Open Your Hearts": How Islam Became the Second Largest Religion in Sweden

In what is often called the most modern country in the world, more and more people are looking back nostalgically on Sweden's lost welfare state, but analyses of what has been lost vary. Is it ethnic homogeneity, or a strong welfare state?

Through interviews with refugees, members of the Sweden Democrats, and secular and fundamentalist Muslims, religious scholar Simon Sorgenfri describes the past 50 years in Sweden. The book spans from 1975, when Swedish immigration policy took a new turn, to the TIDU Convention in 2022. It aims to describe Islam in contemporary Sweden and continues the story of Swedish integration policy that he began in his book They Will Be Different Swedes (2022). Simon Sorgenfri travels the country, from Bjøv to Kiruna, exploring a politically charged landscape as both a scholar and an ordinary Swedish citizen.

Through the people and situations the author encounters on his journey, we get a glimpse into contemporary Swedish history from unexpected angles. The book covers the oil crisis and the end of Sweden’s economic boom, Palme’s internationalism and changing migration patterns, the Rushdie affair, the rise and development of the Sweden Democrats, the Bosnian War, the skinhead movement, free school elections and privatization, the events of 9/11 and the War on Terror, the refugee crisis, and the Tido Agreement. But it also explores the lives of ordinary Swedes who, despite their differences, often share dreams and hopes for themselves, their loved ones, and the places they live.