Category Archives: Migration and religion

Facing terror: The possibility of hope and the need to confront hatred

In the wake of the foiled terrorist attack at a mosque outside Oslo on 10 August, and the widespread solidarity seen outside mosques around Norway on the morning of Eid, together with colleagues and friends Rojan Tordhol Ezzati and Henrik Syse, we reflect on the prospects for hope and for the endurance of social fabric. Although much remains for the courts to process, we know a lot. Facing terror: there is the possibility of hope, there is the need to confront hatred, and there is a call to decency as fellow humans – in high politics, as much as in everyday life, where small things matter. This blog post draws on our research about responses to the July 22 terror in 2011, and on migration research, at PRIO.

Eid Celebrations and Muslim Generosity

 In a current research project at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), funded by the Research Council of Norway (FINEX – Financial exclusion, Islamic finance and housing in the Nordic countries), we are focusing on religion and economic priorities among Muslims in the Nordic countries. There is little existing research into these topics. In this blog post – on the occasion of Eid – we shared some insights from the ongoing research, showing the prevalence of paying the religious tax or zakat among Muslims in Norway. But also, that motivations are complex, and that the descendants of migrants engage in often transnational charity, to a greater extent than might perhaps be assumed from the starting point of the remittance decay hypothesis (that migrants’ remittance-sending reduces over time).