The Muslim Association of Sweden (, SMF) is
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
's largest
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
organisation, which represents around 70,000 Muslims in Sweden, which receives state aid from
Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities.
In the mid 1980s
Mahmoud Aldebe, the chairman of SMF, in conjunction with the
National Swedish Immigration and Naturalization Board (the former name of the
Swedish Migration Agency) he authored the leaflet "Islam in Sweden" (Swedish: ''Islam i Sverige'') wherein he expresses the view that Islam is an all-encompassing belief system which gives firm instructions which are to be followed in all aspects of daily life: moral, spiritual, political and economic.
In 2006, as the chairman of SMF he authored a letter to every party in the Swedish parliament (Swedish:
Riksdag
The Riksdag ( , ; also or , ) is the parliament and the parliamentary sovereignty, supreme decision-making body of the Kingdom of Sweden. Since 1971, the Riksdag has been a unicameral parliament with 349 members (), elected proportional rep ...
) where it was demanded that Muslims receive a special set of laws and rules: imams must approve divorces, schools should teach Muslim children Arabic and religion in segregated groups and that boys and girls should not have lessons in swimming together. Aldebe also demanded that employers give Muslims two extra days of paid days off to celebrate Islamic holidays. Other Muslim organizations in Sweden, including the umbrella organisation, the
Muslim Council of Sweden, distanced themselves from the letter, and Aldebe was forced to withdraw his proposal as members of his own association opposed it. Aldebe's ideas of an all-encompassing Islam and demands that Swedish ideas about what belong to the secular part of society must be reformed, are founded in the ideology of Islamist
Hassan al-Banna
Hassan Ahmed Abd al-Rahman Muhammed al-Banna (; 14 October 1906 – 12 February 1949), known as Hassan al-Banna (), was an Egyptian schoolteacher and Imam, best known for founding the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the largest and most influential g ...
.
Since 2010 the organizations new chairman is Tahir Akan. He has chosen to strengthen the brand of the organization and strengthen the public supports among Muslims, specially among young Muslims and Muslim professionals by associating itself with the Muslim Peace movement
Swedish Muslims for Peace and Justice (SMPJ). Together the different organizations has cooperated with social work where young professionals from SMPJ has led campaigns in mosques run by the Muslim Association of Sweden.
References
External links
*
Ett öppet brev till alla svenska politiska partier som deltar i årets val(An open letter to all Swedish political parties that are participating in this year's election) by the Muslim Association of Sweden, published by
Dagens Nyheter
(, ), abbreviated ''DN'', is a daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Stockholm and aspires to full national and international coverage, and is widely considered Sweden's newspaper of record
A newspaper of record is a major nationa ...
(Swedish)
Sunni organizations
Islam-related controversies in Europe
Islamic organizations based in Sweden
{{Sweden-org-stub