Jørgen Bæk Simonsen is Associated Professor, dr.phil at the Department of Cross Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen. Islam in Denmark and Europe is one of his academic fields. He has also published on early Muslim history, on islam and politics and political change in the modern Middle East.
2019.04.29 | Article, Jørgen Bæk Simonsen, Belief systems, Multiculturalism
Despite the public debate since 1980s presenting Islam in Denmark as a new phenomenon, it has for centuries played a central role as ‘the other’ when Danes have sought to explain their collective identity. It is true that many Danish Muslims arrived as a ‘guest workers’ in the boom years of the 1960s and stayed on. They were followed by their…