Religious congregations and social work have long been a neglected field of research. Although the number of studies have increased during the last twenty years. With a starting point in the situation in this field of research and in the current public debate in Sweden the focus of this study will be on how Christian and Muslim congregations view cooperating with the municipalities, organizations, the religious community to whom which the congregation belongs and how the congregations view cooperating with other religious communities. Qualitative method of research was used. Representatives of four religious congregations was interviewed; a deacon in a congregation in the Swedish Lutheran Church, a pastor in a congregation belonging to the Mission Covenent Church of Sweden, the chairman in a the board of a Muslim congregation and volunteerleader in another Muslim congregation.

Vårt syfte med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur sex elever på högstadiet förhåller sig till slöjan.Hur skiljer sig deras åsikter åt beroende på vilken religiös, kulturell eller etnisk bakgrund detillhör? Resultatet har vi fått fram genom att utföra två kvalitativa gruppintervjuer av lågstandardiserad karaktär. Vi kommer i uppsatsen fram till att de sex elever som vi intervjuathar en sekulariserad syn på slöjan. Vi kommer även fram till att åsikterna och kunskapernahos de sex eleverna inte skiljer sig avsevärt åt beroende på vilken religiös, kulturell elleretnisk bakgrund de tillhör..

Muslims and islam are unquestionably a part of European social life. In recent times, however, different events, such as the enlargement of the EU and the fact that Muslims to a higher extent demand their rights, have brought a number of questions to the fore concerning Muslims and islam in Europe. Moreover, we can see an increasing level of islamophobia in contemporary Europe, but also that the EU has launched several programs to increase both the diversity and the unity throughout the Union and to combat islamophobia. However, most of these programs focus on islam as religion and Muslims in general, and such a narrow viewpoint runs the risk of missing important issues.In this new context it would be interesting to widen the scope and ask what place not only the Muslim community and islam, but also sharia (an important element in islam), may have in future Europe ? especially when it comes to Muslim identity?My main objects are to see how the concept of sharia is constructed in the debates in the European Parliament, how that discourse relates to a social practice ? the increasing islamophobic ideas in Europe ? and what effect this may have on Muslim identity in a European context.The results shows that the Parliament constructs sharia as, for example, something archaic, threatening, inhuman and misogynistic.

The aim of the study is to analyse the stories of four homosexual women with Muslim backgrounds about coming out as homosexuals, from an intersectional perspective. The experience of coming out as lesbian and the intersectionality are related to different social contexts. The homosexuality becomes a problem in connection to family and countrymen while the Muslim background becomes more of a problem in relationships. Heteronormativity and gender system appear to be cooperating systems of oppression.These women don?t describe themselves as oppressed, but potential oppression is still something that influences their lives.

Muslims and islam are unquestionably a part of European social life. In recent times, however, different events, such as the enlargement of the EU and the fact that Muslims to a higher extent demand their rights, have brought a number of questions to the fore concerning Muslims and islam in Europe. Moreover, we can see an increasing level of islamophobia in contemporary Europe, but also that the EU has launched several programs to increase both the diversity and the unity throughout the Union and to combat islamophobia. However, most of these programs focus on islam as religion and Muslims in general, and such a narrow viewpoint runs the risk of missing important issues.In this new context it would be interesting to widen the scope and ask what place not only the Muslim community and islam, but also sharia (an important element in islam), may have in future Europe ? especially when it comes to Muslim identity?My main objects are to see how the concept of sharia is constructed in the debates in the European Parliament, how that discourse relates to a social practice ? the increasing islamophobic ideas in Europe ? and what effect this may have on Muslim identity in a European context.The results shows that the Parliament constructs sharia as, for example, something archaic, threatening, inhuman and misogynistic.

This thesis explores how Muslim youths? lifeworlds are depicted and narrated in the following two studies on Muslim youth in Sweden and Denmark: Muslima (2007) and Samtidsislam (2010). The aim of this thesis is to answer the following question: In what ways do these works treat the aspects of the lifeworlds that are being highlighted in their studies of Muslim youth in contemporary Sweden and Denmark? An underlying aim is to analyse the results within the framework of theories of socialisation, cultural emancipation and rituals and traditions.With a hermeneutic approach I analyse the texts and operationalize the research question into four themes: the effects of socialization, cultural emancipation, rituals and traditions and secularization. The texts are treated in the analysis with textual analysis and hermeneutic method.

In a Swedish classroom today there will be students with different ethnicities, world views and religious beliefs.  The students will be taught religion through a non-denominational education, where as a teacher you are meant to be objective, open-minded and fair in the representation of different traditions. This representation is colored by the outsider-perspective and the students then learn about religion from a party which is not involved in the religion being taught. This essay discusses how to balance the outsider-perspective in religious education in the Swedish school with insider-voices. More specific, the use of Muslim websites when teaching about Islam.The material this essay studies are three Muslim websites: al-islam.se, islaminfo.se and islamguiden.se. In order to make a didactic analysis of the websites, they are compared to a standard Swedish textbook.

