Muslim culture Centre of Iceland is located at second floor in a house calledÝmishúsið inReykjavík.
Islam in Iceland is a minority religion. ThePew Research Center estimated that the number of Muslims in Iceland was below its 10,000 minimum threshold,[clarification needed] and official statistics put the figure at under 1,300, or 0.33% out of the total population of 385,230.[2][3]
In 2011, Icelandic Muslims attracted the interest ofAl Jazeera; the channel planned a documentary dealing with Muslims in Iceland and New Zealand. Al Jazeera was interested in howRamadan is honored in the higher latitudes where the night without sun and the sun is 24/7 can be of unusual length when compared to the majority-Muslim lands.[4]
The long-distance trading and raiding networks of theVikings will have meant that various Icelanders, like the NorwegiansRögnvald Kali Kolsson orHarald Hardrada, came into direct contact with the Muslim world during the Middle Ages;[5] indirect connections are best attested by finds of Arabic coins in Iceland, as also widely in the Viking world.[6]
Following Iceland's conversion to Christianity around 1000, some Icelanders encountered the Islamic world through pilgrimage, for example to Jerusalem, of the kind described by Abbot Nikulás Bergsson in hisLeiðarvísir og borgarskipan.[citation needed]
From around the late thirteenth century, a fantastical version of the Islamic world is prominent in medieval Icelandicromance, partly inspired by Continental narratives influenced by the Crusades. Although this image generally characterises the Islamic world as 'heathen', and repeats the misconceptions of Islam widespread in the medieval West,[7] it also varies substantially from text to text, sometimes, for example, associating the Islamic world with great wealth, wisdom, or chivalry.[8] Romance continued to serve as a medium for Icelanders to contemplate Islam in the post-medieval period, for example inJón Oddsson Hjaltalín's eighteenth-century romanceFimmbræðra saga, which combined traditional storytelling with Continental Enlightenment scholarship.
Perhaps the earliest known example of Muslims coming to Iceland occurred in 1627, when theDutchMuslimJan Janszoon and hisBarbary pirates raided portions of Iceland, including the southwest coast,Vestmannaeyjar, and the eastern fjords.[9] This event is known in Icelandic history as theTyrkjaránið (the "Turkish Abductions"). An estimated 400-800 Icelanders were sold into slavery.
Islam started to gain presence in Icelandic culture around the 1970s, partly through immigration from the Islamic world (for exampleSalmann Tamimi) and partly through Icelanders' exposure to Islamic culture while travelling (for exampleIbrahim Sverrir Agnarsson). Some of the immigrants simply came of their own accord; others came as refugees, including groups fromKosovo.[10] TheQuran was first translated into Icelandic in 1993, with a corrected edition in 2003.[11]
Members of Muslim Associations in Iceland as a function of time
Salmann Tamimi estimates that when he came to Iceland in 1971 there were perhaps seven Muslims living there.[12] As of 2013, however,
"Muslim Association of Iceland" (Félag múslima á Íslandi) has 465 members.
"The Islamic Cultural Centre of Iceland" (Menningarsetur múslima á Íslandi) has 305 members.[13]
The first generation of Muslims born in Iceland probably began with people like Salmann's own children, such as Yousef Ingi Tamimi (b. 1988).[14] Iceland's Muslim population is of diverse origins, including people born in the Arab world, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Africa, and Iceland.[15]
The Muslim Association of Iceland (Félag múslima á Íslandi) was founded in 1997 bySalmann Tamimi, a Palestinian immigrant; it was officially recognised on February 25.[16] Since 2010 the chair has beenIbrahim Sverrir Agnarsson.[17] As of 2014, the association has 465 members. More than half were born in Iceland; perhaps 40-50 were born to non-Muslim parents.[17]
The Muslim Association of Iceland currently runs theReykjavík Mosque, aSunni mosque on the third floor of an office building in Ármúli 38, Reykjavík.[13] It has twoimams and offers daily and nightly prayers attended by a mix of local Icelanders and visiting Muslims. It also offers weekly Friday prayers forJumu'ah. In 2000 the Muslim Association applied to purpose-build a mosque in Reykjavík; after a long process, permission for building was granted on July 6, 2013.[18]
Prayers are said in Arabic, but English and Icelandic are also widely used due to the diverse nature of the congregation. The Association regularly runs courses in both Arabic and Icelandic. On Saturdays there are Quran lessons for kids of different ages.[15]
TheIslamic Culture Centre of Iceland (Menningarsetur múslima á Íslandi) was founded in 2008 byKarim Askari, originally from Morocco, and as of 2014 has 305 members.[17] The Centre hired Ahmad Seddeeq, originally from Egypt, as Imam in 2011.[19]
The Islamic Cultural Centre of Iceland runs a mosque in Ýmishúsið on Skógarhlíð in Reykjavík.[20]
One of the main researchers on Icelandic attitudes to racial and religious groups, Kristín Loftsdóttir, has found that many Icelanders exhibitanti-immigrant discourses linked with Islamophobia in ways parallel those in other European countries, despite Iceland having an often completely different history of contact with Islamic cultures.[21] Many public expressions of Islamophobia have in the second decade of the twenty-first century been focused on opposition to the creation of a purpose-builtReykjavík mosque. Opposition to Islam is often presented in terms of support for gender equality, a discourse which in Kristín's assessment is 'used as a way to dwell on the criticism of Muslims in general, and to the glory of European societies'.[22]Óttar M. Norðfjörð's 2010 novelÖrvitinn eða; Hugsjónamaðurinn satirises Islamophobic attitudes.[23]
Many Muslims in Iceland prefer not to join a formal organisation, considering their relationship with God a personal one.[12]
^Neil Price, 'The Vikings in Spain, North Africa and the Mediterranean', inThe Viking World, ed. by Stefan Brink and Neil Price (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), pp. 462--69.
