Who are the Muslims of Norway?
The Muslim population of Norway naturally reflects the variety of the broader Muslim population. Belonging to manifold traditions within Islam, they have quite distinct backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, culture, language, nationality, and personal history. We should keep this diversity in mind. In cultural and religious terms, Norway has, until the 1990s, been a relatively homogeneous country with a firmly established Lutheran state church system. Immigration from the third world is a relatively new phenomenon, and the entry of migrant workers began later in Norway than in Sweden or Denmark. Due to the Norwegian oil boom the migration also lasted longer than in the two other Scandinavian countries. The year 1967 marked the beginning of a new era when the first group of Pakistani men arrived Oslo. In the 1980s and 1990s immigration was dominated by refugees and asylum seekers, as in most European countries. Today, out of Norway´s total population (4.9 mil) 1.5 percent are Muslims. The
