Swedish contact with the Muslim world dates back to the 7th–10th centuries, when the Vikings traded with Muslims during the Islamic Golden Age. Since the late 1960s, Muslim immigration from the Middle East, Balkans and Horn of Africa has impacted the demographics of religion in Sweden, and has been the main driver of the spread of Islam in the country. Islam in Sweden increased the most as a result of high refugee influxes, notably during the Yugoslav Wars and the Somali Civil War in the 1990s; the Iraq War in the 2000s; and the Syrian civil war in the 2010s.
The Muslim community in Sweden hails from numerous countries, making it a complex and heterogeneous population. According to a 2019 report from the Swedish Agency for Support to Faith Communities, there were 200,445 Muslims in Sweden who practiced their religion regularly; this count came from those registered with Islamic congregations. The US Department of State's Sweden 2014 International Religious Freedom Report set the 2014 figure of Muslims in Sweden at around 600,000 people, 6% of the total Swedish population.International Religious Freedom Report 2014 : Sweden , U.S. Department Of State. The Pew Research Center reported that around 8% of the population—approximately 800,000 people—had a Muslim background in Sweden as of 2016. As of 2026, an estimated 1,000,000 people in Sweden, approximately 10% of the total population in Sweden have a Muslim background, including both practicing and non-practicing individuals.
History
Pre-Islamic Arabic coins originating from the Middle East have been found at Iron Age burial sites. Archaeological findings have also shown Viking contact with Islam dating back to the 7th–10th centuries, when the Vikings seem to have been trading with the medieval Islamic world, among others.
The Swedish census in 1930 listed 15 people as belonging to the group "Muslims and other Asian faiths". Although the number of Muslims themselves are not known, one estimate suggests a maximum of 11 but could have been as low as 2.
In modern Sweden, the first registered Muslim groups were Finnish Tatars who emigrated from Finland and Estonia in the 1940s. Islam began to have a noticeable presence in Sweden with immigration from the Middle East and Turkey beginning in the 1970s. Further waves of immigrants came to Sweden from the former Yugoslav republics, and more recently from Somalia and Syria.
Sweden has a number of mosques providing the Muslim communities in Sweden places of worship.David Westerlund, Ingvar Svanberg, Islam outside the Arab world, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, , p. 392 The first mosque in Sweden was the , built in 1976 in Gothenburg by the Ahmadiyya. It was followed by the Malmö Mosque, 1984, and later, the Uppsala Mosque in 1995. More mosques were built during the 2000s, including the Stockholm Mosque (2000) and the Fittja Mosque (completed 2007), among others. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Libya have financially supported the constructions of some of the largest Mosques in Sweden.
The first meeting between Muslim youth organizations across Europe first took place in Sweden in 1995, in which the Foreign Ministry of Sweden worked with Sveriges Unga Muslimer to hold an international conference titled "Islam in Europe." This led to the creation of the Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations (FEMYSO).
As of the year 2000, an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 people of Muslim background lived in Sweden, or 3.5% of total population;Sander (2004), pp. 218–224 thereby included is anyone who fits the broad definition of someone who "belongs to a Muslim people by birth, has Muslim origin, has a name that belongs in the Muslim tradition, etc." regardless of personal religious convictions,Sander (1990), pp. 16–17 of whom about 100,000 were second-generation immigrants (born in Sweden or immigrated as children).Sander (2004), p. 224 In Sweden registration by personal belief is not common and is normally against the law, thus only figures of practising Muslims belonging to an Islamic community can be reported. In 2009, the Muslim Council of Sweden reported 106,327 registered members.
In December 2008, riots broke out in Malmö in the Herrgården section of Rosengård, when the landlord did not renew the contract for the premises of a local mosque. Angry youths occupied the premises for three weeks, at the end of which police coming to evict the occupiers were confronted by about 30 occupiers, including radical Muslims and activists affiliated with the radical leftist Antifaschistische Aktion. The occupiers attacked police with pipe bombs and rocks and the incident rapidly escalated, with protestors arriving from other cities and officials calling in riot police. Rioters set fire to cars, wagons, kiosks, building sheds, recycling stations, and bicycle sheds.http://www.smp.se/nyheter/sverige/article1046376.ece After two nights of rioting, 200 adult Malmö residents organized by the Islamiska kulturföreningen (“Islamic Cultural Forum”) moved into the streets to mediate, causing the youthful rioters to desist.
In September 2018, the mosque in Alby, Botkyrka via its Green Party member Ali Khali delivered an offer to the Moderate Party where the 3000 votes of the worshippers would be given to the Moderate Party in exchange for planning permission to build a new mosque. The Green Party forced Khalil to leave the party after the finding was made public by Swedish Television.
In September 2018, the Social Democratic Party in Karlshamn revoked the membership of a Muslim politician after translations from Arabic showed that the politician had campaigned for the supremacy of Islam over Swedish customs, against vulnerable children being taken care of by social services and that women with Arabic heritage should wear the Islamic veil. The statements were verified with interpreters.
In 2018, preschools in Biskopsgården district were reprimanded by the Municipality of Gothenburg after Göteborgs-Posten newspaper had found out that 4 out of 5 kindergartens stated they were willing to force girls in their care to wear the Islamic hijab if the parents requested it. The newspaper found a willingness by preschools to force at 27 of the 40 investigated institutions in Malmö, Gothenburg and Stockholm.