^E.g. the hoard found at the farm Keta in Skefilsstaðhreppur: Fedir Androshchuk andRagnheiður Traustadóttir, 'A Viking Age Spearhead from Kolkuós', Hólarannsóknin Framvinduskýrsla 6 (2004),https://www.academia.edu/Documents/in/Viking_Age_Spearheads.
^Martin, John Stanley, 'Attitudes to Islam from theChansons de geste to theRiddarasögur',Parergon, n. s. 8.2 (1990), 81-95.doi:10.1353/pgn.1990.0001
^Sverrir Jakobsson,Við og veröldin: Heimsmynd Íslendinga 1100-1400 (Reykjavík: Háskólaútgáfan, 2005), pp. 130-60. Cf. Sheryl Elizabeth McDonald Werronen, 'Transforming Popular Romance on the Edge of the World:Nítíða saga in Late Medieval and Early Modern Iceland' (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leeds, 2013), pp. 150--56; Bjørn Bandlien, 'Muslims inKarlamagnúss saga andElíss saga ok Rósamundar ' and Geraldine Barnes, 'Byzantium in theriddarasögur ', inÁ austrvega: Saga and East Scandinavia. Preprint Papers of the 14th International Saga Conference, Uppsala, 9th–15th August 2009. Eds. Agneta Ney, Henrik Williams, and Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist. Institutionen för humaniora och samhällsvetenskaps skriftserie 14. Gävle: Gävle UP, 2009. 1.85–91 and 1.92–98,http://www.saga.nordiska.uu.se/preprintArchived 2018-02-19 at theWayback Machine.
^Viðar Þorsteinsson and Yousef Ingi Tamimi, 'Maður verður að hafa húmor fyrir sjálfum sér: Viđar Þorsteinsson og Yousef Ingi Tamimi ræða saman', inÍslam með afslætti, ed. by Auður Jónsdóttir and Óttar Martin Norðfjörð, Afbók, 4 ([Reykjavík]: Nýhil, 2008), pp. 142-51 (p. 143).
^abHeimir Björnsson, 'Hvaða átt til Mekka? Stofnun trúfélags múslima á Íslandi, þróun þess og starf á Íslandi og barátta gegn fordómum' (unpublished BA thesis, University of Iceland), p. 13.http://skemman.is/item/view/1946/2283.
^Heimir Björnsson, 'Hvaða átt til Mekka? Stofnun trúfélags múslima á Íslandi, þróun þess og starf á Íslandi og barátta gegn fordómum' (unpublished BA thesis, University of Iceland), p. 6.http://skemman.is/item/view/1946/2283.
^abcEygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, 'To a Mosque on a Magic Carpet',Iceland Review, 52.1 (2014), 64--68 (p. 65).
^Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, 'To a Mosque on a Magic Carpet',Iceland Review, 52.1 (2014), 64--68 (p. 67).
^Eygló Svala Arnarsdóttir, 'To a Mosque on a Magic Carpet',Iceland Review, 52.1 (2014), 64--68 (pp. 65-66).
^Kristín Loftsdóttir. 2012b. 'Belonging and the Icelandic Others: Situating Icelandic Identity in a Postcolonial Context', inWhiteness and Postcolonialism in the Nordic Region: Exceptionalism, Migrant Others and National Identities, ed. by Kristín Loftsdóttir and Lars Jensen (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 56-72 (p. 63).
^Kristín Loftsdóttir. 2012a. Whiteness is from Another World: Gender, Icelandic International Development and Multiculturalism. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 19(1), 41–54 (p. 47). See also Þorgerður H. Þorvaldsdóttir, 'The Gender-Equal North: Icelandic Images of Femininity and Masculinity', inIceland and Images of the North, ed. by Sumarliði R. Ísleifsson (Québec: Presses de l'Université du Québec, 2011), pp. 405-34 (pp. 410-11).
