by Shaireza Jaafar
STOCKHOLM, 5 July 2023: Last week, the Quran burning incident outside the Swedish Central Stockholm mosque sent shockwaves through the Swedish Muslim community. Many Muslim countries have widely condemned the disturbing incident as an act of Islamophobia.
The incident occurred on the first day of Eid Al-Adha, one of the significant celebrations in the Muslim calendar. In an investigation, Salwan Momika, 37, an Iraqi living in Sweden, stomped on and set fire to a copy of the holy book outside Stockholm’s main mosque.
This gesture of religious intolerance has sparked anger among the Swedish Muslim community and Muslim countries worldwide, as Muslims believe that the Quran is the divine message of God, and they regard any deliberate harm or display of disrespect towards it as profoundly offensive.
Turkey, a member of NATO with influence over Sweden’s potential membership, expressed, "It was unacceptable to allow such anti-Islamic actions to take place under the pretext of freedom of expression.”
“We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought,” said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Turkey.
In addition, Iran and Iraq denounced the disturbing incident as a gesture of “Islamophobia,” calling it “provocative” and “unacceptable”. Other than that, Egypt and Saudi Arabia condemned the act as “shameful” as it marks particularly during the important Muslim festival, expressing that “these hateful and repeated acts cannot be accepted with any justification.”
In an official statement, the foreign ministry said, “The Swedish government fully understands that the Islamophobic acts committed by individuals at demonstrations in Sweden can be offensive to Muslims, and we strongly condemn these acts, which in no way reflect the views of the Swedish government.”
The same incident also occurred in 2020 in Malmö, one of the largest cities in Sweden, where a group of individuals near a mosque in Sweden set alight copies of the Quran. The perpetrators were involved in chanting derogatory slogans against Muslims, intensifying the distress and anger of the Muslim community.
This showcases an alarming rise in anti-Muslim sentiments in Sweden in recent years. The Quran burning incident is a stark reminder of the urgent need to address and combat Islamophobia in the country.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has urged collective measures to tackle and eradicate any recurrence of the desecration incident of copies of the Al-Quran in the future, as only through joint efforts can the fight against Islamophobia be won.***
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