Dreiwitz, Med kamera och penna genom faraoners och
Israels land, Stockholm, 1923, p 31.
6
Yolanda Colliander, Ögonblicksbilder från en resa i Orienten,
Helsingfors, 1913, p 33. The Swedish spelling has been modernised by Alexander Cavalieratos.
7
Quotation from Stig Wikander, Araber Vikingar Väringar, Lund,
1978, p 64.
8
Quotation from Stig Wikander, Araber Vikingar Väringar, Lund,
1978, p 64.
9
Quotation from Stig Wikander, Araber Vikingar Väringar, Lund,
1978, pp 64.
10
Quotation from Stig Wikander, Araber Vikingar Väringar, Lund,
1978, p 63.
»Easy to tear down, hard to build up« Turkish proverb
49
15
islamophobia
b y A n n e S of i e R o a l d
F E A R O F T H E unknown, of outsiders, is not a phenomenon
peculiar to the modern era. Down through the centuries, groups of
people have gathered together to ward off intruders. In order to
keep the group together, the idea has been implanted that ‘we’ are
superior to ‘them’. One way of maintaining this self-image has
been to portray other groups as ‘different’, ‘strange’ and ‘unacceptable’. Historically, the Jewish community is the one that has been
most exposed to agitation and persecution on the part of other
ethnic groups. For long periods, the Jews did not have a country of
their own and were often driven into exile in various parts of the
world. They built up minority groups in a number of countries and
were therefore easy to use as scapegoats at different times.
Gypsies, or Roma as they prefer to be called, are another social
group frequently exposed to persecution and isolation in the countries they have lived in. Like the Jews, they have not had a country of
their own where they could live in peace. In the countries they lived
in, they were often chased from place to place and as time passed
the belief grew that Roma were not interested in settling down. In
Sweden today, we have come to understand that the reason why so
many Roma travelled around was that they were forced to. Now
that they have the opportunity, they live in flats and the children
attend ‘ordinary’ Swedish schools.
Since the Second World War, attitudes towards Jews and Roma
have undergone a change as a result of the horrifying persecution
50
they suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Some prejudice towards the
Jewish and Roma communities still persists, but it is the Muslims
who have become the scapegoats of today.
The persecution of the Jews and hatred of Jews is called ‘antisemitism’. Similar ideas and sentiments are expressed today in the
case of Islam and Muslims, and this is called ‘Islamophobia’.
Islamophobia means that you are afraid of the religion known
as ‘Islam’ and of Muslims, the people that follow this religion. A
major international conference (Combating Intolerance) in Stockholm in January 2001 declared that Islamophobia should be defined
as intolerance just like racism, antisemitism and xenophobia
(hatred of foreigners or of their politics or culture). Previously, many
countries around the world had not been prepared to accept such
a definition.
CAUSES
Islamophobia has many causes. First and foremost, it may be
caused by the fact that many Muslims come from countries where
cultural traditions differ from Western ones. Alternatively, or in addition, Islamophobia may have religious, racist or economic origins.
Religious Islamophobia may derive from the idea that the
Islamic faith is unacceptable in itself as it is thought to represent
a threat to the West. Interpretations of Christian and Jewish texts
have undergone certain changes. For example, Sweden had no
women clergy before 1950. Since the 1950s, a growing number of
women have become clergy in the Church of Sweden. The same is
true of Judaism, where the position of women has altered in many
Jewish denominations. Other aspects of these two religions have
changed as well, such as the way the family and homosexuality are
viewed. In the case of Islam, however, the fact that the Islamic message itself is currently undergoing change is not so widely known.
Swedes, for instance, tend to view Islam as a religion that is hostile
to women and prone to violence. The fact that the attitudes to be
found in many Islamic denominations today are very much like
those found in Christianity and Judaism is not so widely known. It is
51
important to remember that in all three religions there are groups
with a strict, ‘old-fashioned’ outlook and groups with a more ‘modern’ outlook who are open to the community around them.
In the case of Christianity and Judaism, people do not claim that
those with an ‘old-fashioned’ outlook represent all Christians and
Jews, but when it comes to Islam such claims are often heard.
HOW IS ISLAMOPHOBIA EXPRESSED?
This kind of fear of Islam and Muslims is primarily expressed in the
media and in conversation. One example is ‘honour killings’—a better description might be shame killings—which is a practice found
in various religions, among them Islam, Christianity and Yazidi (a
religious community that is neither Jewish, Christian nor Muslim
but combines shamanism and Zoroastrianism, denies the existence
of evil and believes that the soul passes to another body upon a
16
“What are racists?”
“Racists are people who, on the pretext of not having
the same colour, not speaking the same language and
not observing the same customs in the same way,
believe they are better, more advanced, than those
who are different from them.”
Conversation between author Taher Ben Jelloun (b 1944)
and his 10-year-old daughter
person’s death—transmigration). The practice has its roots in the
Mediterranean area and in South-Eastern Asia.
The first young woman to be murdered in this way in Sweden
was of Christian-Palestinian descent. Nor did Fadime—murdered
by her father in January 2002—describe herself as a Muslim. When
such things occur in Sweden, Muslims and Islam are blamed.
People write letters to the newspapers describing Islam and
Muslims in negative terms, and you frequently see editorial writers,
columnists and contributors to the cultural pages drawing parallels between Islam and honour killings—even when Muslims are
not involved. Many Muslims receive e-mail messages, letters or
telephone calls blaming all Muslims for crimes of this kind.
Following the terror attacks on the US in September 2001,
allegedly the work of Muslim terrorists, expressions of anti-Islam
and anti-Muslim sentiment increased. The Muslim community as
a whole was blamed in the Swedish public debate, and people
demanded that Muslims at various levels dissociate themselves
from the terrorists’ actions. On the one hand, a number of Muslim
representatives were invited to take part in TV and press debates
immediately after the attacks. On the other, both the press and TV
showed a greater readiness to air expressions of Islamophobic
sentiment, some of which deteriorated to the point where a small
group of ‘Muslim fundamentalists’ came to be identified as the role
models of all followers of Islam.
In the debate surrounding the US-led reprisals for 11 September,
particularly the bombing of various Muslim countries, Muslims
have been left with the impression that racist Islamophobia has
increased and that people think Muslim lives are less valuable than
American/European lives.
Anne Sofie Roald is a university lecturer in religious history
at Malmö University College
53
17
H A L A B JA
In March 1988, spring was on the way once again. The mountains
of Kurdistan, still not finished with the winter, would presently turn
green. Soon the snow would melt all around the country and the
earth would be decked with flowers instead.
Spring is like a gift to us Kurds. That’s when preparations begin
for Newroz, the Kurdish New Year. The Kurds start by whitewashing
their houses and sewing new clothes for both children and adults.
Each house is cleaned and the women cook traditional dishes.
Preparations for Newroz were under way in Halabja this particular
spring just like any other. Every morning, people awoke to the
clamour of the streets, children playing, men hurrying to work,
women beginning the day’s chores. But one morning all this life
and bustle was brought to an end. Instead of bodies at play, dead
bodies lay on the streets of Halabja. No sounds, no laughter, no
eager chatter heralding the arrival of Newroz. Mothers had pressed
their children’s bodies to their breast to protect them from the
poisonous air. Fathers had hugged the small bodies of their children
to protect them. But who is to protect these mothers and fathers?
Evin from ‘In the Heart of Tensta: Poems, Tales and Images from
Tensta Upper Secondary School’.
In 1998, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gassed to death
the Kurdish population of the town of Halabja.
18
when the fundamentalists
came to town
by Cekdar Kaya
W H E N I WA S a child on visits to my birthplace in Kurdistan,
a town called Batman, only the wives of clergymen wore shawls.
Married women who had not received an education seldom
appeared in public with their heads uncovered. But young people
and educated women dressed in accordance with Western fashions.
Women were allowed to go to college and find work wherever they
wished. They were active in both legal and illegal political parties.
All my aunts on my mother’s side are educated and support themselves. They used to go to cafés and to the cinema with their friends.
In the 1980s, the military regime in Turkey allowed the Islamic
fundamentalists to grow strong. They were considered the easiest
internal enemy for the Turkish state to deal with. But the last thing
that NATO (of which Turkey is a member) and the West wants is a
fundamentalist dictatorship. The military’s grip on political power,
therefore, is accepted, although it means oppression and the
absence of democracy and free debate.
When I visited Batman at the age of 15, in 1993, everything was
different. Most women walked around in clothing that covered
their whole body. You almost never saw women walking alone,
unaccompanied by any male member of their family. The Hizbollah
movement, which had previously been small and insignificant, had
suddenly grown strong. The movement unites fundamentalists
whose aim is a society governed directly by medieval Islamic law. It
had grown in strength principally as a result of its militant methods.
Women who went into the street bareheaded, for instance, risked
having acid thrown in their faces. Another way of harassing women
with short skirts was to bend a razorblade and fire it like a projec55
tile at the women’s bare legs. My aunts refused to quit their jobs
but they were terrified at what might happen to them every time
they went to work.
During this period, over a thousand young Kurdish men in
Batman were murdered by the Hizbollah movement because they
questioned its view of women. Even though the movement has
since grown weaker, it has managed to bring religion onto the political agenda in Turkey in an unprecedented way. When I was a child,
the fact that we were all Muslims was totally irrelevant in political
terms. In those days, discussions were about political ideology and
the Kurdish struggle.
In Sweden, too, Muslim fundamentalists are trying to establish a
foothold for themselves. I once heard a representative of the Muslim
Council demanding on the radio that Muslims in Sweden be judged
according to Sharia law (religious Muslim law) instead of Swedish
law in cases concerning family. The idea is of course absurd.
Swedish law is not based on what the Bible says but on what
present generations have agreed on. Ensuring that all people
respect and obey the same laws is a way of keeping society together.
If different laws were observed, what would happen in the event of
a legal dispute between people of different faiths?
Islam can be interpreted in many different ways. We should
remember that most Muslims are not fundamentalists. A Muslim
who interprets Islam strictly according to the book cannot exist in
a non-Muslim society. Those who live here, therefore, have had to
make some concessions. This is inevitable, as life would otherwise
be very difficult to cope with. You cannot, for example, insist that
your teacher or classmates wait while you pray, or repeat what they
did while you were out of the room. You shouldn’t make things too
difficult for those around you.
Cekdar Kaya, 22, military conscript
56
19
T U E S DAY 1 1 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 1
H O W CO M E ?
How come a thing like this can take place
How will it end, all this shame and disgrace
When will people stop hating one another
When will people stop fighting, become sister and brother
You who did this, I ask myself why
You behaved just like animals, hear my cry,
What gives you the right to take a life
What are your reasons for causing such strife
Do you really know what it is you’re doing
People are dying in the World Trade Centre ruin
Do thousands of innocents really have to go
So that you men of evil can sow your woe
No-one really knows just what’s going on
But sending those planes was just plain wrong
I rubbed my eyes when I saw the first one crash
Then came another, and another—unreality flash
This poem’s for you who met such unfortunate ends
For you who went in today but never came out—friends,
I hereby light a candle to honour your names
And pray this kind of thing will never happen again
Daniel Harild, 18, a student at the Östra Real Upper
Secondary School, Stockholm
20
another
of view
point
by Christina Zaar
A R A S H , M A H D I A N D M O H A M M E D shocked friends and teach-
ers at their school by refusing to observe the three minutes’ silence
called to honour the victims of the terror attacks in the US on
11 September 2001. All three boys were torn by conflicting emotions
when the reports of the terror attacks filled the media. On the one
hand they believe that US policies need to be resisted, on the other
they reject terrorism. They believe the Muslim faith to be the antithesis of terrorism.
“We will now observe three minutes’ silence as a protest
against terrorism and in support of an open, democratic society”,
the headteacher announced over the loudspeaker system.
“Why should we observe three minutes’ silence now when
we’ve never done so before?” wondered Mohammed.
Mohammed Kaivan was born and raised in Baghdad. He has
terrifying memories of his own of bomb attacks. American bombs
destroyed the bridge on which he used to play football with his
friends when he was young. As luck would have it, they weren’t on
the bridge when the bombs hit.
Four years ago, Mohammed arrived in democratic Sweden and
found the peace and quiet he needed to concentrate on his studies.
He is doing the general science course at upper secondary school.
Both Mohammed and his parents are practising Muslims. They say
58
prayers and observe the fast at Ramadan.
On 11 September, Mohammed’s peace and quiet was rudely
interrupted, although this time it was the US that was attacked.
Mohammed’s initial reaction was one of glee, until he realised how
many innocent people had died.
Mahdi Adawi is at the same school as Mohammed, but is doing
the motor mechanics course. Mahdi was born and raised in Sweden
but his father is from Palestine and his mother from Jordan.
Mahdi’s parents are followers of Islam and so is he.
Arash Zargarian is also at the same school, doing the electrical
and telecommunications engineering course. Arash was born in
Iran and has lived in Sweden for the past twelve years. He remembers virtually nothing from his time in Iran and has never been back
there. Neither he himself nor his parents are particularly religious.
Both sets of grandparents, however, are practising Muslims.
The Kaivans, Adawis and Zargarians all have satellite dishes that
allow them to watch TV channels from a number of different countries. This gives them a broad outlook on the world. They are used to
seeing other perspectives besides the Swedish one.
Mohammed’s class had earlier been asked to observe a minute’s
silence on the morning after the terror attack. Mohammed protested
at first but sat in silence and read a verse from the Koran to himself
during the silence, in honour of all innocent people who had died
throughout history and all over the world. Then he left the room.
