How should we talk about Islam?

Sweden is one of the EU countries that has received a large Muslim diaspora. Many Muslims living in Sweden come from countries such as Syria, Somalia, Iraq, and Iran. Those originating from Iran hold a unique position, as they have often fled to the West to escape an Islamist regime. People from Syria and Somalia, by contrast, have generally come to the West to escape war and, in some cases, poverty.

However, Muslim immigration also brings Islam. And with Islam, we tend to see—as evidenced by numerous examples—militant Islamism, cultural Islamism, and, unfortunately, Islamist terrorist acts. This is the case even though far from all Muslims are literalist Islamists.

From this perspective, it is not surprising that a heated debate has arisen in Europe—and the West more broadly—specifically regarding Islam.

In Sweden, prominent Member of Parliament and Sweden Democrat Richard Jomshof recently published a critical book on Islam titled “Kafir”.

Richard Jomshof’s central thesis is that Islam, unlike Christianity, contains explicit calls for violence. Jomshof cites the Quran and other foundational texts. He further points out that violence and conquest were integral to the rapid and extensive Muslim expansion across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninsula. He also argues that today’s numerous terrorist attacks are largely inspired by the religiously and politically motivated violence employed by both Muhammad and many of his subsequent followers.

Jomshof describes the brutal world into which Muhammad was born, sometime around 570 AD according to the Western calendar. The Arabian Peninsula was a world devoid of strong central authority, where various tribes formed temporary alliances or waged brutal, ruthless wars against one another. Muhammad himself was no stranger to using violence to spread his teachings, and he institutionalized polygamy by taking multiple wives.

Following the religious founder’s death in 632, Islam expanded rapidly under new leaders. This expansion was facilitated in part by the absence of strong central powers in the Middle East and North Africa. Persia and Byzantium—two major powers bordering the Arabian Peninsula—were engaged in conflict with each other, a struggle that ultimately weakened both sides.

One of the specific topics Jomshof explores in greater depth is Muslim slavery. He does so to counter the narrative often conveyed in the West today, which equates slavery in general with the transatlantic slave trade involving the Christian world. Yet the Muslim slave trade was at least as extensive—and even more brutal. The reason there is no significant Black minority in the Arab world is simply that the slaves brought there were treated as disposable commodities, and Black men were subjected to brutal castration. Various estimates suggest that between one and five million Europeans were enslaved from the early Middle Ages through the beginning of the 19th century.

As expected, criticism of Richard Jomshof’s book has been intense. Many argue that he makes the fundamental error of conflating all Muslims with Islam. Richard Jomshof is a well-known critic of immigration who maintains that Muslim immigration to Europe poses a potential threat to the continent’s future and identity.

However, many argue that Jomshof conflates Islam, Islamism, and individual Muslims. Most people of Muslim origin living in Europe are not literalist Islamists—a nuance that critics say Jomshof fails to incorporate into his arguments. Consequently, his book is seen by some as merely a contribution to an Islamophobic campaign against the peaceful Muslims who are now part of European society.

Richard Jomshof remains unconvinced by these arguments. He maintains that he is not singling out all Muslims. However, he argues that large-scale Muslim immigration brings Islam to the West, and with Islam comes intolerance and Islamism. Literal Islamism need not be embraced by every Muslim to pose a genuine threat to Western societies—or so argues Jomshof, a critic of Islam. Whether his opponents will be persuaded remains highly uncertain. All we know for sure is that the debate continues and security services have their hands full.