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Deeply ashamed but also moved by the experience, Pedersen started a discussion with the men about their beliefs and what it meant to be Muslim.

Muslim Dating Struggles

In doing so, he came to articulate his own belief system to the men, who in turn responded that his beliefs directly lined up with those of Islam and therefore he was already in essence a Muslim. He has considered himself a Muslim ever since.

Today, Abdul Wahid Pedersen, 63, preaches at the Danish Islamic Center , which he helped found and where he has served as an imam since The center, at the time I interviewed him, was the only mosque in the country giving sermons in Danish. The decision for native language prayers was in part inspired by the lack of cohesion within the Danish Muslim community, Pedersen said.

So Pedersen became the bridge, uniting a diverse and somewhat segregated Muslim community at home.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared his view that one can be both Muslim and Danish. Especially outside of his community. European society has changed since the early days of his conversion. As a Dane, Pedersen feels particularly connected to his Viking roots, a culture that is still prevalent in modern Denmark and makes up a large part of its tourism industry.

So he does his best to balance the two identities, proudly displaying on the walls of his office Arabic calligraphy of a Viking ship in the form of a verse from the Quran. But like many Muslims in the West, he faces the inevitable questions about his faith that stem from prejudice or confusion. And in his capacity as imam, many Danish-speaking people reach out to him for guidance and clarification on Islam through social media , by phone, mail and in person.

To make matters worse, Danish immigrant Muslims also have trouble getting information about how to assimilate and interact with Danish society. The lack of domestic schools to train imams, Pedersen said, forces a reliance on imported imams who know the text but cannot contextualize the knowledge.

Thus Muslims here have a tough time relating to the general public and culture in a way that would help lessen any potential tension as a result of misconceptions about their faith. We all live according to Sharia to some degree when we are Muslim.

Muslim Singles in Denmark

Yet Pedersen does not believe the situation of Muslims in Denmark is all that bleak in the global Muslim context: I think mostly what we have are luxury problems. I travel to many parts of the world where there are real problems. Christianity, in contrast, has had centuries to develop in the continent. Contemplating the way forward for Muslims in Denmark, Pedersen fell back on his own Viking heritage, one defined as much by water as his moment of enlightenment on that mountain in India all those years ago. This piece is part of a series on Western Muslim converts releasing throughout the month of Ramadan.

Many also undertake serious study of Arabic and the Koran and other Islamic sources to learn more about Islam. During this initial post-conversion period the women reported the loss of some of their cultural and individual identity. The character of their early Muslim life corresponded with the cultural expression of Islam of the Muslims involved in their conversion. All of the women we interviewed married Muslim men with immigrant backgrounds within a year or two of their conversions, and the cultures that these men came from exerted significant influence on their early practice of Islam and on their own cultural identity.

Many of the women observe that in their efforts to establish themselves as 'real Muslims', they were trying to become Arab, Turkish or Pakistani. I lost myself in it" Interview with Fatima.

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Sumaya, whose husband is Turkish, characterizes her husband's culture as 'dominant'. She now speaks fluent Turkish, and although she comes from the Faeroe Islands, she says she feels more Turkish than Faeronese or Danish. Roald characterizes the second post-conversion phase as a time of disappointment.

Like most westerners, converts enter Islam with the perception that it is a single, unified religion. While there are a core set of beliefs and practices common to Muslims worldwide, the reality is that there is a plurality of expressions of Islam due to the diversity of belief and culture present in the Muslim world. As imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen notes, converts expect to enter a single religion and instead find a hundreds of culturally-oriented expressions of Islam. They report being warmly adopted by born Muslim communities, but Fatima describes the underlying messages by saying that, " At the same time, New Muslims often end up being much more disciplined in their adherence to Muslim rituals than many born Muslims.

Two of the women we interviewed actually ended their romantic relationships with the Muslim men who had originally introduced them to Islam because the mens' practice of Islam was not as rigorous as their own. In this process of criticism, New Muslims begin to differentiate between Islam and what Muslims do. They learn to discriminate between the cultural elements of the practice of Islam and the essentials of the religion. This leads them to Roald's third and final stage; that of maturity.

