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Stockholm mosque denounces desecration of Holy Quran

Sunday, 11 December 2022 6:19 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 11 December 2022 6:45 PM ]

The photo, released by the Stockholm Central Mosque, shows a desecrated print of the Holy Quran chained up and hung from an iron railing outside the mosque.

A mosque in Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, has condemned the desecration of the Holy Quran following a recent attack on its facility.

Images released by the Stockholm Central Mosque of the attack on December 2 show the desecrated holy scripture of Muslims chained up and hanging from an iron railing outside the mosque.

The mosque wrote on Facebook on December 6 that it frequently experiences such threats.

“Our mosque and our congregation receive threats very widely. Racists always make a new attempt to smear those who are not like themselves.” Tying a desecrated Qur'an and hanging it to the garden bars next to the mosque door is humiliating for Muslims, it said.

The mosque decided to share photographs and information “to attract the attention of both our congregation and the public and to prevent hate crime from being normalized.”

The imam and director of the mosque, Mahmoud Khalfi, said he “personally witnessed the Quran burning here in Stockholm” last December, “and I remember how hurtful it was.”

“The Quran is sacred in Islam; it is the word of God. Burning the Quran, therefore, becomes enormously hurtful for us Muslims,” he said. “The Quran is sacred in Islam; it is the word of God.”

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The mosque has been subject to Islamophobic attacks in the past.

The Quran has been under attack in Sweden. The burning of the holy book is a well-practiced stunt by Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan, the leader of the anti-immigration and anti-Islam group Hard Line.

In April, several Swedish cities witnessed clashes that took place for several days over the burning of a Quran. At least 40 people were injured after days of violence during protests over the planned public burning of the Muslim holy book by the far-right group. Officials in several Muslim nations condemned the move that sparked the protests.

Paludan, whose father is a Swedish national, first came to public attention in 2017 when he started making anti-Muslim YouTube videos.

“The enemy is Islam and Muslims. The best thing would be if there were not a single Muslim left on this Earth, then we would have reached our final goal,” he said in a December 2018 video.

The latest attack comes as anti-Muslim sentiments and Islamophobic attacks are on the rise across several Western countries. Muslim leaders in Europe and around the world have repeatedly condemned the attacks. Moreover, the rise of far-right ideology and the propagation of anti-immigration policies have exacerbated the status of religious minorities in Europe.

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