He felt that his classmates were not prepared to accept his
arguments and were not really interested in them, either. At that
moment, a yawning gap opened up between Mohammed and
those who up until then had been his best friends. He suddenly felt
alone, more alone than he had ever felt before.
When Mohammed turned 18 a couple of weeks later, there was
no birthday party. None of his old friends came to congratulate him
as they had done a year earlier, on his 17th birthday, when the house
was packed.
“My brothers and sisters and my parents told me, ‘Now, you fool,
perhaps you’ll realise that you can’t just say anything you like in
59
Sweden, either’,” Mohammed says truculently. He finds it difficult
to accept that democratic Sweden, too, wants him to keep his
opinions to himself. For those prepared to listen, however, his opinion is that US policy is both manipulative and oppressive and that
the US wants access to the Arab world’s resources but respects
neither its people nor its religion.
Mahdi said not a word in the days immediately following the
attacks. Inside, he felt roughly the same as Mohammed. But Mahdi
knew that he would become as isolated as Mohammed if he
expressed his opinion aloud.
“I talked to some girls on the day after the attacks and they said
they felt so bad because so many innocent people had died in the
Arash, Mahdi and Mohammed refused to take part in the three minutes’
silence held for the victims of the terror attacks in the US on 11 September.
PHOTO SAM STADENER / PRESSENS BILD
US. I went cold. If I were to grieve for all the young children and
others who had died in Palestine, I’d be sad all the time,” says Mahdi.
“I observed those three minutes’ silence and I regret it. I feel
I should have left the room,” he says. He would have liked to object
that “no minutes of silence have ever been observed for any other
victims except American ones.”
To be fair, the headteacher ended his appeal over the loudspeaker system with the following words: “Let us never forgot those innocent people who have been injured or killed or have sacrificed their
lives all over the world, in terrorist acts and in the fight for freedom
and democracy.”
These words, however, appear to have been lost in the general
indignation that followed 11 September.
The attacks helped make Arash realise where he belonged, being
neither a Muslim nor an Arab. Arash is Persian and does not believe
in any religion, but in Sweden he is often regarded as an Arab.
“If I do something wrong, I’m a bloody Arab. That stands for
someone who’s incompetent, stupid, all the bad things,” says Arash.
He became furious at all the references to ‘Muslim terrorists’ that
were heard in the media reporting on the events of 11 September.
“You never hear references to ‘Christian terrorists’, or someone
who’s done something good being referred to as a Muslim, such as
‘the Muslim racing driver’”, he says.
Arash is keen to defend both Islam and Arabs as he can see how
misunderstood they are in Sweden.
“A thousand students have died in my country, but no-one
observes a minute’s silence for them,” he says. “When we were
supposed to have a minute’s silence, I didn’t keep quiet. And that
felt good,” he says.
Arash has his own views about the relentless US-led hunt for
terrorists in Afghanistan.
“Even if you cut off a sick arm the germs remain in the body and
you need antibiotics to combat the disease.”
Arash thinks freedom is the antibiotic that can exterminate the
germ of terrorism.
61
Mohammed lost some illusions about Sweden in the month of
September 2001. Since arriving in this country, he has made such
a point of behaving well, of not throwing litter on the ground, for
instance, that his friends have teased him, wondering if he is
“playing at being a Swede”. He is active in the school group against
bullying and is thus supposed to be a model to others.
“This thing is haunting me,” he complains. “In my native country
I wasn’t allowed to say what I wanted and now that I’m in Sweden
I can’t say what I want, either. Things are different here, of course,
but I still can’t state my opinions in the same way as others.”
In Sweden, adds Mahdi, you are supposed to think like everyone
else, like the majority. “And if you don’t, there’s something wrong
with you.”
None of their friends at school have since asked what really
happened on that occasion, when the three minutes’ silence led
to conflict instead of a sense of community. How come? Arash
knows, as the rosy image of Sweden that Mohammed just lost is
something he saw through long ago.
“They don’t ask because they’re afraid of the answer. They don’t
want to hear that their closest friend is against this or that. People
are supposed to think the same as you, it’s that simple. Especially
your best friend.”
“A great gap has opened up inside me,” says Mohammed, still
aggrieved—although he can’t help still being himself, talkative
and eager.
Christina Zaar is a journalist with Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm
FOOTNOTE: This interview is taken from an article published in
Dagens Nyheter on 16 December 2001. It was conducted in collaboration with teacher Lena Holmberg as part of a paper for
the Faculty of Theology at Stockholm University.
62
21
➾
25
the shawl
21
the right
wear a s h a w l
to
b y H i d a y et Te rca n
MY H U S B A N D A R R I V E D home the other night looking relieved.
He had been thinking about that sensitive issue—women with
shawls. I myself am a Muslim. I don’t wear a shawl and I have a good
job, but my sense of justice caused me to react very strongly when
he put forward his views.
This is what he said: “If a Muslim woman with a shawl applies
for a job and isn’t prepared to adapt to the style of dress at that
particular workplace, she has only herself to blame if she is turned
down.” He mentioned the municipal old-age care service as an
example. “Imagine if poor old dears who’ve never seen a woman in
a shawl suddenly get a helper covered from head to toe—they’d get
the fright of their lives, wouldn’t they!”
My husband has clearly been influenced by a public debate that
associates the wearing of shawls with male oppression of women
and argues that foreign women in shawls should adjust to this part
of the world—‘when in Sweden, do as the Swedes do’!
Preferably, I’d like to dismiss him as an idiot and stamp a ‘xenophobe’ label on his forehead, but I know that he is neither.
My mother wears a shawl and has done so all her life. Her shawl
is part of her personality. She was left to raise eight children on
her own when she was just 32 and as a lone young Kurdish woman
all the odds were against her. Yet she has brought us all up to be
independent, free-thinking individuals. She made sure we had an
64
education, and when it was impossible for her to stay in her native
country, she brought us to Sweden. To the country where you can
look and dress as you want, where there is democracy, where you
have freedom of expression and freedom of the press...—the list
of Sweden’s advantages is a long one! She did all this while wearing
a shawl.
I myself regard my mother as a woman worthy of admiration.
I asked my husband for his opinion—he couldn’t help but agree.
Who am I to tell my mother, who has fought all her life to give
us a good future, that she mustn’t wear a shawl in Sweden because
some people object to it? It would be like telling her that her whole
person is wrong for this country. To a great extent, her personality,
her identity, is associated with that shawl.
It’s a symbol of her integrity. I think it would be shameful if I had
to tell someone who has fought for the equal worth of all, and been
frightened into exile as a result, that if she wants to be accepted in
this country—of which she had such high hopes—she cannot be
herself. Appearances, it seems, take precedence over human dignity.
Hidayet Tercan works with integration issues
(This article is an edited version of the one published by
www.quickresponse.nu, website of the Swedish Red Cross’s youth
section)
»You can’t fight fire with fire« Turkish proverb
65
22
head coverings
in Islam
b y A n n e S of i e R o a l d
H I STO R I C A L LY S P E A K I N G , veils and head coverings used to be
symbols of power and elitism. In ancient Assyria and Persia, for
instance, only women of rank were allowed to cover their heads.
Female slaves were punished if they wore veils or head coverings.
Later, too, in Byzantine for instance, only rich and privileged women
were allowed to wear headdress. Men of high degree also covered
their heads, and we read how the prophet Mohammed and his peers
wore head coverings. In Muslim countries today, too, many men
cover their heads. Some believe you should do so as a mark of
respect for God. This is common, for instance, in Turkey, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, Malaysia and Indonesia. In the Gulf States around
the Persian Gulf, head coverings have a social function. There, the
native male population wear full-length tunics (dishdasha) with a
type of head covering (ghutra) held in place by a black ring (‘agal).
Such clothing chiefly indicates an elevated social status and differs
from the clothing worn by the large immigrant community of
lower status.
HEAD COVERINGS IN THE KORAN
The Koran says nothing about men’s clothing. It does, however, urge
men to lower their gaze when they meet a woman they are not married to. The Hadith—the body of legend about the life of Mohammed
and his followers—describes what men wore in the time of
66
Mohammed, and on the basis of these texts many Muslims believe
that not only women but men, too, should cover their bodies.
The Koran does however prescribe in several places that women
should cover themselves. The verse quoted by most Muslims to illustrate the importance of women wearing head coverings is the one
in which they are urged not to “display their ornaments [charms]
except what appears thereof”. It goes on: “Let them therefore fasten
their head-coverings (khimar) over their bosoms”. (Koran 24:31).
Elsewhere, the Koran states:
“O Prophet! say to your wives and your daughters and the
women of the believers that they let down upon them their
over-garments ( jilbab); this will be more proper, that they may
be known [as respectable women], and thus they will not be
given trouble; and Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” (Koran 33:59)
There is also a direct reference in the Koran to the wives of the
Prophet. This verse states that should male believers wish to ask
anything of Mohammed’s wives they should do so from behind a
curtain (Koran 33:53). In Arabic, the word used for curtain is ‘hijab’,
which has come to take on the meaning of ‘veil’ or ‘head covering’.
It is unfortunate that this word is used to depict head coverings
when it was originally intended to mean simply that women and
men were to be kept apart. Different Muslims interpret the term
differently, as a result of which they often mean different things
when talking about hijab. One way of explaining the three terms in
the Koran—the khimar, jilbab and hijab—is to define the khimar as
a head covering or headshawl and the jilbab as an all-enveloping
shawl or robe that can sometimes be pulled over the head, while
hijab can be taken to mean the screen or dividing line between the
male world and the female.
A single verse from the Koran cannot be taken at face value but
must be considered in context, and many Muslim scholars contend
that the verse about the khimar was the last of the three to be
revealed. They claim, therefore, that according to Islam, Muslim
women should wear a head covering but not a veil.
67
HEAD COVERINGS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES
Women in different Muslim countries cover themselves in different
ways. In the Gulf States, women wear black full-length robes
(‘abaya) and black veils, while in other parts of the Arab world it is
more common for women to simply wear headshawls—if they
cover their heads at all. In African countries, women often wear
long thin colourful fabrics that they wind around their bodies and
then around their heads. In Afghanistan, Pakistan and India,
women have wide trousers (serwar) and wide knee-length tunics
(qamis), often with a transparent shawl over their head or around
their shoulders. Some women, especially in Afghanistan, rural areas
of Pakistan and Palestinian towns, are covered from head to toe by
a shawl that has a net for the eyes. This all-enveloping garment is
called a burka. During the reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the
late 1990s, all women were required to wear burkas. The situation
of Afghan women, in fact, was one of the main focal points of the
public debate in Sweden, alongside the war on terrorism.
In both Iran and Saudi Arabia, women’s clothing is dictated by
law. In Iran, women are required to wear some form of head covering, even if in recent times the authorities have not been too upset
if the woman’s hair shows. In Saudi Arabia, women wear both a
head covering and a full-length outer robe. Under the country’s religious laws—not to be confused with national laws—the wearing
of a head covering is a matter for each individual, as is the case
with all other Islamic edicts, such as those concerning prayers and
fasting. In most Muslim countries it is up to the woman concerned
to choose her own style of dress. In countries like Turkey and
Tunisia, girls and women who cover their heads encounter problems
at school and at work. These countries do not have laws prohibiting
head coverings, but in Turkey, for instance, a number of institutions,
including parliament and educational establishments, have introduced bans on this kind of headdress in their internal regulations.
In point of fact, it is the Turkish debate on this issue that has led
‹ I’ll have you unveiled
69
i l l u s t ra t i o n b y J e s p e r W a l d e rs te n
Western researchers to conclude that the use of head coverings
represents a political protest against the authorities.
HEAD COVERINGS IN SWEDEN
In Sweden, a growing number of Muslim girls and women have
begun to wear head coverings, a trend that began in the late 1980s.
Some of course have been forced to wear them by the men in their
families but most have chosen to do so of their own free will.
The wearing of head coverings by Muslim girls and women has
sparked a controversy in Swedish society. In the debate on immigrants in Sweden, these shawls have been viewed as an obstacle to
integration. A study carried out by students at Malmö University
College showed that 19 out of 20 companies and organisations
were not prepared to employ women wearing such garments.
Head coverings, therefore, might well be described as a Swedish
problem rather than a Muslim one. Muslim women themselves
would be happy to become integrated but Swedish society does not
approve of their headdress.
There are many reasons why some Swedes are against the
practice of wearing head coverings. First and foremost, they are
considered a symbol of male oppression. Muslim women, who are
constantly being told that they are oppressed because they cover
their heads, find it hard to understand what all the fuss is about.
Nowhere in the Koran or in Hadith literature is there any suggestion that a woman’s clothing has anything to do with male
supremacy. Could it be simply that the Swedish reaction against
head coverings is part of a latterday Western rebellion against
traditional Christian ideas of female headdress as an expression of
male power over women? St Paul did after all devote much of the
First Letter to the Corinthians to emphasising the need for women
to cover their heads during prayers and prophecies. The kerchief
with which many Swedish married women still covered their heads
as recently as the 1950s and 1960s probably reflected both a society
based on Christian mores and certain notions concerning female
and male roles in the Swedish community.
70
A NORWEGIAN WITH A HEAD COVERING
I became a Muslim when I was living in Oslo in February 1982. In
those days, no-one wore headshawls. The few immigrant women
who lived in Oslo at that time usually had the same kind of clothing
as Norwegian women. Nor were Norwegians aware that Muslim
women were supposed to cover their heads. When I read about
what was happening in Saudi Arabia and Iran, for instance,
I thought the women’s all-enveloping shawls and veils were due
to culture rather than religion. I became a Muslim without in fact
realising that women are supposed to cover their heads. I’d read
the Koran, but hadn’t paid any great attention to the verses that
mentioned this. Six months passed before a man in the mosque
drew my attention to the relevant passages in the Book. As I am a
convert, I did what so many converts do—became ‘more royal than
the king’. I immediately went home, found a shawl and put it on.
