By: Dr. Kristin Kanzari

If you ask, local people might tell you that the hijab clad woman in the small town in Finmark and the occasional sound of the azan from the minaret in one of Oslo's local mosques is an exotic novelty, representing a new kind of relationship between Norwegians and the rest of the world. If you meet one of the younger of the almost 80,000 Muslims now inhabiting the country, you may hear that Islam has 'a long history in Norway' and that the national hero Henrik Wergeland (1808-1845 CE), who inaugurated the annual celebration of the signing of the Norwegian constitution on the 17^th of May, died a Muslim.

You may be told of how Norwegian seamen were captured and enslaved in North Africa in the 18^th Century. Many of the Scandinavian slaves became Muslims and were set free, like one of them named Conradi. Son of the postmaster in Halden, Conradi came to the Danish-Norwegian Consulate in Tripoli in the beginning of the 19^th century to announce that he wanted to take Islam as his faith. The Councillor try to convince him otherwise, but he went instead directly to the local Pasha to proceed with his plan! His brother, who lived in Algiers, had also become a Muslim. But the contact between Norwegians and Muslims started many hundred years before the North African trade in Scandinavian slaves.

Historical perspectives 

Historically, Norway became one country at the turn of the first millennium. King Harald Harfagre (850-933 CE) is commonly credited with having ousted the small kings and gathered the different counties in one political unit, but there was still some way to go before Norway was a unified political and military territory. The old Norwegians were traders and craftsmen, farmers and fishermen. The very fine craftsmanship and prosperity enjoyed by large parts of the population is testified to in the house structures, metal works, huge ship building industry, and the immensely fine and detailed woodcarvings that decorated the stems of the famous Viking ships and other treasured property. Only a few Norwegians were actually Vikings, i.e. plunderers and mercenaries, but the term has become synonymous with any Norwegian living in the Viking era, from ca. 800-1000 CE. This was an expansive time: Leif Erikson (b. ca. 970 or 980 CE) traversed the Atlantic Ocean, from Iceland, landing on the northern coast of North America in Wineland almost five hundred years before Christopher Columbus.

The Norwegian Royal Chronicles, written in ca. 1264 by the Icelandic priest, poet, and statesman, Snorre Sturlason, tell vividly of how the Vikings made pilgrimage all the way to the River Jordan to immerse themselves in the Holy Waters.

The turn of the millennium was not the only time when the many counties of Norway were gathered under one ruler; it was also the time when the Norwegian people were introduced to Christianity. The vivid accounts of the Norwegian encounters with Christianity stands in remarkable contrast to the absolute silence of the text on the question of Norwegian contact with the Muslim people of North Africa, the Balkans and Turkey. Indeed, one has to suspect that such references have been omitted deliberately, either by Snorre himself or by later compilers of his manuscript.

It is inconceivable that these Norsemen did not know Islam and brought stories of this faith with them back to the motherland. Today Norwayأ¢â‚¬â„¢s Muslim population is nothing to write home about but there are small Muslim communities in the country. Bergen is most famous for its rain, its international music festival (May), and its incomparable beauty. You can even find a mosque to pray in, and if you search up hill from the colourful fish marketأ¢â‚¬â€œ  towards the Funicular that will take you to one of the mountains looking out over Bergen أ¢â‚¬â€œ you may even find a North African vendor selling halal kebab.