There’s no denying that various forces within the Danish political and social sphere have a tense relationship with the Muslim Danish community (we all remember the Danish Cartoon fiasco back in 2005). Therefore history simply isn’t on the side of the growing congregations within the city of Copenhagen. Regardless, Copenhagen is sure to receive not one but two Grand Mosques within the next several years (a large Shiite congregation has already approved plans to build a center in a relatively industrial quarter of town on the site of a former factory) and a Sunni congregation has started the process by acquiring a site with the help of Abu Dhabi-based Muslim consultancy group, the Tabah Foundation.
Although a brewing institutionalized Islamophobia is simmering all across Europe (with France recently banning public prayer and the wearing face coverings), Denmark is quite the extreme case study. Immigrant hate among the people is one of the main factors in the propulsion of the Danish People’s Party, which more or less ran on a nationalistic platform of re-establishing Denmark as entirely “Danish.” They’ve successfully passed new legislation in their tenure that makes it much harder to obtain citizenship or even enter the country in the first place. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that this social disconnect with Islam is what propelled various groups to work together to make the Grand Mosque become a reality. » | Ehsaan Mesghali | Thursday, November 17, 201