Today, I thank God that I wasn’t aware of the head covering
edict when I decided to become a Muslim, as shawls are perhaps
the hardest part of joining the faith. Not that the shawl itself is a
problem to wear but because head coverings nowadays send out
such a powerful symbolic message in the West.
When I go out, people look at me. I’m so used to this now that
don’t react any more. When I was out shopping a few years ago
with my son, who was then about ten, he suddenly exclaimed:
“Mum, everyone’s looking at you.” I looked around and saw that he
was right.
Sometimes I get upset at the stir that my shawl creates, usually
when I’m feeling a bit down or depressed for one reason or another.
I suddenly notice all the stares and get even more depressed.
When I was working as an Arabic interpreter in the healthcare
service in the late 1980s, people often confused me with the
patient. Many nurses and doctors thought that a woman with a
headshawl was hardly capable of having a job and being an active
member of the community.
Fortunately, things have changed. When the Skandia hotel chain
displayed its latest staff uniforms here in Sweden, a head covering
71
was included for those who wished to wear one. The manager who
presented the uniform also pointed out that wearing such a
garment was a good idea from a hygienic viewpoint in the hotel
service trade.
Today, I’ve actually learnt to be proud of my shawl. On young
Muslim girls I can see how beautiful and special they are. They
radiate a light, a self-confidence, that makes me proud to be a
Muslim. Girls who choose to wear these shawls in modern society
must be made of stern stuff, as letting yourself be singled out in
this way requires courage.
Anne Sofie Roald is a university lecturer in religious history
at Malmö University College
23
I offer you rice and lamb
cooked by my hand
over an eternal flame
I offer you
the gnostic herb
I offer you
the sweetest word
in my book of words
the gateway to a mysterious
country
solitary and unconquered
Jila Mossaed (b 1948)
24
with or without a shawl
b y E l n a z B a g h la n i a n
W E L C O M E TO A N E W E R A . It’s all over the newspapers and
I believe it’s called multicultural Sweden. We now have new issues
to face. And it’s not always easy to make up your mind about them.
Take the hijab, for instance—the shawl. Yes or no? Is it right or
wrong? Oppressive or liberating? Should we ban it or not? It’s at this
point I begin to get tongue-tied and blink nervously. Nothing leaves
me so much in two minds as the hijab issue. I decide that everything not required by law is up to the individual—we live in a free
country, after all, where we can wear whatever we like. Then I
remember Iran, the country I come from. A country where the Koran
and its rules concerning a woman’s clothing are used as a way of
keeping her out of the public arena, of depriving her of her rights, of
making her subservient to the male. You cannot of course compare
two countries as dissimilar as Iran and Sweden, but behind all the
talk there is one incontrovertible fact—what the hijab symbolises.
The hijab denotes that the female body is something dangerous
and sinful. Something that should be kept out of sight. The hijab is
worn as a sort of security screen, to protect women from the lustful
gaze of the male. Many practising Muslims believe this enables girls
and women to escape sexual harassment, rape and other kinds of
abuse from the opposite sex. Thus it is the woman alone who has
the awesome responsibility of protecting herself and upholding her
‘honour’. Early in life, girls and women learn that their bodies are a
menace to society unless they are covered.
But how are things in Western/Swedish society, with all its rights
and all the protection it offers girls and women? Rape and sexual
harassment occur daily, and here such matters are discussed openly,
in contrast to other countries where no doubt much is hidden and
73
‘covered up’. Does a girl or a woman without a hijab have only
herself to blame if she gets into trouble? Is it really true that men
are unable to contain their ‘lust’ when they see a female without a
shawl? Some women convert to Islam precisely because modern
society is becoming increasingly sexualised. The shawl allows them
a breathing space and is a way of making a statement. Yet I still find
it difficult to believe that male harassment and violence are going
to lessen simply because you wear a shawl. The fact that women are
regarded as sex objects has nothing to do with their clothing.
Rather, the problem lies in the ingrained view of women taken by
men and male society, and this is a problem we must do something
about. This I can state categorically without becoming tongue-tied
or starting to blink nervously.
Elnaz Baghlanian, 20, is a freelance journalist with the provincial
newspaper Östgöta Correspondenten
25
O, if liberty sang a song
as tiny as the larynx of a bird
nowhere would there remain a tumbling wall.
It would not take years to learn
that every ruin signifies man’s absence
For the presence of man
is restoration and renewal.
Ahmad Schamloo (1925–2000)
26
➾
32
co m m o n
h i s to r y
26
islam is
not as alien
as we think
by Ingmar Karlsson
O N MY M OT H E R ’ S side of the family, I can trace my roots back to
1670. This particular ancestor—‘Olof of Stavås’—lived on a farm just
two kilometres from the farm outside Burseryd where I myself was
born. The whole of my family—on my father’s side as well—has
lived off the land for centuries, as farmers and peasants, within a
radius of a couple of dozen kilometres on either side of the border
between Småland and Västergötland, where these two provinces
meet Halland.
Outsiders—aliens—therefore loomed large in my childhood.
In 1950, when I was eight years old, there were rumours that a man
from the island of Gotland had moved into Smålandsstenar, about
ten kilometres from our home. Some friends and I cycled over to
look at him. He was a telegraph worker and to this day I can
remember his surprised expression when he suddenly saw four
boys gaping at him up there on his telegraph pole.
Halland and the old border with Denmark were just a dozen
kilometres away, but the worldly older boys of the village were
quick to warn us of the dangers that would be lying in wait for us
across the border, on the Saturday night dance floors of Kinnared
and Drängsered. We looked fairly like the people of Halland and
spoke the same dialect, except for one word—an extremely impor76
tant one. We learned at an early age that the answer to a single
question determined whether you were a Smålander—and thus a
stranger in Halland territory, fair quarry for a good beating.
The question was quite simply: “What comes after thirty-nine?”.
If you pronounced forty as fötti you were immediately branded
a Smålander but if you had the good sense to deny your origins
by replying förti you were promptly adopted as a fully-fledged
member of the Halland community. So the way you pronounced a
single word was what today might be termed an ‘ethnic marker’—
it decided whether you were an alien or not.
The outside world, however, gradually penetrated our corner of
Sweden. There was a great stir in 1952 when a Danish family moved
into the village. The wire and nail factory developed into a works
that required labour, and farm workers without employment due
to land closures were not numerous enough to meet demand.
Hungarian refugees arrived to build up new lives in the forests of
Småland after their dream of freedom had been crushed in the
1956 uprising against Moscow, and a number of East German families were forced to take the same route in the late 1950s and early
1960s. Additional labour was subsequently recruited from Greece
and Yugoslavia, and in the 1980s and 1990s Turks, Arabs, Vietnamese, Kurds, Iranians and Somalis settled in these parts, as well as
refugees from Bosnia and Kosovo. Third-generation ‘immigrants’
are now growing up in my childhood area. They’re as much a part
of the local scene as the children whose roots in that part of the
world go way back, and nowadays they can cross into Halland and
claim that fötti comes after thirty-nine without risking a beating.
Today, fifty years after the long cycle trip that my young friends
and I made to Smålandsstenar to examine a Gotland islander, there
are more Muslims than Pentecostalists in Burseryd. If someone had
claimed back in those days that such a thing was possible, they
would have been certified as insane. And if, twenty years ago, someone had claimed that Islam would become the second largest religion in Sweden by the turn of the century, and that almost a fifth
of the population would by then have at least one parent of foreign
77
descent, people would simply have shaken their heads and declared
it inconceivable—and predicted that such a development would
tear Swedish society apart.
That’s where we are now. Despite the fact that the great wave of
immigration from countries outside Europe coincided with the
worst economic crisis that Sweden has experienced since the
Second World War, we have, with the exception of phenomena like
the New Democracy party, been spared the xenophobic backlash
that might have been expected when a homogenous state in the
margins of Europe undergoes such a rapid change in such a short
space of time.
We should not of course blow our own trumpet, but I do feel
that this positive aspect of the situation is often ignored when
people discuss immigration.
There is, however, one unfavourable exception to this rule. In the
case of Muslims in general and Muslim Arabs in particular, people
still feel free to express prejudices openly. Celebrities claiming to
advocate anti-racism do not hesitate to appear at premieres of
films that show Muslims in a bad light, thereby helping to legitimise anti-Muslim feeling, as happened not so long ago when one of
the worst films of this kind—Arnold Schwarzenegger’s True Lies—
opened in Stockholm. Had the event involved an antisemitic film,
these celebrities would naturally have refused to mingle, but clearly
the same inhibitions do not apply in the case of Islam and Muslims.
Within the Church, too, prejudices persist. I am not referring
simply to Islamophobes in certain free church communities. A few
years ago, I heard a clergyman on the radio suggesting that the
problem of the many empty churches in Göteborg could be solved
by converting them into bingo halls, warehouses or sports centres.
“Why not a mosque?” asked the reporter, noting that the city’s
Muslims were in need of places to meet. “No, that’s where we draw
the line,” the clergyman replied. Worshipping Mammon in our
churches was clearly preferable to making room for Allah and Islam.
There are a number of reasons for such prejudices. There is a
fear dating back to the time of the Christian Crusades that everlast78
ing war between Islam and Christianity is inevitable. Christianity
seems never to have recovered from the traumatic experience of
seeing the representatives of a new religion—albeit one that regarded its faith as a paragon of Christianity and recognised the Christian
prophets—conquer in a short space of time extensive parts of the
known world, including the holy places of Christianity itself.
There is also a type of racism that has followed in the footsteps
of European colonialism. Englishmen spoke of “the white man’s burden” and the French justified their conquests by claiming a “civilisationary mandate”.
The resistance that the European colonial powers encountered
in the Arab world, not least in the Algerian wars of liberation in 1954
and 1962, helps explain why Arabs are so swiftly equated with terrorism. Naturally, this applies equally to developments in Palestine
both before and after the founding of the state of Israel. The fact
that the first terror groups were created by Christian Palestinians
and not by Muslim fanatics escaped most people at the time and
probably still does.
A more recent factor in all this is the need to create a new main
enemy to fill the gap left by the red peril of communism. We now
have the green peril of Islam instead. Following the collapse of the
Soviet empire, Willy Claes, then the secretary-general of NATO,
sought to give the defence pact a new role by claiming that Islamic
fundamentalism constitutes a greater threat to Europe than ever
before. A year or two later, Harvard professor Samuel Huntington
added his theories of an imminent and inevitable conflict between
different civilisations, primarily between Islam and the West.
Last but not least, the behaviour of Arab politicians down
through the years has done its part in creating this negative image.
The often exaggerated political rhetoric bandied about, and the
constant feuding that has gone on between Arab states, have both
contributed to the emergence of a self-inflicted negative image that
Saddam Hussein reinforced in the Gulf War and that Bin Laden has
since done his best to consolidate.
“We hate what we don’t know.” This maxim is attributed to Ali
79
ibn Abu Talib, the fourth Caliph, who was both cousin and son-inlaw to the prophet Mohammed. It has remained valid both in
Europe and in the Muslim world. As a result of ignorance, fear and
contempt, hostile images have for too long held sway on both sides.
Personal experience and interpersonal contact are important means
of tackling this problem, and here I believe the wars in former
Yugoslavia acted as an eye-opener for many Swedes. As a result of
these wars, Bosnian and Kosovo Albanian refugees were scattered
throughout Sweden and a steadily growing number of Swedes,
both children and adults, came into daily contact with people who
identified themselves as Muslims. The Swedes quickly found that
their new neighbours were not creatures from another planet but
people with the same day to day problems and hopes for the future
as they themselves had.
While travelling around giving talks and attending conferences
and seminars in recent years, I have observed a growing interest in
Islam as a religion. People want to know what Islam is and is not,
and I have encountered fewer biased questions and comments. We
can also see that public opposition to the building of mosques is
on the decline. Hopefully, in ten years’ time it will be as incomprehensible as the protests against the building of a Catholic church
in Stockholm in the early 1960s seem to us today—it was felt
the church would be too close to Kungsträdgården—or as the arguments from around the same time to the effect that we couldn’t
join what was then the EC as it was a “congregation of Catholics”.
Today, too, unfortunately, we hear leading politicians openly
giving voice to prejudices. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi, for
instance, set what was surely a record in ignorance and historical
illiteracy when in the aftermath of 11 September last year he spoke
about the inherent superiority of Western civilisation to the
Muslim world.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Islamic culture is by no
means as alien to us as our prejudices and clichés would suggest.
One of the most enduring of these is the claim that through his
victory at Poitiers in 732 AD, Frankish ruler Karl Martell saved the
80
Western world from destruction. The ‘Saracen’ invaders were beaten
back across the Pyrenees and returned to southern Spain, where a
Muslim state was set up that lasted for almost 800 years. This
Islamic presence on the European continent did not, however, lead
to the destruction of the West but to a unique and profitable
symbiosis between Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and to unprecedented advances in the fields of science, philosophy, culture and art.
Here, in fact, the ground was laid for what we today call Western
civilisation.
