Muslims react to Quran burning in Sweden: Recalling ambassadors, storming embassies, boycotting products

A copy of the Quran was burned in Sweden, for the second time this year, on the first day of the Islamic Eid Al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice) holiday by a man of Iraqi origin, trigging the anger of Muslims, especially Iraqis, who stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad.

The provocative act caused a wide wave of anger among Muslims, especially in Arab countries, some of which recalled Swedish ambassadors to their countries in protest against the burning of the Quran.

Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika posted video footage of himself burning a copy of the Quran. The video showed him kicking a copy of the Quran, putting slices of pork on it, and then burning it outside the Stockholm Central Mosque. Momika was given a permit to burn the Quran by a court ruling on Wednesday after his request had previously been denied several times, said the London-based Documenting Oppression Against Muslims (DOAM) organization.

The act angered Muslims around the world, especially Iraqis, leading to the Swedish embassy in Baghdad being stormed after protesters gathered to reject Momika’s burning of the Quran. The protest was organized after the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, had called for a demonstration to reject the incident, Iraqi state news agency INA reported on Thursday.

In response to Sweden allowing Momika to protest and burn the Quran, some Arab countries, including Morocco, the UAE, and Jordan, recalled the Swedish ambassadors over the incident, while other countries condemned the act.

In the UAE, Emirati Director of the European Affairs Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ayesha Bin Suwaidan Al Suwaidi summoned Swedish Ambassador to the UAE Liselott Andersson “to express the UAE's strong protest and condemnation of the Swedish government allowing extremists to burn copies of the Holy Quran in the capital, Stockholm.”

Suwaidi affirmed the “UAE's rejection of all practices aimed at undermining security and stability in contravention of human values and principles. The note underscored that hate speech and extremism can contribute to the outbreak, escalation and recurrence of conflict worldwide,” the UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Similarly, Jordan and Morocco summoned the respective Swedish ambassadors in Amman and Rabat to show their anger and protest at this reoccurring act. Morocco also recalled its ambassador to Sweden for consultations “for an indefinite period,” announced the Moroccan Foreign Ministry in a statement on Wednesday.

“Regardless of the political positions or differences that may exist between countries, the Kingdom considers it unacceptable that the faith of Muslims should be disrespected in this way, nor can the principles of tolerance and the values of universalism be reduced to accommodating the views of a few while showing so little regard for the beliefs of more than a billion Muslims,” the statement added.

Unified fatwas to boycott Swedish products

Egypt’s top Islamic institution, Al-Azhar, called for boycotting Swedish products and called on “world fatwa centers and bodies to issue a fatwa ‎obligating a boycott of Swedish products, in support of the Noble Quran.”

In a statement on Thursday, Al-Azhar added that the Swedish authorities allowing “extremist terrorists” to tear and burn the copies of the Quran on the Islamic Eid Al-Adha holiday represents “an explicit call for hostility, violence and fanning of strife.”

In addition to this, Al-Azhar praised the reactions taken by the Arab countries that summoned Swedish ambassadors to reject this blasphemous act.

Meanwhile, the Council of Muslim Elders, chaired by Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb, strongly condemned the incident, affirming “its categorical rejection of such criminal acts that express abhorrent hatred and unacceptable racism.”

“The Council of Muslim Elders calls for the need to take decisive measures to stop these offensive practices,” the council said in a statement on Thursday, adding, “These repeated barbaric abuses cannot in any way be justified or authorized under the pretext of freedom of opinion and expression.”

The boycotting of Swedish products was not the first call by Arab and Muslim countries and institutions. In January of this year, Al-Azhar urged the Arab and Muslim peoples to boycott all Dutch and Swedish products in protest against the burning of the Holy Quran in Sweden by Swedish-Danish far-right citizen Rasmus Paludan and the tearing up of the Quran by the leader of the far-right group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident (PEGIDA), Edwin Wagensveld.

At the time, Al-Azhar had called upon Arab and Muslim nations “to take a strong and unified stance in support of our Noble Quran, the Sacred Scripture of the Muslims, and as a proper reaction to the governments of these two countries, who have offended the 1.5 billion Muslims.”