In April and May 2019, five senior members of the Swedish Muslim community were detained by the Swedish Migration Agency by orders of the Säpo security police.
In December 2019, the municipality of Skurup banned Islamic veils in educational institutions. Earlier, in May 2019, the municipality of Staffanstorp approved a similar ban. On 17 November 2020, the Administrative Courts in Malmö and Lund determined that both municipalities' decisions to prohibit headscarves, niqabs, and burqas in preschools and primary schools violated the constitutional right to freedom of religion and the European Convention on Human Rights. Both municipalities appealed, but on 23 June 2021, the Administrative Court of Appeal in Gothenburg upheld the initial rulings on the same grounds. On 8 December 2022, the Supreme Administrative Court overturned both bans, with Justice Ulrik von Essen stating that "in order for the restriction to be permissible, it must be supported by law" and that "legal support is lacking in national law and therefore the municipalities' decisions should be overturned".
On 12 October 2025, Christian Democrats (KD) leader and Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch proposed a nationwide ban on burqas and niqabs in public places such as streets, squares, shopping centres, and healthcare facilities. Education and Integration Minister and Leader of the Liberals Simona Mohamsson expressed support for stronger measures against religious oppression, including forced veiling, but did not explicitly endorse Busch’s proposal, and neither did any other party in the Tidö Government.
Demography
Although there are no official statistics of Muslims in Sweden, estimates vary at different points:
In 1978 there was around 22,000-37,000. In 1989 this had risen to around an estimated 50,000 and 100,000 and in 1993 130,000.
In 2000, there was around 300,000—350,000 people of Muslim background. (i.e. anyone who fits the broad definition of someone who "belongs to a Muslim people by birth, has Muslim origin, has a name that belongs in the Muslim tradition, etc."), roughly estimated close to 100,000 of which are second-generation. Of the first-generation Muslims, 255,000 are thought to be Sunni, 5,000 Shi'ites, no more than 1,000 Ahmadiya, Alevi and other groups and probably no more than 5,000 converts – mainly women married to Muslim men.Sander (2004), pp. 223–4 In 2009 a US report stated that there are 450,000 to 500,000 Muslims in Sweden, around 5% of the total population, and that the Muslim Council of Sweden reported 106,327 officially registered members."Sweden", International Religious Freedom Report 2009 Swedish estimates are rather 350,000, including nominal Muslims and people from a Muslim background.
Such numbers do not imply religious beliefs or participation; claimed in 1992 that at most 40–50% of the people of Muslim background in Sweden "could reasonably be considered to be religious",Sander (2004), p. 217 and in 2004, based on discussions and interviews with Muslim leaders, concerning second-generation Muslims born and raised in Sweden that "it does not seem that the percentage they consider to be religious Muslims in a more qualified sense exceeds fifteen percent, or perhaps even less".Sander (2004), pp. 216–7 Sander re-stated in 2004 that "we do not think it unreasonable to put the figure of religious Muslims in Sweden at the time of writing at close to 150,000".Sander (2004), p. 218 Professor Mohammad Fazlhashemi at Umeå University estimates "a good 100,000". About 25,000 are regarded as devout Muslims, visiting Friday prayers and practising daily prayers.
Muslims in Sweden most often originate from Iraq, Iran, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sandžak and Kosovo, the Iraqis being by far the largest group in 2015. Most Iranians and Iraqis fled as refugees to Sweden during the Iran–Iraq War from 1980 to 1988. The second-largest Muslim group consists of immigrants or refugees from Eastern Europe, particularly from former Yugoslavian countries, most of them being Bosniaks, who number 12,000. There is also a sizeable community of Somalis, who numbered 40,165 in 2011. They are followed by Muslim refugees from Syria and Somalia, two very rapidly growing groups. Two other groups, residing in Sweden for a decade longer, are people from Turkey and Lebanon.
Conversion
There are no official statistics on the exact number of Swedish converts to Islam, but , a historian of religions at Malmö University College, estimates the number of converts from the Church of Sweden to Islam to be 3,500 people since the 1960s. Roald further states that conversions are also occurring from Islam to the Church of Sweden, most noticeably by Iranians, but also by Arabs and Pakistanis.Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), Fler kristna väljer att bli muslimer , November 19, 2007 (Accessed November 19, 2007)
The first known convert to Islam was the famous painter Ivan Aguéli who was initiated into the Shadhiliyya order in Egypt in 1909. It was Aguéli who introduced the French metaphysician René Guénon to Sufism. Aguéli is more known among Sufis by his Muslim name Abdul-Hadi al-Maghribi. Other well-known Swedish converts to Islam are Tage Lindbom, Kurt Almqvist, Mohammed Knut Bernström and Tord Olsson. Lindbom, Almqvist and Olsson are also initiates into various Sufi orders. Bernström translated the Quran into Swedish in 1998.
Places of worship
Several mosques have been built in Sweden since the 1980s, with notable ones in Malmö (1984) and Stockholm (2000). The Bellevue Mosque and the Brandbergen Mosque in the 2000s came to public attention as recruitment and propaganda centers for Islamist terrorism.