During their explosive spread across four continents from
Central Asia to the Atlantic, the Arabs had gathered cultural impressions and ideas from all the peoples they conquered—not just
Christians and Jews but also Indians, Persians and Hellenic Egyptians. Greek antiquity dated back to the reign of Alexander the Great
in the Orient, and Greek science was kept alive by the Muslims of
southern Spain and amalgamated with Persian and Indian science.
This was due not least to extensive translations of works by
Aristotle, Euclides, Hippocrates and other Greek classics into Arabic
from Greek, Hebrew and Syrian. These were not word for word
translations—the original texts were commented on, criticised and
added to.
Thus the Arabs became the bona fide inheritors of the Greek
culture that we so revere today. It was the Arabs in particular
who rescued, preserved and updated this cultural legacy, and they
became the midwives of Western humanism by making the classics
of scientific history known to Christian Europe. This is true for
instance of the mathematical works of Euclides, Appolonius and
Archimedes, the astronomy of the Egyptian Ptolemy and the medical
doctrines of Hippocrates and Galeno.
The Arab contribution to European medicine is one of the most
significant transfers of expertise in human history. The philosopher
Ibn Sina/Avicenna (d 1037), who was also a physician, compiled a
medical encyclopaedia that was still in use at European universities
well into the 19th century. Arab astronomers made great progress in
determining the orbits of the moon and other planets. Early scien81
tific works were also written on tidal ebb and flow, rainbows, the
lunar halo and the aurora. As far back as the 11th century, Arab
astronomers were proceeding from the theory that the earth was
spherical, and the works of Copernicus and Kepler would scarcely
have been possible without this basic research.
Not least, the Arabs liberated Europe from what one monk called
“the tyranny of whole numbers” by introducing us to Arabic numerals, in particular to zero. The Swedish word for numeral, siffra, comes
from the Arabic sifr, meaning empty or zero. The decimal system
revolutionised calculation. With the new figures at their disposal,
people could solve mathematical problems much more easily than
with Roman numerals. The word algebra, incidentally, comes from
the Arabic ‘al-jabr’ (reunification).
The rapid spread of Islam also boosted people’s geographical
knowledge. Thus ‘atlas’ is an Arabic word, and Vasco da Gama knew
what he was doing when he employed an Arab pilot, Ibn Madjid, to
guide him on the journey that led to the opening of the sea route
from Europe to India.
The guitar, mandolin and lute were other features of Arab culture. Hence their Arabic names, and with their spread into other
countries Europe also adopted Arab musical forms. Songs and music
in praise of women led to a new form of music and poetry that in
France, for instance, developed into the troubadour tradition.
The legacy of Arab rule in Spain is particularly noticeable in the
languages of Europe, above all in Spanish. Every fifth word in Spanish
is thought to be of Arabic origin. Few Swedes are aware that when
people shout Olé at bullfights and flamenco dance sessions in
Majorca and the Canary Islands they are speaking Arabic. The word
is derived from Wallah (O God), and the word hasta in phrases like
hasta mañana comes from the Arabic word hatta (until).
The conquest of Spain began with a lightning attack—a
ghazia—which means a razzia or raid. Arsenal, fanfare and calibre
are other military terms of Arabic origin, and just as a reminder
that it was the Muslims and not the English who ‘ruled the waves’
for centuries, Lord Nelson’s military title also stemmed from Arabic:
82
Amir ar-rahl—commander of the fleet—became the Italian ammiraglio, the English admiral and the Swedish amiral. Monsoon and
the Swedish word haveri (shipwreck) also derived from Arabic.
Botany in particular is full of words of Arabic origin: apricot,
aubergine, tarragon, durra (sorghum), estragon, hashish, ginger, jasmine, coffee, henna, cumin, saffron and spinach, to name but a few.
Muslim Spain represents a challenge to our prejudices and
stereotypes concerning Islam and the Arab world. Here, Islam was
for centuries the superior civilisation and the contributing party
with Christendom hundreds of years behind. The following sample
list of English and Swedish words borrowed from Arabic suggests
that Arab influence extended into so many different areas in those
times that nowadays it would probably be termed cultural imperialism: algebra, amalgam, alcohol, alcove, arrack, baldachin, bensin
(petrol), carafe, carat, cipher, coffer, damask, elixir, hazard, jackal,
kabel (cable), kemi (chemistry), konditori (pastry shop), lack (sealing
wax), magazine, mattress, marzipan, pyjamas, racket, race, risk,
safari, satin, sheriff, sherry, siffra (numeral), syrup, sugar, soda,
sorbet, talcum, tariff and zenith. No cultural impulses flowed in the
opposite direction. An idea of how Islamic Spain viewed the North
European barbarians at that time may be gained from the following comments made by a Muslim in Toledo in the mid-11th century:
“They are more like animals than human beings. The huge
distance from the sun makes the air cold and the sky cloudy.
Consequently, they lack warmth in their souls, they are coarse,
pot-bellied, pale and long of hair, thick-headed, indolent, lacking in
judgement and simple of mind.”
Arabic influence on European learning, science and culture also
took another route, via Sicily. By the beginning of the 10th century,
the whole island and parts of southern Italy had been conquered.
Muslim dominance was not as enduring here as in southern Spain,
however. Towards the end of the 11th century, these lands were
recaptured by the Normans, but their rule in this part of the world
remained Arabic in character for a lengthy period. For over a century,
Sicily was a Christian monarchy in which a number of the leading
83
posts were held by Muslims. The openness of mind and spirit that
marked this royal court laid the foundations for the golden era of
the Italian Renaissance—a fact of which Italian Prime Minister
Berlusconi appears to be blithely unaware!
In the above, I have simply offered a few examples to show how
modern Europe is much more rooted in Islam than we usually
imagine. Islam is not as alien as we tend to think. Rather, Islam and
Christianity might be regarded as companion religions sharing the
same Jewish, Hellenic and Oriental legacy. We are all children of
Abraham.
I began this account with a few personal reflections on what
we considered foreign when I was a child. Let me end by describing
another event that illustrates how rapidly our world has changed
and with it our view of what is alien and dangerous.
Thirty-three years after I cycled 20 kilometres to look at a
Gotland islander, my family and I moved from Damascus to Peking.
My daughter Andrea was three at the time. We stopped off at New
Delhi, Bangkok and Hong Kong en route, and she became increasingly anxious for every change of scene. After a fortnight’s travel we
arrived at the embassy residence in Peking, where I explained to
her that this would be her new home for several years to come. She
appeared deeply upset. Her lips started to tremble, but just as the
tears were about to flow, the muezzin began calling to prayer at
the Pakistani embassy next door. She immediately grew calm.
A relieved smile lit up her face and she exclaimed “Allah, Allah!”.
Suddenly, this little girl with a Catholic Slovakian mother and a
Swedish Protestant father felt safe. Allah is in Peking so there’s
nothing to fear.
Ingmar Karlsson is Sweden’s Consul General in Istanbul.
84
i l l u s t ra t i o n b y J e s p e r W a l d e rs te n
27
p h oto Pe l le K ro n e s te d t
Didar
Samaletdin
– a slice of swedish
history
b y G u f ra n A l - n a d a f
D I DA R S A M A L E T D I N A N D I meet on a rainy December day in
2001. I have seen her on TV and been impressed by her frank and
outspoken attitude, by the warmth and inner strength she radiates.
We sit down in a Finnish café in Drottninggatan in the centre of
Stockholm. Not many guests are there yet but they will soon be
arriving. The place gradually fills up with people and cigarette
smoke. I ask Didar if she minds the smoke and she laughs, “Smoking
is my only vice, ha ha,” drawing a pack of cigarettes out of her bag.
It will be another three hours before our conversation ends.
FLIGHT FROM ESTONIA
Didar and I talk for a while about everything under the sun before
eventually moving onto the question of how she, with her TatarMuslim background, happens to be living in Sweden. It all began
during the Second World War in Estonia, the country in which
Didar’s parents were born and raised. Originally, they came from
Tatarstan, an autonomous republic in what is now the Russian
Federation. The family were Muslims with their own traditions and
cultural heritage. At home they spoke a form of Turkish (roughly as
close as Danish to Swedish). When I try asking Didar if she feels
Swedish-European or Tatarian she reminds me that her family have
been Europeans for over a thousand years.
In an even voice, Didar describes the family’s time in Estonia. Her
father, Ali Zakerov, grew up in Tallinn, where their neighbours were
largely Jewish. His best friend was a Jewish boy of the same age.
So as to screen off his Estonian surroundings and share a common
language with his friend, Ali learnt to speak fluent Yiddish. Their
friendship lasted until the war separated them. Didar’s father, who
had grown up by then and had started a family and entered a
profession (furrier), fled to Finland. His Jewish friend shared the
same fate as so many other Jews in that war.
Later in life, Ali Zakerov’s stories about the war and his Jewish
friend awakened Didar’s interest and subsequent involvement in
politics. In the 1970s, she helped start a support group for the peace
village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salaam in Israel, whose inhabi87
tants are both Palestinians from Israel and Israeli Jews. As an adult,
she has worked in various ways and in different forums for the
establishment of a dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims.
A GIRL IS BORN
Didar herself was born in 1943 in Finland and is an only child. The
following year, the family moved to Umeå and shortly thereafter to
Stockholm. In all, there were 50 Tatars living in Sweden at that time
and it was Didar’s father who started the first Muslim community
in Sweden, in 1949. They were the first Muslims of the modern era
to have a religious community and a platform in this country.
Today, Didar is 58 and an established figure in the Swedish
community. She is head of the Swedish Red Cross/Noah’s Ark. She
has been married to the same man for 40 years and has three
children and five grandchildren.
“I was only eighteen when I met my husband, a Tatar like me,
and fell in love. My parents didn’t like my getting married so young,
but I was allowed to have my way. My mother, you see, Zeinab
Zakerov, had waited until she was twenty-six to marry my father.”
BEING A MUSLIM
When she was a child, commuting between different cultures was
not a problem for Didar, but as a teenager life began to get more
complicated. At the age of fifteen, she finally plucked up her courage
and had “a deep conversation with my father”, as she puts it.
“I told him I had decided to become a Muslim. I also asked him
to give me duties to perform in the Muslim community. My first
assignment was to send out invitation cards when the various
Muslim holidays were to be celebrated.”
I become curious and ask if she has kept her promise to her father
to be a Muslim. Didar replies that she feels like a Muslim convert
and has a strong sense of God. She tells me she has a language of
her own for communicating with him. Her grandmother taught her
how to be a Muslim. One day when Didar’s father came home from
work he heard his daughter singing a Christian psalm at the top of
88
her voice. Worried, he called in the imam (the Muslim equivalent of
a priest) to supplement grandmother’s instruction in Islam. Didar
was excused from lessons in Christian studies at school but, “after a
couple of boring free periods”, chose to attend all the same.
“The fact that I learned about my friends’ religion and traditions
has stood me in good stead—I learned to understand and respect
Sweden and I learned about the foundations that Swedish society is
built on. Over the years, I’ve celebrated all the Muslim holidays, but
the Christian ones as well.
“Somewhere in Paradise there must be a place for me, too. All my
life I’ve been building bridges between two cultures, two religions
and two languages.”
THE NEW COUNTRY
When the family arrived in Sweden, they were welcomed with open
arms. People came round with gifts and invited them into their
homes. They were anxious to ensure that the refugees should get
a good start here. No-one asked them what their religion was. This
was not considered important. The few Tatars living in Sweden at
Didar Samaletdin
has been head of
the Swedish Red
Cross/Noah’s Ark
since 2000.
that time tried to blend into the community as best they could.
“But over the years, this changed. People started seeing us as
something exotic. In my view, this was a way of telling us that we’re
different. But I’m not. Each individual is unique—so in that case
we’re all unique and different. Muslims are not a
people. All of us, Muslims,
Christians or whatever, live
in different ways and have
our own cultures and traditions. We all share the same
God, and the monotheistic
religions are more similar
than dissimilar.”
Didar thinks Swedes
were more tolerant in the
old days. Muslims used not to be seen as a threat. She feels that
present-day media reporting about Islam and Muslims leaves much
to be desired. The words and pictures that the media choose to
present, combined with the journalistic need for speed and a scant
knowledge of Islam, has led to the emergence of a narrow, rigid
image of the Muslim world without shades or variations.
THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT
I try to gain some insight into Didar’s life by asking about her children.
All were born in Sweden and grew up here. Didar says they find it
important to be Swedes among Swedes and Tatars among Tatars.
They speak Tataric, they have been brought up as Muslims and they
have been at summer camps for Tatarian children in Finland.
“They may not live as Muslims today,” says Didar, “but they’ve
been taught the basics. The two eldest have Swedish partners and
all my grandchildren are ‘semi-Swedish’. My father and grandfather
might feel that I’ve failed with them, but as a parent you have to
realise that you can only give them the basics and then it’s up to
them to choose what kind of life they want to lead.”
We spend some time discussing children, and naturally get onto
the subject of how Didar foresees the future. She is optimistic.
“The atmosphere may be a bit hostile at the moment, because of
all that’s happened recently, but I’m quite hopeful about the future.
Islam is no longer a new phenomenon in this country. We’ve been
here for over fifty years. And in time it will become as integrated
and established as both Catholicism and Judaism. At least that’s
what I’m fighting for.”
Suddenly, we both check our watches and find that we’ve been
sitting in the Finnish café for three hours. Yet it feels like three
minutes. We’re both in a hurry to get back to our jobs. I feel elated
and wear a smile on my lips, reflecting that I’ve just been granted
a slice of Swedish history.
