ABSTRACT
For the early labor immigrants to Sweden in the 1950s and 1960s, there were very few opportunities to take part in organized Muslim activities, and long before today's situation with strong Bosnian associations, both in Malmo and nearby Copenhagen, there were examples of how Balkan Muslims arranged the celebrations of holidays and pious instruction in collaboration across the national borders. The integration of the Bosnian Muslims may perhaps be a reminder that Scandinavia, in an international perspective, has many shared features in living conditions and lifestyle and to a great extent remaining welfare states that mix safety and control. The dissolution of the Yugoslav federation and the war in the Balkans, where the conflicts were rhetorically formulated as ethno-religious polarizations, remain the backdrop to the Bosnian Muslim identity. Muslims with roots in the former Yugoslavia constitute a rather large group in Scandinavia in terms of numbers, but they seldom occupy any space in the media as representatives of 'Islam'.
