Swedish mosques financed abroad

Swedish mosques receive money from Gaddafi and Wahhabist groups in Saudi Arabia. 

  • The mosque in Malmö, southern Sweden, was financed with money from Muammar Gaddafi.
  • Mosques in Sweden receive money from dictatorships like Libya and Saudi Arabia. For instance, the 30 million SEK (about $4,724,000) mosque in Malmö was partly financed by the organization World Islamic Call Society—a Libyan charity organization founded by Muammar Gaddafi.
    The new Mosque in Göteborg, funded by a radical Wahhabist group from Saudi Arabia, with the approval of the Swedish authorities, has lately become a bit of a controversy in Sweden. Scheduled to be finished early this summer, the 67 million SEK (about $10 million) construction was entirely financed by Saudi Arabia. Considering the alleged propaganda-hatred of several other European Saudi-tied mosques, and that Saudi ministers are openly supporting Pakistani terrorism, some people suggest Saudi Arabian groups intend more than to just provide Göteborg’s Muslims with a place to “practice spiritual activity.”

  • The Malmö Mosque.
  • For every demonstration against the building of a new mosque in Sweden, there's also a counter demonstration, by for instance Nätverket mot Racism (the Network Against Racism). Being open and tolerant is part of the western culture since the Enlightenment. We should rightfully be proud of that heritage. Maybe it is time for reciprocity in matters of tolerance? Religion should be separated from politics, and the building of places of worship in different countries could also be negotiated by political leaders with reciprocity in mind.

  • The new Nasir Mosque on Hisingen in Göteborg.
  • Somali and Muslim-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali wrote about one aspect of western tolerance in her most recent book, "Nomad" -

  • "When well meaning westerners, eager to promote respect for minority religions and cultures, ignore practices like forced marriage and confinement in order to 'stop society from stigmatizing Muslims,' they deny countless Muslim girls their right to wrest their freedom from their parents’ culture. They fail to live up to the ideals and values of our democratic society, and they harm the very same vulnerable minority whom they seek to protect."

  • Ulf Martensson

  • Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the author of "Nomad" and "Infidel." She is a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and founder of the AHA Foundation, which works to protect the rights of Muslim women. Her books offer an insider's, often to a westerner shocking, view of parts of the Muslim world.