Gufran Al-nadaf is an editor with the Swedish
Foreign Ministry Press Office
90
28
Srebrenica
– genocide in the
heart of Europe
b y G e l le r t Ta m a s
T H E Y A R R I V E D AT dawn, cautiously at first, climbing slowly down
the steep mountainside overlooking the town. Then the Bosnian
Serb troops launched a full scale attack, with mortars and heavy
machine gun fire. It was 6 July 1995 and within a few days the
troops would commit genocide. Srebenica’s Muslim defenders knew
what kind of fate awaited them. They fought for their lives. The war
in Bosnia had begun three years earlier, after the country had
declared itself an independent state in the spring of 1992. Nationalist Bosnian Serbs took up arms and attacked villages and towns.
Their goal was to create a republic of their own for Serbs only.
Srebenica was besieged almost immediately. A report from the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees described the situation on
19 February 1993: “The local population has not had food for months.
People are dying of hunger and exhaustion on a daily basis.” In an
attempt to save Srebenica, the UN declared the town a protected
zone, and at the same time negotiated a truce with the Bosnian
Serb army. Despite this, the Serbs attacked. Dutch commander Tom
Karremans had 350 UN solders with which to protect Srebenica.
Ranged against him were 10,000 Serbian troops. Karremans desperately summoned air support. The UN and NATO held meeting after
meeting but were unable to agree. When they finally sent in a few
planes, after days of hesitation, it was too late. The battle of Srebenica
91
was over. The majority of Srebenica’s 25,000 inhabitants managed
to flee to the nearby UN base of Potocari before the town fell.
General Mladic, military leader of the Bosnian Serbs, arrived on the
same day. The picture showing him patting a young boy on the
cheek and telling the terrified refugees, ‘Don’t worry, no-one’s going
to hurt you’, was cabled out across the world. Then the TV cameramen left and the slaughter began. UN staff were forced to stand by
and watch, unable to intervene. A Dutch UN soldier said later: “We
saw two lorries with about 50 people in each. The Muslim prisoners
sat with their heads between their knees. Those who looked up had
terrified expressions. The lorries drove round the corner and a few
minutes later we heard a hundred or more shots. Then just silence.”
In the village of Kravica, almost 2,000 Muslim men were herded into
a barn, whereupon the Serbs opened fire with anti-tank rifles and
automatic weapons. Hakija Huseinovic was one of the few to survive.
“I protected myself by pulling two dead bodies on top of me. I lay
under those corpses for 24 hours.” Another 1,000 people were
executed at the football stadium in Nova Kasaba. About the same
number of people were killed in the neighbouring village of Pilica.
The prisoners were between 17 and 60 years old. They were all
men. They were lined up in front of us. Ten at a time. They begged
us, don’t shoot. At first we shot them with machine guns. But too
many only suffered wounds. So we were ordered to use our Kalashnikovs instead.” By the time darkness fell, Drazen Erdemovic and his
group had shot more than 1,000 Muslim men to death. The slaughter was well organised and took place with military precision. In the
space of a few days, an estimated 7,000 people were murdered. The
massacre of Srebenica’s Muslims has gone down in European history
as the worst case of mass murder since the Second World War. Just
as in the Holocaust, the Muslims of Srebenica were slaughtered for
one principal reason—their murderers felt they belonged to the
wrong ethnic group with the wrong religion.
The massacre in Srebrenica, like the wars elsewhere in former
Yugoslavia, had its roots in contemporary European history. After the
Second World War, Yugoslavia became a communist-ruled one-party
92
FOTO PASCAL GUYOT / PRESSENS BILD
Busloads of
women and
children leave
Srebenica.
Within a few
days, some
7,000 Muslims
had been
murdered—mostly
men.
state without democratic rights in the form of free elections. With
the collapse of the Berlin Wall in December 1989, the Communists
lost their monopoly on power in Eastern Europe. With one exception—Yugoslavia, where the Communist Party managed to stay in
power. The regime adopted a well-tried strategy—unite the people
within by seeking an enemy without. In this respect, there were
parallels between the Srebenica massacre and the Nazis’ genocide.
The slaughter of Europe’s Jews did not take place from one day to
the next. The Holocaust was preceded by years of hate propaganda.
Jews were compared to rats and other vermin and portrayed as
greedy bloodsuckers. This was a deliberate strategy aimed at building up a specific image of the Other, the deviant, the enemy, the
threat that has to be eliminated.
The process was much the same in former Yugoslavia. The government had almost total control of the TV and radio. Day after day, they
pumped out propaganda; Muslims were described as evil, barbaric
creatures. “We killed each other in the media for years before the war
began,” observed a Serbian human rights activist, Tanja Petovar. The
hate propaganda initiated by Milosevic’s Serbian Communist Party
was quickly followed by similar campaigns on the part of Croatians
and Bosnians. A growing number of people were scared into the nationalist camp. The ground was being laid for the Srebenica massacre.
93
The Nazis did not use the word genocide. They referred to the
‘final solution’. Similarly, the Serb nationalists coined their own term
for the task they were engaged in: “ethnic cleansing”. But the meaning was the same. Just as in the Holocaust aftermath, those responsible for the Srebenica massacre were charged with genocide.
The first ruling by the international war crimes tribunal in the
Hague was handed down in 1996. The tribunal has identified two
men principally responsible for the massacre: Bosnian Serb general
Mladic and the Bosnian Serbs’ political leader, Radovan Karadzic.
Almost seven years after the mass killings, both are still at large.
Gellert Tamas is a freelance journalist
FACTS:
Yugoslavia was founded in 1918 in what
was ethnically and culturally one of
the most diverse parts of Europe. The
citizens of the new state included Serbs,
Croats, Slovenians, Bosnians and Albanians. Historically, parts of Yugoslavia
had belonged both to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and to the Ottoman
Empire, and a variety of ethnic backgrounds and religions coexisted in the
new state. The largest ethnic group,
the Serbs, were Greek Orthodox Christians, the Croatians were Catholics and
most Bosnians and Albanians were
Muslims.
During the Second World War, parts of
Yugoslavia were occupied by Hitler’s
army, and Fascist puppet governments
were established there. A period of persecution and mass extermination of
minorities then followed. A multinational partisan guerrilla force, led by
Tito, fought both the German and the
Yugoslav Fascists, and united the country at the end of the war under the
94
flag of a one-party state. Post-war Yugoslavia comprised six republics: Serbia,
Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Slovenia.
After the collapse of the Berlin Wall
in 1989, a number of independence movements emerged and Yugoslavia was divided by bloody wars. Bosnia became
an independent state in 1992 and is
made up of three main ethnic groups:
Bosnians, Croatians and Serbs. Historically and culturally, the capital, Sarajevo, is one of the most interesting
cities of Europe, with mosques, synagogues, Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches that have stood peacefully side by side for centuries. Like
the rest of Yugoslavia, Bosnia was a
melting-pot until the nationalist parties came to power in the early 1990s.
According to studies carried out at the
end of the 1980s, more than a third of
all marriages were mixed, and most
families had relatives who were Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian, Christian
and Muslim.
29
S A B R A & S H AT I L A
On the white surface of
your ribs the poppies grow
cheating me of the great clear drops
that envelop my soul
I carry your heart in both hands
and pray for our star
for our only canopy
You weep for Shatila my beloved
You weep for this crack in time
and the shadow that wandered out so calmly
straight into time closing around our throats
like a noose
You think of Sabra my beloved
of the youth who stole a horse
and rode off into the tale
of our gaping wounds
You think of Sabra my beloved
Step not over the bodies lying out of sight
Die not with them in the last alley we possessed
Poet Rawia Morra was 16 when the massacre of
Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps
in Beirut took place in 1982
30
reflections of
a newcomer
b y G u f ra n A l - n a d a f
T H E T R A I N R O L L E D into Stockholm Central in the dark of night. It
was 1978 and autumn. The air was clean and refreshing. The station
was full of giant hoardings—lots of fair-haired boys and girls in
happy poses. I was almost 11 years old and I was finding it difficult
to concentrate. Bursting with curiosity, I looked everywhere at once.
Everything was new and exciting. My mother, my younger brother
and I stepped off the train and searched the crowd for my father.
After a while, we caught sight of him. He was happy to see us and to
finally be reunited with us in Stockholm. He had travelled to Sweden
six months before us—to a country that was favourably disposed
towards asylum seekers, a country with a democratic government
and an agenda that embraced humanism and human rights.
Nineteen seventy eight was an important year for more reasons
than one. Apart from being the year we arrived in Sweden, it was
when the Iranian revolution was in full swing. My mother is of
Iranian descent and my father is Iraqi, while I myself was born in
Bucharest in Romania. So when we reached home, my mother
frantically twiddled the knob on the radio to try and find the
Iranian news. She was worried about her family in Teheran.
For the first couple of months, we lived in a small room on
Magnus Ladulåsgatan in the Södermalm district of Stockholm. This
was very much a time of upheaval for me, and things moved quickly
About a week after our arrival, my mother and father decided
that I was ready to resume school. My father contacted the headteacher of the nearest school and we marched round there one
afternoon to meet the head and his staff. Everything seemed to
be going OK and I saw my father smile broadly. Not being able to
96
understand a single word of the new language was tough, and
I couldn’t help wondering if I’d ever learn it. It felt frustrating. We
shook hands and my father told me that I’d be starting at the school
the following week. He took my hand and we were wandering down
the school corridor when he suddenly came to a halt. I saw the
colour drain from his face. He grabbed my arm and almost dragged
me at a run out of the school. Wow—what had gone wrong? He
shouted something about me not starting in that decadent place,
young lady, thank you very much. He had apparently seen a boy and
a girl of about my age, 11, exchanging a kiss. It had come as quite
a shock to him in view of their tender age. He had left his native
country in 1963 and had been living in Europe ever since, yet he was
still shocked.
Shortly after this episode, we moved to Abrahamsberg in Stockholm. Before allowing me to attend, my father checked to make
sure that the local school maintained a high standard of moral
behaviour, or fairly high, at least. I remained there for 18 months. At
that school, I received the best present a new pupil can receive—my
own Swedish language teacher, Mr Håkansson (that was how you
addressed teachers in those days) and a class of only 14 (ten boys
and four girls). Everyone was pleasant, generous and kind towards
me, not to mention all the attention I received because of my
background. We engaged in lively political discussions. Later in life,
I would find that not all Swedes take such an active interest in
politics as my classmates in Abrahamsberg.
The next shock for my parents arrived in the form of an invitation to a classmate’s party. It was totally out of the question. “What!
You? Go to a party at the age of eleven?!” My parents, who were
newcomers and had yet to develop a social network or a grasp of
Swedish culture, thought the word party meant cocktail party with
every conceivable kind of drink. I begged and pleaded, trying to
explain—but to no avail.
My first shock in Sweden came when I made the acquaintance
of a piece of liquorice. A friend invited me to try this strange phenomenon, a black sweet. I thought the idea peculiar but politely
97
accepted. I popped the sweet into my mouth and begin chewing it.
I felt sick. As it might have upset my friend if I had spat it out, I went
on chewing. Times change, though, and today as an adult one of the
things I miss most about Sweden when living abroad is liquorice.
The generosity I found among my friends in Abrahamsberg was
exchanged for the chillier atmosphere of Akalla when my family
moved to this Stockholm suburb, where unemployment was higher
and the social problems greater. Yet the place had a warmth and
heart that helped me through my youth. It just took a little more
time to get to know people and to get them to trust you.
One day, I visited a friend’s home after school. When we had
played for a while, her mother came in and said it was time for
dinner and that I could sit and wait until the family had finished
eating. I was both surprised and sad at this, and wondered if I had
done something wrong. In my family, anyone who happened to be
visiting was always invited to join us at table, whether this was an
adult or a friend of one of us children. I felt a bit ill at ease and
reflected that Swedes were a strange lot. At home, I told my parents
what had happened and they were as surprised as I had been. It
takes time to discover that not all Swedes are alike. That a city like
Stockholm, for instance, may be different from the rest of Sweden.
That Swedes can be hospitable and are generous towards close
friends. Today, at least, I don’t have to feel left out as I did then.
My adjustment to my new country was going very well, however, and I found Astrid Lindgren’s children’s books a fantastic help
in learning to understand Sweden and the Swedish soul. I cannot
stress too often the value of books like Lotta of Troublemaker Street,
Mardie (Madicken), Pippi Longstocking, the Brothers Lionheart and
Katitzi (the story of a gypsy girl). Katitzi was someone I myself could
identify with.
It took my parents slightly longer to trust Swedish society and
to see its riches and shades. They were helped in this by their jobs
and their friends from work, and by meeting both my friends and
my brother’s, and their families. Once they felt safe and had learned
the language and the social precepts, it was much easier for them
98
to understand, to adjust and to absorb everything that their new
country had to offer.
The cultural identity I brought with me almost 25 years has of
course changed. It has evolved through the passage of time, the
people I’ve met and, hopefully, through a greater understanding of
the world around me. Today I may be shocked at certain kinds of
behaviour but it is a shock of a different kind. Cultural diversity
ought to open our eyes and senses to one another’s similarities and
dissimilarities—whether they have to do with age or with social,
ideological or religious background.
Gufran Al-nadaf is an editor with the Swedish Foreign
Ministry Press Office
31
My heart has become capable of every form:
it is a pasture for gazelles
and a convent for Christian monks,
and a temple for idols and the pilgrim’s Kaa’ba,
and the Tables of the Torah and the Book of the Koran.
I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take,
that is my religion and my faith.
Ibn al-’Arabi (1165–1240)
32
p h oto Pe l le K ro n e s te d t
Nadia on the go
Nadia Jebril is 19 years old and works at Sensus adult education
association. YA L L A ! followed her around for a few days.
