Sweden Permits Construction of First Mosque in Capital

(Translated from Al-Zaitonah, 177, 16/10/1998)

The municipal authorities in Stockholm have agreed to grant Muslims permission to build the first mosque in the Swedish capital so that they can observe their religious rights.

Muslims have been trying for more than two decades to build this mosque but were faced with procedural obstacles with municipal authorities who considered the building to be foreign to the architecture of the city. Moreover, local residents protested the construction of a mosque in their neighbourhood.

Muslims in Sweden enumerate about 300,000 out of total population of 8.5 million, thus making Islam the second largest religion in the country (the first being Protestant Christianity).