THE LAST VIKING

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31 December 2019

29 December 2009

Welcome to Viking-Muslim!

(This is the archive for my weekly weblog on IOL)

First of all, my thanks to IslamOnline.net (IOL)'s Euro-Muslims Zone for giving me this opportunity to share my thoughts with IOL audiences -
not only here in Europe but across the wider Muslim world.

Some of you may know me already -
from my website www.MYSPEAK.info
or maybe from the Global Peace and Unity (GPU) event in London where I had my own stand.

*

Why Viking Muslim?
Because it fits in neatly with the overall Euro-Muslim context and places me not only in Europe but in North-West Europe and specifically in Scandinavia as my Viking forefathers were the men and women from Denmark, Sweden and Norway around 1000 years ago.

*

A practical note:
I shall add the posts here in the archive some
time after submitting them to IOL.
I shall add all the posts to the archive exactly as
I submitted them, that is, they will not reflect
any changes IOL may have made, likewise IOL
may occasionally decide not to publish a
particular post - but it will still appear here
on the archive.

30 August 2009

My Weblog on Islam-Online

Click on the link below to get to
Islam-Online's Euro-Muslims section:

Weblog on Islam-Online

There you may or may not find my latest
post, if my current post is not on the front
page of Euro-Muslims, it may have "dropped
off" after a week or so - if so, you can search
on Euro-Muslims for the name of my weblog
"Viking-Muslim" and that should get you some
results.

Or you can click on the link below to go to my
own archive of all posts submitted to Islam-Online:

IOL-weblog Archive

24 November 2008

Integrate or Assimilate?

Post No 13

Standard dictionary definitions of integrate and assimilate are roughly as follows:

Integrate -
to blend into a functioning or unified whole

Assimilate -
to absorb into the culture of a population

In Denmark the difference between the two can be expressed simply by
mentioning the names of two of the country's best known Muslims -
Asmaa Abdol-Hamid and Naser Khader, both grown up in Denmark.
They are excellent examples of integration and assimilation respectively.

Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, mid-twenties, a social worker who wears the headscarf and
refuses to shake the hands of strange men, who ran in last November's general
election for the Unity-List (red-green alliance) and vowed to wear the headscarf
in parliament if elected (which sadly she was not), describes herself as "a humble
slave of Allah" -

Naser Khader, mid-forties, already a long-serving member of parliament, now
leading his own new party (which is disintegrating about a year after being founded...), not married but cohabiting, three children, one from a former
relationship of his, one from a former relationship of hers, and one child together
(one might say a typically Danish situation!), claims to be proud to be a Muslim,
yet most of his private and some of his public life are incompatible with Islamic
values.

So - do you wish to integrate or assimilate?

All the signs are that the vast majority of Euro-Muslims will wish to integrate
but will refuse to assimilate.

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Why Not an Islamic Bloc?

Post No 12

This article carries on from the last one, about the EU.
To recap: In round figures there are 300 million Americans, less than
5% of total world population, whereas we are now 500 million EU citizens,
or nearly 8% of humanity.
Muslims make up about 20% of mankind but have a combined influence
in grotesque disproportion to their huge numbers.
Now, if Muslim nations and populations wished to join forces and create their
own version of the US or the EU it would be a perfectly natural and understandable
aspiration and of course they should be free to make that decision, and to
implement it, should they wish to go ahead.

Would the Christian West tolerate it?
By all indications and actions, the answer is a clear no - it would not.
But of course it should if it wishes to be taken seriously by the Muslim world.
After all, how can you deny others what you have already chosen to have
yourself?
If nuclear power is good for the Christian West it must be good for Islamic Iran!
What is good for the Israelis must be good for the Palestinians!

It seems to me that the problem can be reduced to this:
The Christian West does not really care what Muslims believe in, the name
of our prophet, how many times a day we pray and where we turn when we do so,
in other words, it is not the faith itself which it sees as "a problem and a threat"
but it has a paranoid fear of that faith being implemented at the practical level,
it is political Islam which represents the red line to the Christian West, a red line
that when crossed, as it was in Iran in 1979, and as it was about to be in
Algeria 1991/92, and as it was in occupied Palestine January 2006, brings an
immediate reaction of zero-tolerance.
It seems inevitable to me that a modern version of the Caliphate will become
so irresistible to the world's Muslims that it will become a reality and probably
sooner than most of us think.
Is there any other way for Muslims to exert the influence which is rightfully theirs?

The rest of the world, and in particular the collective Christian West, will have
to come to terms with both the idea and the reality - and the sooner the better.
Failing to do so would be the definitive proof that it is characterised by pathetic
immaturity and staggering arrogance.