Nadia circulates between Lund and Stockholm
If I were to describe myself, I think I’d say I’m a Muslim girl on the go.
»
»
I believe in love, I dream about it a lot. The first
thing I’ll do together with my husband when
I marry is take an Interrail trip.
Nadia is given a job writing columns for Sydsvenskan’s youth pages
Nadia helps out in her father’s shop
»
I’ve decided not to have a boyfriend, to avoid relationships until I meet the right person—something
I’ve chosen because of my religious convictions.
33
➾
44
fa i t h
33
many s i m i l a r i t i e s
and some major
differences
what separates and unites jews,
c h r i s t i a n s a n d m u s l i m s ? b y C h r i s te r
Hedin
G O D I S O N E — all three religions agree on this. Jews, Christians and
Muslims all believe in the same God and address him in their prayers.
All three view him as the Creator, a being who has existed in all
eternity. God has created all and everything but no-one has created
God. God has brought forth the world, life on earth and humankind.
DIVINE IMAGES AND DIVINE FAITH
How God himself came to be, no-one knows. God surpasses human
understanding and therefore no-one can answer such questions.
Muslims say Alla-u-Akbar, “God is greater” which implies that.
We do however know something of God’s more important qualities. God is first and foremost good, loving, helpful and forgiving.
This is summed up in the word merciful, or compassionate.
Compassion, showing charity, is God’s foremost quality.
God may also be described as wise and omnipotent—God the
Almighty. He created the world as a good place and put us humans
on earth to do his work. The Creation illustrates God’s wisdom.
He designed all things to work in harmony. All is not perfect, but if
humanity uses the earth’s resources wisely, life can be a joy to us all.
108
God is also righteous. This means that he does not permit anyone to abuse divine mercy in order to harm the Creation or other
people. Those who do wrong and repent can be forgiven, but mercy
or compassion has its limits. Those who deliberately harm others
and neither feel guilt nor show repentance may be punished. This
principle tends to be interpreted in many different ways, however.
What is God’s ‘name’ or what should he be called? Christians say
‘God’ if they speak English and something else in another language.
Christians who speak Arabic say Allah, which means ‘The God’. In
Sweden, many Muslims say Allah when speaking Swedish, too, as he
is considered the only God. Jews never use the name ‘God’ but say
something else instead, such as ‘The Lord’ or just ‘The Name’. By this
they seek to show that God is above all human designation.
HUMANKIND AND EVIL
In the beginning, the Creation is perfect and without blemish.
Humanity is given the freedom and responsibility to look after it. As
human beings are tempted to abuse their freedom, however, the
world does not turn out as well as it might have done. Evil on earth
derives from human actions. In this, we can see significant differences between the three religions. The Bible tells us that the first
people on earth lived in a paradise where they were allowed to eat
from all the trees except the tree of knowledge. They ignored this
interdict, however. A serpent lured the woman into first eating the
fruit of the tree of knowledge and then offering it to the man. As a
punishment, they were driven out of Paradise and condemned to
work, suffer and die. The Bible also describes how Cain became jealous of his brother Abel and slew him. Thus humanity is capable of
evil. The Koran has a similar story describing the disobedience of the
first humans. They repent and are forgiven but are obliged to leave
Paradise all the same.
Jews take this to mean that people can be tempted into evil ways
even if they were originally good. Christians, however, tend to regard
the human race as evil by nature. They sometimes refer to the episode
in Paradise as ‘The Fall’ (of humankind). This is meant to signify that
humanity thereafter was tainted by sin from birth. This is sometimes
109
called original sin. Muslims do not regard us as evil at all. As the first
man and woman on earth understood immediately that they had
done wrong and sought forgiveness, they cannot be evil, say the Muslims. Neither Jews nor Muslims accept the concept of original sin.
BETTERMENT AND DELIVERANCE
Christians take a slightly darker view of humanity than the other
religions. This has an important effect on the way certain issues are
dealt with. All three religions believe that God has done his best to
save us from evil. He has sent guidance and succour to help us mend
our ways and find deliverance. It is here that the most important
differences between Jews, Christians and Muslims are to be found.
The Jews believe that God entered into a holy alliance with the
people of Israel so as to make his will known on earth. Israel has
been called God’s ‘pilot project’. God gave Moses the Commandments
on Mount Sinai and urged the people of Israel to be his messengers
on earth. They were to go forth and preach that God had given us
all life and that we were to use it for the benefit of all and live in
harmony with one another. The Jews have long been waiting for
God to send down a Messiah to create peace and justice on earth.
Christians say evil was conquered through Jesus, who according
to Christian belief was the Messiah that the Jews had been waiting
for. The Christians gave Jesus the name of Christ, which means
Messiah. They regard God as three beings in one (Trinity)—the
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. The son became Jesus Christ. He
died for our sins and triumphed over death through the resurrection. It is through him that we may be freed from the forces of evil.
Muslims contend that God wished to save us from evil through
the prophets, who have shown us how to live our lives in accordance
with God’s will. According to Islam, prophets have existed since time
immemorial. Jesus was one of the great prophets. The last of them
was Mohammed. The revelations he heard from the archangel
Gabriel are set down in the Koran. Mohammed’s own life also offers
us guidance, say Muslims, but he was not a divine saviour—he was
simply a person who can help us to a better life through his revelations and by his example.
110
FORGIVENESS THROUGH FAITH
All three religions believe that we can be saved from evil through
faith. They regard the Abraham of the Old Testament and the Koran
as a shining example of this, as his faith was so strong, yet they tend
to define faith in slightly different ways. Jews and Muslims say we
must believe in God as earth’s creator and strive to obey his will.
Should you disobey God, you can pray for forgiveness. You are then
forgiven. God does not punish those who repent. The only condition
is that you set things right as far as you are able.
Christians say that Jesus has taken our sins upon himself and that
we can only obtain forgiveness by believing in him. This forgiveness
can be obtained either directly from God or through the Christian
church. The church uses symbolic acts as tokens of God’s mercy. These
are called the sacraments. In Christianity, priests have an important
role to play. They act as intermediaries between God and his people
when giving us the sacrament or granting us divine forgiveness.
Thus Christians and Muslims take a very different view of how
we are to go about obtaining forgiveness for our sins. Muslims say
that all who repent may turn to God and pray for forgiveness. It is
granted immediately if you repent. In Christianity, you secure forgiveness through Christ. His death and resurrection represent a victory over evil, which entered the world through the ‘Fall’ in Paradise.
If you believe in this, you escape punishment for your sins.
Muslims believe that Jesus was a great prophet who can help us
through his teachings but not through his death and resurrection.
According to Islam, he was an ordinary human being who preached
God’s word, not a divine being who adopted human form. In the Muslim view, the idea of a Trinity conflicts with the belief that God is One.
Islam contends that God can forgive people’s sins without being recompensed by sacrifices. God forgives without asking anything in return.
IDEALS AND RULES
How is one to live in order to be a good person? On this point, all three
religions agree. One should be responsible, honest, considerate, generous and loyal. The weak are to be helped and protected. The riches
of the earth are to be managed in an enlightened and responsible
111
way. Gifts are to be shared fairly. Christians and Jews encapsulate all
this in what they call the dual commandment: Thou shalt love thy
God above all else and thy neighbour as thyself. Muslims share the
same view but rather than speaking of love of one’s fellow-beings they
say we must show care and consideration towards one another.
Jews and Muslims also have rules concerning food. Both religions
say you should not eat pork, eat or drink blood or eat the meat of
animals that die by natural causes. Jews have quite a few additional
rules for how to proceed in daily life, not least during the sabbath.
All these commandments come from God but are not as important
as the commandment whereby we are to love our fellows.
Some Muslims comply with rules governing dress, hair and entertainment. Such everyday rules serve an important purpose in that
they reinforce people’s sense of community. They show who belongs to
your particular religion. When a group is oppressed or its survival is
threatened, therefore, these commandments become extra important.
Christians do not have any very detailed rules concerning food or
dress. Down through the ages, however, Christians have held very
firm views on how people should dress and amuse themselves.
All three religions have church services once or twice a week at
which believers congregate. Jews usually hold services on Saturday,
Christians on Sunday and Muslims on Friday. All three have annual
holidays that are very important for their pious observance of religious duties and for keeping the group together. Christian holidays
are largely dictated by the solar year. Jews and Muslims let the moon
decide when religious holidays are to be held.
LIFE AFTER DEATH
What, then, is the after-life for which religion is to save us? Jews
generally consider that no-one can know anything about life after
death. If any form of punishment awaits us it will only be for a limited period and if Paradise exists then we will all be allowed in, whatever our religion may have been. Christians and Muslims refer to
Paradise more as the home of the kind-hearted after death. As to
what happens to the rest, views tend to differ slightly among the
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faiths. Some believe they can expect dire punishment, either for
all eternity or for a limited period. Others believe such people will
simply be annihilated or punished by being excluded from Paradise.
All three religions foresee the triumph of good over evil. This
applies to the individual as well as humankind as a whole. The Jews’
belief in a Messiah has taken new forms over the years. Nowadays,
many believe that the Messiah’s day will come as a result of humanity
making the earth a better place to live in. Christians believe that Christ
will return to earth to denounce and conquer evil once and for all. Most
Muslims foresee a final encounter between good and evil, at which
Christ, too, will be present, ending in the triumph of good. We will then
be free to live in Paradise without the threat of evil hanging over us.
But aren’t there a number of other differences concerning
things like violence, politics and the status of women? Such differences do exist among religious believers, of course, but they are
not due to the religions themselves. This can be seen from the fact
that people’s views on such issues differ so strikingly within each
religion. Also, history shows that all the various viewpoints can find
endorsement within all three religions. Both war and the oppression
of women have been blessed by leaders of these religions.
Men wishing to uphold the oppression of women can always
call on the holy scriptures. ‘Honour killings’ are an ancient tradition
in the Middle East. The practice is referred to in the Book of Deuteronomy 22:21, which states that after the wedding the bride must be
able to show that she was a virgin by producing the sheet or ‘chastity
cloth’ with the blood of her pierced maidenhead on it. Otherwise, she
was to be brought to the door of her father’s house, “and the men of
her city shall stone her to death”. And the Jewish bible, the Torah,
refers to women as being “more bitter than death” (Ecclesiastes 7:26).
Christians look to the New Testament in seeking to understand
the Old Testament. Conceivably, the new text might have done away
with wording in the Old Testament that reinforced the oppression
of women. In fact, the New Testament, too, refers disparagingly to
women. Paul the Apostle, for instance, finds it shameful for women
to show themselves without covering their heads. The man, howev113
er, need not cover his head “as he is the image and glory of God; but
the woman is the glory of the man” (Corinthians 11:5-7). Elsewhere,
the Christian bible says: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority
over the man, but to be in silence” (Timothy 2:11–12).
Like the Christian bible, the Koran contains wording that can be
used to oppress women. It states for instance: “Men have authority
over women because God has made the one superior to the other,
and because men spend their wealth to maintain them. Good
women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God
has guarded them. As for those among you who fear disobedience,
admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them. If they
obey you, you are not permitted to transgress against them.” (Koran,
Sura 4:34). That text gives the man the right to use violence to make
his wife obey him. Husbands’ conjugal rights apparently take precedence over those of wives: “Your women are the bearers of your seed.
Thus, you may enjoy this privilege however you like.” (Sura 2:223).
The scriptures of the three great religions, then, differ little in the
way they treat important issues relating to coexistence, such as equal
status for women and respect for dissenting views. In various ways,
they reflect an old and extremely patriarchal type of society. Religious
attitudes have been affected by both external and internal pressures.
Today, the leaders of these religions condemn the malpractices of old
but much evil remains in the world. This includes prejudices concerning others. It is easy for people to imagine that their own faith is
more enlightened, but in fact all three religions place the same emphasis on the search for solidarity and justice. The yearning for a world
free from evil is as strong today as it has always been. Jews, Christians
and Muslims share this vision and can all help make it a reality..
Christer Hedin is a senior lecturer in religious history
in Stockholm and Uppsala
Funny, we borrowed the word alcohol from the Muslims
and now they don't want it back! ›
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i l l u s t ra t i o n b y J e s p e r W a l d e rs te n
34
different
is c o o l
roots
summarised by Eivor
a n d S o n i a a t Te n s ta U p p e r S e c o n d a r y S ch o o l
W E ’ R E F O U R YO U N G students at Tensta Upper Secondary and we
were curious about one another’s views on religion, morals, culture
and love, so we met on a couple of occasions to discuss these fascinating subjects.
Brief presentation of the discussion group:
Athina (A), Greek Orthodox, agnostic, 17
Erik (E), atheist, 17
Mohammed (M), Muslim, 17
Petra (P), Syrian Orthodox, 17
“What do you think will happen to you when you die?”
M: I believe I’ll go to heaven or hell, depending on my actions. After
death you regain consciousness and see the true light. I try to say
my prayers every day, and when I don’t I repent. I began practising
my religion quite recently. I was born here in Sweden and my parents
are from Bangladesh. My grandfather used to tell me about Islam
but I only started taking it seriously when I was in the sixth grade.
Today, I’m at upper secondary and I have difficulty fitting in five
prayer sessions a day. Now, though, we have a prayer room at school
so I pray more often than I would have done at home. I try to pray
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five times a day, but it varies. I also visit the mosque sometimes.
“Could you marry a non-Muslim?”
