Islamic diffusion of Nordic countries: Sweden

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the Muslim migration flow to the Northern Europe in the last quarter of the 20th - first quarter of the 21st century, the pattern analysis and the genesis of the new geopolitical reality in the region, illustrated with the example of Sweden. The authors used a considerable amount of sources and literature, devoted to the study of the topic under analyses in order to accomplish the set tasks. Throughout the article, the authors relied on the advanced achievements of scientific thought, outlined in the fundamental studies of historians, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, philosophers and geographers (based on the innovations diffusion theory by a Swedish geographer T. Hagerstrand). Sweden demonstrates the paradox of the whole situation, and at the same time the main conclusion drawn from the study carried out in this paper: in 1975, the Muslim population of the Kingdom was 0.25%, in 2017, according to official data, every 10th citizen was Muslim. In Sweden only, Muslim population which equals to the population of five Iceland’s populations is residing. If this tendency goes on (the events of 2015 unrepeated), then by 2025-2027, Muslim will be every 5th, and by 2035-2040, every 4th person. In 2018, according to unofficial data, the Muslim population of Sweden is balancing between 14,5 and 17,5%. 75% of all Muslims in Sweden live in two agglomerations, of which 53-55% in the metropolis of Stockholm and Uppsala, 20-25% in the capital of Denmark Copenhagen and the Swedish city of Malmö connected by the Öresund Bridge, in the absence of the actual border between the states. This circumstance creates a single region, where, according to the estimates, from 280,000 to 350,000 Muslims are living. Islamic diffusion and ghettonization which are objectively characteristic of northern territories due to their geographic, climatic, and sometimes geomorphologic features only aggravate the emerging situation.