The aim of the study is to analyse the stories of four homosexual women with Muslim backgrounds about coming out as homosexuals, from an intersectional perspective. The experience of coming out as lesbian and the intersectionality are related to different social contexts. The homosexuality becomes a problem in connection to family and countrymen while the Muslim background becomes more of a problem in relationships. Heteronormativity and gender system appear to be cooperating systems of oppression.These women don?t describe themselves as oppressed, but potential oppression is still something that influences their lives.

In the years between 2012 and 2014, Burma has been shaken by waves of violence against Muslims which has resulted in destroyed mosques and shops, at least 140 000 displaced and 200 killed persons. The person who is said to lay behind this violence is the Burmese Theravada monk Ashin Wirathu. Being the founder and leader of the radical Buddhist movement 969, he has been accused of indirectly motivating violence against Muslims and has been portrayed with titles such as ?The face of buddhist terror?. This essay investigates the relation between Wirathu and the anti-Muslim violence by applying the method of content analysis on a speech of him.

English abstractTitle: Islam and the limitations of the public will of choice.The purpose of this paper have been to investigate how three modern Islamic theorists view the limitations of the public free will of choice based upon their interpretation of the Islamic theology and doctrine.The paper focuses to highlight how all three chosen Islamic theorist interpret the Islamic doctrine based upon my elected theses and more specifically pinpoint were the free will of choice ends, and Islam as a religion starts to take hegemony. The paper?s aim is to further an understanding that in the modern world and as a effect of increased literacy, Islam has been somewhat inclined to split into several Islamisms, based upon the variety of fatwa?s on the Islamic doctrine that is available online. Therefore it remains to the modern day Muslim, to individually decide whether they choose to follow the message of the Holy revelation in the Quran or trust a mufti?s fatwa in their everyday life as a Muslim.The material used and analyzed in this paper is prime source material.

The purpose of this essay was to examine the role of religious beliefs, actions and practice in young people's own description of their identity. An additional goal was to examine how young people describe their identity in relation to their primary and secondary socialization. A qualitative method was used with semi - structured interviews and six young people between the ages of 18 and 23 were interviewed.            The interview results show that three out of the six young people think of themselves as religious while the remaining three emphasize that they are secularized Muslims. The results also show that the young people emphasize that the celebration of feasts in the family is the main focus.  Four out of the six young people point out that they are themselves among friends, their families and in the mosque, while the remaining two feel a communion with their Muslim friends and people in the mosque.       Three out of the six young people consume alcohol and eat pork, while the remaining three refrain from this. The young people emphasize that their beliefs are a personal matter between themselves and God, and that their actions don't define them as being Muslims or non-Muslims..

English abstractTitle: Islam and the limitations of the public will of choice.The purpose of this paper have been to investigate how three modern Islamic theorists view the limitations of the public free will of choice based upon their interpretation of the Islamic theology and doctrine.The paper focuses to highlight how all three chosen Islamic theorist interpret the Islamic doctrine based upon my elected theses and more specifically pinpoint were the free will of choice ends, and Islam as a religion starts to take hegemony. The paper?s aim is to further an understanding that in the modern world and as a effect of increased literacy, Islam has been somewhat inclined to split into several Islamisms, based upon the variety of fatwa?s on the Islamic doctrine that is available online. Therefore it remains to the modern day Muslim, to individually decide whether they choose to follow the message of the Holy revelation in the Quran or trust a mufti?s fatwa in their everyday life as a Muslim.The material used and analyzed in this paper is prime source material.

The study's aim was to increase knowledge about the resistance of the Muslim religious expressions in the public sphere and its emergence on the basis of the case around the opposition to call for prayer. The study was conducted through the use of the qualitative research approach through interviews with informants who have a pronounced aversion regarding the existence of the public call to prayer in Sweden. The study's questions have been answered by an analysis of the empirical material by using different theoretical points that illustrate how Western standards are valued higher than the other, in the various standard systems. The view of the Muslim religious practices depicted by informants through an interpretative framework that is characterized by Islamophobic arguments that are considered to be incompatible with Western culture and the principles of the secular state striving. Such discourses can create an uneven distribution of power between Muslims and non-Muslims on the basis of the West's representations of Orientalism explained based in ethnocentric knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to examine how two Muslim feminists perceive themselves to betreated by the Swedish majority society and within the secular feminist movement. Thesurvey was conducted using qualitative method with a total of two interviews. For the study'stheoretical perspectives, I have used postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism. The result ofthe survey and the analysis show that the informants say that they face an image of Muslimwomen as considered being under oppression. The informants believe that this stereotypicalimage has its origin from the colonial period.

English abstractTitle: Islam and the limitations of the public will of choice.The purpose of this paper have been to investigate how three modern Islamic theorists view the limitations of the public free will of choice based upon their interpretation of the Islamic theology and doctrine.The paper focuses to highlight how all three chosen Islamic theorist interpret the Islamic doctrine based upon my elected theses and more specifically pinpoint were the free will of choice ends, and Islam as a religion starts to take hegemony. The paper?s aim is to further an understanding that in the modern world and as a effect of increased literacy, Islam has been somewhat inclined to split into several Islamisms, based upon the variety of fatwa?s on the Islamic doctrine that is available online. Therefore it remains to the modern day Muslim, to individually decide whether they choose to follow the message of the Holy revelation in the Quran or trust a mufti?s fatwa in their everyday life as a Muslim.The material used and analyzed in this paper is prime source material.