M: Yes, I could imagine marrying someone who isn’t a Muslim, as
that would mean she’d seen the real Muslim in me and not the
media image of a Muslim.
I know a lot of people with Muslim and Christian parents who
are married. They each have their own religion and celebrate both
Christmas and Ramadan.
“What do you think of the custom of girls wearing shawls?”
M: I think girls who wear shawls should do so because they believe
in God, and not just for show. Their reasons for wearing them
should be genuine. I know girls who wear shawls but don’t live
according to the Islamic faith. They wear a shawl because they have
to, perhaps, or simply to make people think they believe in God and
live in accordance with Islamic beliefs and customs.
NEXT IT’S ERIK’S TURN.
“What do you think will happen to you when you die?”
E: When I die, my consciousness dies with me. The brain’s electrical
signals and chemical reactions cease and everything comes to an
end. I can’t believe that I have a soul or such like that goes on living
after my death.
“Do you think religion can help believers cope with difficult
situations?”
E: All of us feel sorrow and that kind of thing in different ways,
but for those who believe in God religion can be a great help. Nonbelievers find it harder to tackle their problems, they search around
for the answers, but believers usually find the answers in their faith.
“Have you been confirmed?”
E: I’ve been both christened and confirmed. My confirmation was a
sort of tradition, under pressure from my friends. But I don’t go to
church and my parents aren’t religious.
“Could you marry a Muslim?”
E: Yes, of course. Love is love. I have great respect for other religions.
Religion is good for those who believe, even if I don’t myself.”
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NEXT, PETRA.
“What do you think will happen to you when you die?”
P: Just like my Muslim friend here, I believe I’ll go to heaven or hell,
depending on my actions here on earth. My parents are Christians
and I grew up in that faith.
“What’s your first recollection of your religion?”
P: When I was in the first grade, I was in the lunch queue and our
teacher asked us if we were Christians or Muslims and whether we
ate pork or not. I stood there wondering why you couldn’t eat pork
and what a Muslim was. I hardly knew what a Christian was. I’d
always thought everyone had the same faith. I sang in the local
Church of Sweden choir for many years, but it was my aunt that
brought me closer to the Syrian Orthodox Christian faith. I have a
cross that my grandfather gave me several years ago. I’ve worn it
ever since, and it has a genuine meaning for me, to do with my
beliefs. People don’t always wear crosses for religious reasons. They
35
INNOCENT AS CHARGED
How do you think it feels?
to be called a murderer?
Why do you accuse me
of something I haven’t done?
What am I to do?
All I can do now is weep
For me all people are equal
I didn’t come into the world of my own free will
Why should we who are young suffer for what our rulers do?
Surkan Kilic, from ‘In the Heart of Tensta: Poems, Tales and
Images from Tensta Upper Secondary School’
often have them just to show off their jewellery, or themselves, or
to give themselves or others the impression that they’re good
Christians. I don’t think you should wear a cross for that kind of
reason. You should wear it with reverence, as I do. The same applies
to people who wear shawls or other things that tradition demands.
“Could you marry a Muslim?”
P: I don’t think so, because we’d probably have far too different
views about lots of things, although the two religions are so close.
I’m convinced that non-Christians can’t enter heaven and I imagine
Muslims say the same thing about Christians. Many marriages
nowadays end in divorce, so I believe you should choose a partner
with the same religious beliefs as your own. Also, my parents would
be very much against it. Like me, they believe that a marriage built
on a shaky foundation will eventually collapse.
FINALLY, IT IS ATHINA’S TURN.
“What do you think will happen to you when you die?”
A: Everything goes black and your body rots. As for the soul, I don’t
know if there is such a thing so I’ll wait and see if I have one and
what happens to it.
“What does being an agnostic mean?”
A: My parents are Greek Orthodox Christians. I’ve grown up with
their traditions but I haven’t adopted their religion—I’m not
religious.
I’ve been able to make up my own mind as a result of the freedom I’ve been given by my parents, and I respect them for that. If
they hadn’t given me that freedom, I’d probably have been religious.
I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m an agnostic, in other words
I can’t prove that God exists but nor can I prove that God doesn’t
exist. So I prefer to wait and see what happens instead.
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36
leaving the religious
sandpit
b y P i e rre D u rra n i
I T WA S T W E LV E years ago that I embarked upon my present path.
I had grown up in the Pentecostal Church, been a punk for a while,
tried shamanism and a few other things, and had finally found my
way to the religion I knew least about yet had roots in—Islam. After
talking to different people, reading a few books and especially after
sitting on a dusty rooftop in the Pakistani city of Lahore, drinking
carrot juice and mulling over life’s complications, I found Islam an
interesting alternative. If you grow up with a deeply religious Christian mother and attend Sunday School every week, belief in God is
virtually automatic. But I never really felt at peace with the concept
of the Holy Trinity in Christianity. My father has a Muslim PakistaniAfghan background but has been more secular, and the only things
I learned about his religion as a child was that there were two holidays like Christmas—Big Eid and Small Eid. An important point for
a child, this, as it meant three Christmas celebrations, but it didn’t
exactly further my insight into Islamic tradition. It takes time to
build up an identity. A part of our identity is given us, other parts we
build up and revise all our lives, and still others we create from
scratch. This is how it is with religion, too. Over the years, since formally joining the Muslim faith, my thoughts and ideas about Islam
have evolved, become involved and also dissolved. A religious identity is seldom static, as many people seem to imagine today, and
those who try to keep the faith often change over time. You mature,
perhaps, or become more or less religious, you acquire more knowledge or experience, you quite simple develop with the passage of
time just like everyone else on this little blue-green planet of ours.
I’ve often thought what an exciting debate I would have had
120
with myself if the present 30-year-old me had met the 18-year-old
me who became a Muslim. I’ve probably lost some of the self-confident religious fervour I had back then, but over the years I’ve also
learnt to appreciate the rich variety that life has to offer. Furthermore, I’ve learnt that it is not always easy to be a practising Muslim.
I’ve often been put to the test, in various ways—environments, people
and situations that have put my thinking in perspective. Sometimes
I’ve been provoked, but as a rule the problems I’ve encountered have
left me with a firmer grip on reality as a follower of Islam. I’ve found
that having your views questioned is a good thing. Well, up to
a point, anyway, for unfortunately as a Muslim you’re too often
painted as a potential terrorist-fundamentalist-fanatic...and believe
me, this can be pretty harrowing after a while. But apart from all
the suspicion that is cast over Islam nowadays, being a Muslim in
Sweden is fairly painless. I see myself as a Swedish Muslim with
Pakistani-Afghan roots. A hyphenated identity that has matured
gradually and which I now feel secure about.
I’ve learnt to love my religion—although I’m fascinated by and
appreciate other religions, too—and of all the texts, rituals and acts
that I enjoy in practising Islam it is the daily prayers, al-Salat, that
I value most. To be able to reflect on existentialist issues such as:
Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? And what is
the meaning of life? These are questions that most people put to
themselves from time to time and which in a way have informed
the whole of human history both at the private and public level.
Prayers are like a small church service, a few moments of contemplation that give you a pleasant break from what is often a stressful
existence. To commune with God with my forehead pressed against
the prayer mat gives me both strength and comfort. It is my way of
charging my batteries.
I feel that both Christianity and Islam are part of my cultural
heritage and that at present these two religions, the largest in the
world, are being pitted against each other. It’s us loving, democratic
Christians against those fanatical, violent, women-beating Muslims
who want nothing more than to hack our limbs off—or it’s us devout,
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righteous and wise Muslims against those hypocritical, bloodthirsty,
power-hungry Christians whose societies are riddled with pornography and problems. That kind of thing.
I’m convinced that the majority of Christians and Muslims in
the world are not fooled by the myth of eternal enmity between our
two religions. Most followers of the faith, of whatever kind, are
peaceful, calm and good people. In the modern era, differences and
conflicts are emphasised in the media, but why does no-one mention all the millions of Muslims and Christians who live and have
lived on good terms with one another?
Comparing Islam and Christianity appears to be all the rage
these days; sometimes it’s done in an objective and balanced way,
but all too often it’s a matter of ‘proving’ the superiority of one over
the other. Often, you don’t see the ‘Others’ as they want to be seen
themselves but through the filter of your own prejudices. A fundamental problem is that we tend to compare the finest aspects or
highest ideals of our own religion with the worst aspects or lowest
practices of the Others’, and vice versa. Instead of comparing ideals
with ideals and practices with practices. It may be a bit upsetting
for some people to discover that the Others are not as evil and different from us as we would like to imagine.
Perhaps something good will emerge from the ashes of 11 September 2001? A new era of self-examination and reflection, perhaps, of
cooperation and reappraisal? Our tiny planet has far too large and
pressing problems to confront, such as environmental destruction
and social injustice, for us to engage in childish squabbles reminiscent of the sandpit. It is time to raise our sights from the sandpit
and realise that the world and Sweden are big enough for us all,
Christians and Muslims alike, and all the other religions as well.
And that God is greater than we imagine, but that we, too, are so
much greater than we might suspect.
God’s peace! Pax vobiscum! As-Salâmu ‘alaykum!
Pierre Durrani is press secretary of the Swedish
Young Muslims Association.
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37
T H E KO R A N O N W I N E
16:67. (...as a guidance and a mercy for a people who believe). And of the
fruits of the palms and the grapes—you obtain from them intoxication and
goodly provision; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who ponder.
2:216. They ask you about intoxicants and games of chance. Say: ‘In both
of them there is a great sin and means of profit for men, and their sin is
greater than their profit’. And they ask you as to what they should spend.
4:43 O you who believe! Do not go near prayer when you are intoxicated
until you know (well) what you say...
5:90. O you who believe! Intoxicants and games of chance and (sacrificing
to) stones set up and (dividing by) arrows are only an uncleanness, the
Satan’s work; shun it therefore that you may be successful.
38
Where wine enters, good sense departs
Swedish proverb
39
Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a Snare?
A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
And if a Curse—why, then, Who set it there?
Omar Khayyam (1050–1123)
40
p h oto Pe l le K ro n e s te d t
Östra Real
Upper Secondary School,
Friday 10:30
L to r: Ruben Brundell, Emelie Klefbeck, Ranna Kas Hanna, Katinka Höglund,
Sally Tally and Daniel Harild at Östra Real Upper Secondary, Stockholm
Sally, 17: We know too little about
Islam and Muslims and we perhaps have
too many prejudices.
Ruben, 17: Swap the circumcision of
boys for some other kind of ceremony.
Children must decide for themselves
when they want to grow up.
Ranna, 18: Moving from Rinkeby to
Östermalm was a big step for me. My old
friends in Rinkeby think I’m a snob now,
while here I’m the Rinkeby girl who
doesn’t take any shit.
Daniel, 18: As long as boys are circumcised under proper care, I’ve nothing
against it. I’m circumcised myself and it
hasn’t harmed me.
Katinka, 17: I can’t understand people
who won’t let their daughters live their
lives as they want.
Emelie, 17: I’ve got a Muslim friend who
doesn’t dare come to see me here at
school because she thinks you have to
wear snob clothes at this place.
41
p h oto Pe l le K ro n e s te d t
Te n s t a
Upper Secondary School,
Friday 13:30
L to r: Nazib Miah, Anna Etoh, Tomek Jansson, Arian Al Bazi, Petra Boles,
Kalle Larsson and Maria Byrnäs at Tensta Upper Secondary, Stockholm
Nazib, 17: ‘Honour killings’ is something
all religions are against, it’s really sick!
Tomek, 17: I probably have some prejudices, but I try to avoid them.
Kalle, 16: There’s nothing wrong with
male circumcision, but I’m completely
against the sexual mutilation of women.
Maria, 18: Everyone’s so different here
in Tensta. No-one’s like anyone else!
Petra, 16: I’d prefer to marry someone
who shares the same faith as me—Christian Orthodox.
Anna, 17: Before I started at Tensta
Upper Secondary, I had a lot of prejudices. Nowadays, though, being here
feels really good.
Arian, 16: Sometimes it seems as though
media reporting reinforces prejudice
towards certain groups.
42
islamism
origins
and its
b y B i t te H a m m a rg re n
F U N DA M E N TA L I STS O F D I F F E R E N T persuasions—Muslims,
Christians, Jews and Hindus—have at least one thing in common:
they all seek to build a society on religious foundations and introduce religion into politics. They are not prepared to compromise on
what they consider to be religious truths. One only has to look at
the conflict between Israel and Palestine to see how implacable and
irreconcilable religious extremists on both sides can be.
As long as fundamentalists are the underdogs, their criticism of
the country’s rulers can prove effective in attracting popular support.
Justified censure of the corruption and overbearing practices of
those in power appeals to both the young, frustrated unemployed
and the devout middle classes. But history shows that once the religious purists gain power themselves, they find it harder to retain
their popularity. Among fundamentalists of the same faith, there
are any number of diverging and competing movements. Muslim
fundamentalists—or Islamists—are not a unified bloc. Rather, they
might be viewed as different limbs of a many-branched tree.
Usama bin Ladin, al-Qaida and the Taliban represent just one of
these Islamic branches. The Saudi royal family represents another
and the Shi’ite clergy in Iran a third. Armed Muslim groups like
those in Algeria, Palestine and the Philippines are other branches
of this tree. But most Islamic fundamentalists do not resort to
Kalashnikovs or explosives to try and force people to accept their
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interpretations of the Koran. Instead, they try to awaken slumbering
souls by spreading the word and the scriptures.