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Thoughts on the EU

Post No 11

Whatever we may think of the EU as it is today we should never lose track of the simple fact that it was established primarily to prevent another
devastating war on our continent.
For the record, World War 1 cost about 20 million lives, the majority in uniform,
whilst World War 2 cost a staggering 70 million lives, the majority civilians.
The vision of the common Europe's founding fathers, French politicians
Claude Monnet and Robert Schumann (Luxembourg-born),
was disarmingly simple (pun intended!):
If some important national governments (read: primarily France and Germany)
could somehow be persuaded to relinquish sovereignty over their coal and steel
industries, which would then be placed under a separate non-national authority,
that would at a stroke make terrible wars between those nations practically
impossible as they would no longer control the very raw materials and basic
industries required for heavy weapons manufacture.

It is to the eternal credit of Monnet and Schumann that they succeeded
and in 1953 the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was born,
which later (1957) evolved into the European Economic Community (EEC),
which became the European Community (EC) which became the European
Union (EU).

You can always find something to criticise and you may argue over the
small print here and there but overall, in my opinion, the whole experiment
has been, and is, a resounding success.

I am not saying that there will never be small local wars again in Europe,
possibly possibly even within the EU itself, but will France and Germany
(who had gone to war over the natural resources in their border region .....
times in a century) ever go to war with each other again? Unthinkable!

Externally the EU seems to be just a "softer" version of the US.
What I personally would like to see is the EU distancing itself from America.
I am not suggesting that the two should have nothing to do with each
other, of course they should, but only insofar as it does not damage the
reputation of the EU as a whole.

Almost everything the GW Bush administration has done around the world
(and at home but that is an internal American problem) during its 8 years
in power has been illegal and barbaric - and tragically the EU has
collectively gone along with most of it and tolerated the rest, seemingly
unable to find a voice and a purpose of its own.
Make no mistake: In round figures there are 300 million Americans, less than
5% of total world population, whereas we are now 500 million EU citizens, or
nearly 8% of humanity.
If democracy matters, and we are endlessly told that it does, and if democracy
has anything to do with numbers, which surely must be the case, then it is high
time the EU starts exerting the influence which is rightfully its own.

My next post will pose the question: Why not an Islamic bloc?

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Those Happy Danes

Post No 10

Those Happy Danes!!
Recently another survey, and this one much more comprehensive than the
last, now covering 80,000 persons in around 170 countries, concluded that
the Danes are the happiest people on planet Earth, confirming the findings
of the previous one.

Living here you would not know it and I do not know whether to laugh or cry
when I read such reports.
True, it is a well-run little country and on the whole things are going pretty
well materially speaking but do not be fooled.
There are serious tensions close to the surface and big problems out in the
open, particularly as regards immigration and xenophobia, issues exploited
so well by the Danish People's Party and its witch-hunt against all things
Islamic, but there are other problems too.

Currently 300,000 persons out of a total population of 5,4 million, or ca 5,5%
of all Danes, are waiting for significant or serious operations - for a wealthy
little country that is a staggering and disgraceful figure.
It is generally accepted that some of those waiting will die before the over-
worked system gets round to them. Unacceptable is too mild a word.
Yet the government, re-elected last November, has seen fit to join the illegal
and barbaric wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq and has had no
problems finding the funds to do so. Priorities anybody?
And hundreds of thousands, probably more than 10%, are permanently on
some kind of "happiness-pills" (valium etc) prescribed by their doctors,
and seeing the world through medically-induced rose-tinted glasses may
indeed distort the results of surveys like these!

Other statistics are perhaps more enlightening:
The Nordic countries plus Austria and Switzerland, all at or near the top
of the happiness-scores, are all world-leaders when it comes to rates of
suicide!

Happy Danes? Another way to answer is like this - these kinds of surveys
can not ask the opinions of all those who have already commited suicide!!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Courtesy Costs Nothing

Post No 9

Courtesy costs nothing - just a little effort!
I used to contribute regularly to various on-line discussion fora on
Danish websites. Should you wish to join in, a word of caution:
If you voice any support at all for the Palestinian cause
or attempt to explain a little of the background for this ongoing tragedy,
or you admit to being a local convert to Islam, type in your message,
hit "Enter" and just sit back and wait for 5 minutes.
Then the replies come in, not replies really but streams of abuse and
verbal brutalisations, using the most foul language imaginable of which
expressions like "Go to Hell you bloody Islamo-fascist" is mild enough
to permit quoting here.

Occasionally I would reply sweetly that "A little courtesy costs nothing
and what are you trying to tell me?" - and they would come back in an
even more vulgar manner. What is the matter with these people?

For the future of Denmark and the wider world one can only hope that
it is the same very small group of people which is behind those replies,
perhaps using multiple identities each.
I am sure they are not jokers but are serious and
really mean what they write.
The bad news is that, whoever they are, heated debate is one thing,
this is something quite different. What happened to civility??
And most tragic of all, the views they give voice to are just as
fundamentalist, extremist, intolerant, totalitarian etc as those of
the individuals and groups they hate so much!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

All Change Please

Post No 8

A simple question please:
If a nation's constitution is out of touch with the majority of its population,
which should we change - the constitution or the population???
Well, the answer is so obvious that it hardly needs spelling out:
Of course we should change the constitution to reflect the majority views.

