The chairman of the Muslim Society of Iceland expressed worries that radical Muslim groups were on the way to Iceland, and has already alerted police to the presence of one group.
As reported on Stöð 2, a group of Muslims had bought a house in Reykjavík with money received from overseas. The house was intended to be converted into a mosque and cultural center. However, chairman of the Muslim Society of Iceland Salmann Tamimi said that this group and its investors were in no way connected to him.
While Salmann and many other Muslims have waited (and are still waiting) for city approval for a plot of land on which to build a mosque, he told reporters that his experience has been that one should always be cautious about investments from the Middle East in building religious institutions in the west. One of the major reasons for this, he says, is the foreign investors are often not aware of or not concerned with social mores in western countries.
He added furthermore that he fears this new group, saying that they are comprised in part of people who were asked to leave his group for not abiding their rules. He has already alerted the police, he said, as this group is putting forth the wrong ideas about Islam. He and the Muslims in his group, he says, want to live in peace and harmony with everyone in Iceland, regardless of their faith.