Present-day Islamic fundamentalism has its roots in the Muslim
Brotherhood, which was founded by an Egyptian, Hassan al-Banna,
in 1928. The movement, which spread rapidly through the Arab world,
arose in response to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, when the
founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, abolished the Caliphate
in 1924. (Caliphs were acting leaders of the Muslim community,
al-umma, following the death of the prophet Mohammed in 632.)
Even though the Caliphate lost its political influence in the early
20th century, it represented an ideal: the notion that all Muslim
believers, regardless of nationality, were part of a unified whole.
The message of the Muslim Brotherhood has been summed up in
the phrase, “The Koran is our Constitution”. Together with the Saudi
theocracy, the Brotherhood is implacably opposed to non-religious Arab
nationalism, which unites Christianity and Muslim Arabs. One of the
most radical Brotherhood ideologists, Sayyid Qutb, was hanged in Egypt
in 1966. He had challenged the Egyptian leader of the day, President
Nasser, by likening him to a pharaoh and describing Arab nationalists
as idolatrous heathens who prayed to the state instead of to God.
Islamists since the time of Hassan al-Banna have viewed the
prophet Mohammed’s community in Medina in 622 as a model for
political Islam. They draw on the Koran for their dogma and from the
‘traditions’ attributed to Mohammed. Their sources of inspiration
today are a number of theologians from early times, such as Ibn
Taimiyya (1263–1328) and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1791) as well as
20th century thinkers like the Pakistani theologian Mawdudi. But
seeking to build a modern state based on the holy scriptures is also
used by forces seeking to democratise the Muslim countries from
within. Thus Fatima Mernissi from Morocco argues on behalf of
gender equality by citing the Koran and the traditions of the prophet
Mohammed. She has attracted the wrath of Islamists, who accuse
her of using religion simply as a means to achieve her feminist ends.
Another interesting figure is Tariq Ramadan, a researcher in Switzerland. This grandson of Islamism—his mother was the daughter of
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the Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan al-Banna—has discussed the question of how you can live as a democratic Muslim believer in modern
Europe. His book, ‘To Be a European Muslim’, has inspired many people, while others suspect him of harbouring covert Islamist motives.
For several decades now, the Muslim Brotherhood, Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia have been seeking to promote a Sunni Muslim revival
worldwide. In 1962, the Muslim World League was founded in Saudi
Arabia, with the aim of giving the deeply conservative Saudi form of
Islam—Wahhabism—interpretive priority in the world. Brandishing
this global ideological export, the Saudi Arabians and those who
share their beliefs have stormed at Shi’ite Muslims, at traditional
Sunnite leaders (Ulema), at mysticists (Sufis) and at practitioners of
popular Muslim customs (such as pilgrims to the graves of the
saints or those who celebrate Mohammed’s birthday), as well as at
those Muslims who distinguish between religion and politics (secularists). In order to spread their dogma, Saudi-oriented Islamists,
with the backing of wealthy financiers, have paid the salaries of
imams, translated books into numerous languages and supported
the building of mosques and Islamic institutions around the world,
from black Africa to northern Europe and Central Asia. By devious
routes, funds have also been channelled to those who have fought
for their beliefs with weapons in hand, the ‘jihadists’.
With the advent of the revolution in Iran in 1979, the Saudis encountered competition. When the Shi’ite Muslim revolutionary leaders in Iran shouted “There are no kings in Islam!”, a shockwave passed
through Saudi Arabia, heart of the Sunni Muslim world, where the
royal family is supposed to be the guardian of the holy cities of Mecca
and Medina. The message from the ayatollahs in Iran echoed menacingly through the Saudi palaces with their 5,000 princes, wasteful
luxury, corruption and indifference to social injustice. The Saudi royal
family was equally shocked by events on the first day of the year 1400
according to the Islamic calendar (20 November 1979 in Sweden). On
dawn that day, the Great Mosque in Mecca, the holiest of all places for
Muslims, was occupied by Saudi extremists urging a return to orthodox Islamic principles. The intruders were eventually forced out and
130
executed, but their action had badly shaken the Saudi establishment.
It now had both an external and an internal foe to contend with. Collaboration with the US thus became even more important for the
reigning House of Saud. The Afghan resistance movement fighting the
Soviet Union in the 1980s provided Saudi Arabia with a means of promoting its cause among Muslims and of diverting its internal critics.
Together with the US and Pakistan, the Saudis invested massively in the Afghan resistance movement. The fight against the Soviet
infidels on Afghan territory was hailed as a holy war. Thousands of
Arab volunteers became jihadists in the Afghan mountains. After
ten years of war, the Soviet Union was forced out of Afghanistan.
The occupying power slunk home with its tail between its leg and
shortly thereafter the entire Soviet empire collapsed. Conquering a
superpower was naturally a tremendous fillip for the Muslim
Afghanistan veterans, and in the early 1990s these soldiers of God
began seeking out new fronts where their experience of armed warfare could help to exacerbate conflicts. The civil war in Algeria is one
such example.
For the Saudi royal family—the Americans’ allies in the Persian
gulf—Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 came as a further blow. It
brought Saddam Hussein dangerously close to the Saudi oilwells. In
order to drive Saddam’s forces out of Kuwait, the Saudi royal family
allowed half a million US soldiers to use the kingdom as a base.
Today, more than a decade later, there are still US bases in Saudi
Arabia. This alliance between the House of Saud, guardian of the
holy places, and the American ‘infidels’ vexed a number of people,
including a well-known Afghan veteran, Usama bin Ladin, exiled son
of a wealthy Saudi businessman. In the mid-1990s, he began turning
his weapons on his former native country, Saudi Arabia, and on their
patrons, the US. The fact that the royal family was allowing US military bases to be established on holy Saudi soil was viewed by Usama
bin Ladin and his associates as a grave crime. This is also why there
was such a strong Saudi element in the terror attacks of 11 September
—15 of the 19 hijackers are believed to have been Saudis. The fall of
the Taliban in Afghanistan and the continuing hunt for members of
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the al-Qaida network is affecting the entire Muslim world. For several
years now, Islam watchers have been claiming that Islamism has
reached the end of the line.
Today, the situation hangs in the balance. Developments could
tip matters in a number of different directions:
– In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the power struggle between the
theological establishment and reformist factions seeking an end to
the political rule of the clergy has intensified. Should the reformists
triumph, this could signal the end of the brand of militant Islamism
that has emanated from Iran.
– Muslims both in the West and in the Middle East who feel neglected and marginalised may be drawn to religious extremists wishing to spark conflicts between religions and civilisations. The flames
of discontent may be fanned by the professional Muslim soldiers
who have been put out of work by the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Should these soldiers of God seek out new fronts to fight on,
there is a danger that the conflicts presently found in places like
Chechenya, Kashmir and the Middle East may worsen.
– Secularists, sickened by and worried about such a polarisation,
may be strengthened in their determination to separate religion
and politics in societies in both East and West. The secularists then
face a choice: they can either build up authoritarian government
machinery or strive for societies based on democratic principles, the
rule of law, equality of the sexes and human rights.
– A further tendency may develop among those religious followers disappointed by the corruption and power-seeking that is evident
among the elites of the Islamic core countries. Such people may be
drawn to new ideals and a modernised form of Islam. This may lead
to greater individualisation in religion and greater support for political pluralism. The future, however, is unforeseeable. What will happen
depends on which forces gain control of political and religious
power centres in the West, in the UN and in the Muslim world. The
events of 11 September and their aftermath show what a boundless
world we live in.
Bitte Hammargren is a journalist with Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm
132
GLOSSARY:
Islamism: Another name for Muslim fundamentalism. An ideology that aims to create an Islamic State according to the Koran.
Jihad: Literally means the search for God and the Prophet, but
is often translated as ‘holy war’. In one of Mohammed’s early
revelations from Medina, he was urged to embark on a jihad
against the ruling Quraysh tribe in Mecca as it was trying to
prevent the establishment of Islam.
Caliph: ‘Deputy’, the position held by Mohammed’s successors
as supreme leader of the Muslim community following his death
in 632.
Caliphate: Lasted from Mohammed’s death in 632 until 1258,
when the Mongolian conquerors murdered the last Abbasid
caliph in Baghdad. The office was restored by the Ottomans (a
dynasty that lasted from 1281 up until the end of the First
World War).
Theocracy: Government by a deity or priesthood; a society in
which God is deemed to have supreme power and the rulers
claim to represent him or his deputies directly.
Al-umma: Title of the first Muslim community established in
Medina in 622. Today, al-umma stands for the community of
Muslim believers, wherever they may live.
LITERATURE:
Hjärpe, Jan: Politisk islam: studier i muslimsk fundamentalism
(Förlagshuset Gothia, 1983).
Kepel, Gilles: Expansion et déclin de l’islamisme. (Gallimard,
2000).
Mernissi, Fatima: Drömmar om frihet: berättelser från min barndoms harem. (Norstedts, 1994).
Otterbeck, Jonas: Islam på svenska: Tidskriften Salaam och
islams globalisering (Lunds universitet, 2000).
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World. (Oxford
University Press, 1995).
Ramadan, Tariq: To be a European Muslim (Islamic Foundation,
1999).
Rashid, Ahmed: Talibanerna: islam, oljan och det nya maktspelet i Centralasien. (Svenska Afghanistankommittén, 2000)
Roy, Olivier: The Failure of Political Islam. (I.B. Tauris
Publishers, 1994).
Simonsen, Jørgen Bæk : Islamlexikonet. (Forum, 1994).
Solomin, Nina: OK, amen: om kärlek och fientlighet i chassidernas New York. (Wahlström & Widstrand, 2001).
»Hatred and piety are incompatible« Turkish proverb
133
43
fighting over
differences
by Mehrnoush Khoshnevis
I ’ V E O F T E N W O N D E R E D why there is such a thing as religion. It
seems to cause more harm than good. Looking back at history, you
find that countless wars were over religion. The great world religions
(the monotheistic) preach that there is only one God, that one
should not kill, steal, commit adultery and so forth. In many cases,
the various religions are more similar than dissimilar—and so they
fight over the differences. Is Jesus the son of God? Has the Messiah
been born or are we still waiting for him? These are some of the
things they are fighting about. Things that happened thousands of
years ago. Of course you should have a religion if that’s what you
want. But you must accept other people’s religions and views.
If we are to avoid condemning the religious views of others, we
have to begin by learning about the various religions and learning
to distinguish between religion and culture. For many, words like
sexual mutilation of women and honour killings are synonymous
with Islam, which is not at all correct. My family comes from a
Muslim background but I don’t practice the religion actively. I have
friends with other religions, and it’s fun comparing them—the differences and the similarities. You learn a lot.
Religion has often been abused by those in power, and still is, but
at the same time it gives many people hope. The dangerous part—
for all religions—is when those who practise the faith become fundamentalists. A world with only one religion would be like a painting without colour. But by acquiring knowledge and learning tolerance we can paint a beautiful colourful picture together.
Mehrnoush Khoshnevis, 19, is a student at Tensta Upper
Secondary School, Stockholm
134
44
ON CHILDREN
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows
are sent forth.
Gibran Kahlil, from “The Prophet” (1883–1931)
Ben Jelloun, T. (1998), Vad är rasism - samtal med min dotter.
Stockholm: Alfabeta Bok förlag AB.
Emami, S. (1989), i I hjärtat av Tensta: dikter, berättelser och
bilder från Tensta gymnasium. Bromma: Tryck Offset Ekonomi AB.
Evin (1989), i I hjärtat av Tensta: dikter, berättelser och bilder
från Tensta gymnasium. Bromma: Tryck Offset Ekonomi AB.
Gibran, K. (1992), Profeten. Helsingborg: Proprius förlag AB.
Hafiz (1989), i Källor till persisk vishet. Hafiz et al. Solna:
Quellen Verlag.
Khayyam, O. (1997), En liten bok med Omar Khayyams Rubaiyat.
Vällingby: Strömberg B&LT Förlag AB.
Kilic, S. (1989), i I hjärtat av Tensta: dikter, berättelser och bilder
från Tensta gymnasium. Bromma: Tryck Offset Ekonomi AB.
Koranen, (1986). Ungern: Wahlström&Widstrand. I översättning av
K V Zetterstén.
Källor till persisk vishet (1989), i Källor till persisk vishet.
Solna: Quellen Verlag.
Maalouf, A. (1991), Korstågen enligt araberna. Ungern: Alhambra
förlag AB.
Mossaed, J. (1997), Månen och den eviga kon. Stockholm: Ordfront
Förlag AB.
Nordberg, M. (1989), Profetens folk. Kristianstad: Prisma förlag AB.
Oweini, S. & Burton, N. (1991), Alkemins blå eld. Falköping: FIBbokklubb.
Qabbani, N. (1991) i Oweini, S. & Burton, N. (1991), Alkemins blå
eld. Falköping: FIB-bokklubb.
Schamloo, A. (1996), Allomfattande kärlek. Rinkeby: Arash Tryck
och Förlag.
Tensta gymnasium (1989), I hjärtat av Tensta: dikter, berättelser
och bilder från Tensta gymnasium. Bromma: Tryck Offset Ekonomi AB.
YALLA! Let’s Redecorate the Tree!
(Swedish title: JALLA! Nu klär vi granen!)
Published 2002 by the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Gustav Adolfs torg 1, 103 39 Stockholm
ISBN 91-7496-276-0 Art.nr 02.019
Printing/Repro by Danagårds grafiska AB
Translation by Stephen Croall
136
YALLA! LET’S REDECORATE THE TREE
YALLA!
L E T ’S R E D E CO R AT
E THE TREE
– s w e d e n a n d t h e m u s li m c u lt u ra l s p h e re