In this phase, New Muslims are able to successfully practice Islam in a way that is informed by their own culture and personality rather than trying to fit themselves into a non-Danish cultural model. It is at this stage that a 'Danish Muslim' identity emerges, a theme we will explore later. Throughout their post-conversion lives, New Muslims must negotiate a new relationship with the Danish society which now identifies them as the 'other'. This is particularly relevant to the experiences of women who chose to wear the headscarf, as it makes their religious convictions public. The responses of the New Muslims' families and of Danish society to their conversion often reveal the extent to which being Danish and Muslim are held to incompatible by majority Danes.

Most of the women expressed initial reluctance to inform their families of their conversion, and in many cases their fears were justified. Many family members refuse to accept the new converts at first, and over time adopt the attitude that they "will not accept her choice, but they will respect it". However, some of the women spoke of family members who, once they understood that they were serious about Islam and saw the positive impact it had on their lives, even began defending them before more critical relatives.

The reactions of the women's families to their conversions thus varied widely. The attitude of majority Danish society towards the New Muslims can be identified because the headscarf provides a public declaration of religious affiliation. All of the women we interviewed have chosen to wear the hijab, and all wished to emphasize to us that wearing the headscarf was a personal choice made freely. They sought to counteract the association in the mind of many Danes between the headscarf and the oppression of women. First of all the journalists don't even bother to use the right words for different types of head scarfs and second, the narrow focus on the oppressed and constrained Muslim women makes us all look bad".

Most of the converts can tell personal stories of very negative reactions from non-Muslim Danes hissing, cursing, or spitting at them on the street. When Sumaya got a new bus pass with her picture on it, the man who was printing her information wrote 'Dog' in the space for 'Adult' or 'child'. The women also know stories of other Muslim women who have been attacked or have had their headscarf pulled off by groups of young Danish men. Ironically, though the headscarf is depicted as a symbol of the oppression of women in the Danish media, Danish society reacts to these alleged victims of oppression with aggression and hostility.

The women stressed, however, that such overt hostility was the exception rather than the rule. On a more regular basis the women deal with feelings of discomfort in different neighbourhoods. Bettina describes the variation in acceptance of her headscarf along a single bus line. Areas with high immigrant populations were identified as headscarf-friendly, while Copenhagen's wealthier neighborhoods and small rural town can be less welcoming.

While born Muslim women from non-Danish ethnic backgrounds also receive negative attention from the Danish public for wearing the hijab, the ethnic Danes we spoke with were often specifically targeted for being converts and accused of being traitors. By contrast, Melissa, who has a mixed ethnic background, feels like she is finally able to blend in Interview with Melissa. Our interviews with these seven New Muslim women brought out clearly their struggle to live in the cultural milieus of majority Denmark and the born Muslim community, both of which can identify them as the 'other'. Most of the women had attempted to address this tension soon after their conversion by adopting a new cultural identity along with the Muslim faith.

With time, however, their attempts to reconcile their Muslim faith and Danish background became evident. Their efforts to demonstrate the compatibility of Danish society and Islam reveal the beginning stages of a Danish Muslim identity that contradicts the Danish-Muslim dichotomy in the minds of Danes. Despite the treatment of New Muslims as outsiders by Danish society, the women also express pride in being Danish and in the values they identify as being both Muslim and Danish. One of these values is the freedom of religious belief in Denmark.

She expresses disappointment that many Danish Muslims do not take advantage of the free atmosphere to be more diligent in their religious practice.

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The importance of religious freedom to the New Muslims women is also clear in how all the interviewees stressed that though they hoped their children would choose Islam, they were free to adopt a different religion, emphasizing that they would never respond the same way their own families did to their conversions. A second value that the women emphasized is the Danish focus on cooperation, which they frame as an Islamic value.

On a personal level, they describe the compromises made in their interactions with non-Muslim family members. Sumaya allows her parents to drink alcohol in her home and will not talk openly about her religious practices around her mother as a sign of respect Interview with Sumaya and Fatima. When Melissa visits her family, she removes her headscarf before entering the house to make her mother more comfortable Interview with Melissa.