The contortions that Turkey is going through is perhaps the best current
example of this dilemma and in the case of Turkey is a direct consequence
of a secular constitution being imposed upon a Muslim population without
it being asked what it wanted.
Whilst one can understand that it may not have been practically possible to
hold a referendum or something similar in the aftermath of the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire at the end of World War 1, it is difficult to find any excuse not
to do so as soon as possible afterwards, when things had stabilised.
Of all Muslim nations, Turkey is perhaps the purest of all - whichever source you
consult you learn that more than 99% of the population are Muslim, whether it
is 99,0 or 99,3 or 99,6 is hardly relevant, the fact is that it is a pure Muslim nation
with microscopic minorities of other faiths.
In the mainstream media Turkey is invariably described as a "majority Muslim nation"
and whilst technically correct it is a grossly misleading label as anything over 50%
would mean a majority. I have on several occasions emailed the BBC about this and
asked them to reconsider using the term.

The governing AK party, having won last year's elections with an incredible 46-point-
something % (round that up to AK47??), an enviable increase of 12% over the last result,
has a resounding mandate and is in a perfect position to redress that imbalance between
constitution and people and could do so fairly simply by putting a long list of amendments
to a referendum. And it would probably do so if it felt secure that the generals would stay
out of it all but after the famous attempted "e-coup" before Abdullah Gul's election to
the presidency it is clear that, as usual, the generals would prevent the views of the vast
majority being written into law. So much for democracy!
To its credit, the European Union has made it very clear that the democratic process must
be respected if Turkey wants to proceed as planned on the road to membership of the EU.
Quite a dilemma for the EU as its insistence on this very issue directly or indirectly lends
support to a popularly elected party whose Islamic roots are clear and deep - and to an
outside observer it seems that the green leaves of Islam could and would be sprouting
freely in Turkey if the secular elite, epitomised by the military, would accept the majority
verdict gracefully.

By not doing so, the minority is in effect asking the majority to change - and more or
less openly threatening to intervene if that majority attempts to stand on its democratic rights.
Clearly an unstable situation which must be resolved and as soon as possible.

And as for the EU supporting the elected goverment of Turkey - why is the EU not supporting
the fairly elected Hamas-government of Occupied Palestine?

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

05 September 2008

Vikings or Taliban?

Post No 7

Vikings or Taliban - can you spot the difference??

Almost all Danes, certainly the menfolk, would unreservedly and
wholeheartedly say with genuine pride and respect that our
forefathers the Vikings (c800AD-c1100AD) were great guys that
we can really relate to - whereas the very same people would
undoubtedly equally strongly condemn the Taliban as outlandish
fanatics with a death-wish.

May I ask the innocent little question: Why?
Why the dramatic difference in attitudes when the similarities
are so striking and so great?

For both groups, separated by a thousand years and thousands of
kilometres, share the following:

Your blood-line, your family, your clan, who you are, where you come
from, are of the utmost importance, as is your personal honour and
that of your family, clan etc.

Hospitality towards strangers and travellers, including, if the
situation called for it, your worst enemies:
I recall reading a report from Afghanistan where village elders had
arranged for some US soldiers to come on a visit, maybe in an
effort to understand why there are foreign soldiers occupying their land,
and the soldiers described that they were certain some of the locals
at the meeting were Taliban fighters, who remained courteous and polite
but lacking the warmth and openness of the others.
And the reason that the soldiers were neither captured nor shot nor
beheaded was obviously to protect the honour of the elders who had
guaranteed the safety of the strangers for the duration of the encounter.
With principles like that, who needs any man-made written laws?

Another case springs to mind:
In the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the Taliban (quite correctly
of course!), refused to hand anyone over to the US in the absence of
credible evidence that anyone on Afghan soil was involved.
Assuming that Osama bin Laden was indeed in Afghanistan at the time,
it would have been unthinkable for the Taliban to hand him over as he
was in the country as an honoured guest and friend, and we have the
feeling that even if evidence had been produced nobody would have
been handed over - because it would betray the trust and honour of
the people involved.
Interestingly, the Taliban a little later did offer that any wanted persons
could possibly be tried in a third country if Islamic law was applied -
and the rest was silence because it is clear that the invasion and occupation
of both Afghanistan and Iraq were planned long in advance, probably even
before GW Bush was elected!

The Vikings would behave in more or less the same manner, providing
food and shelter as required if, say, members of a feuding clan were
passing through the valley, even sitting at the same long table as their
enemies, who had to leave their heavy weapons outside, bringing only
light personal weapons inside, relying entirely for their security, indeed
their survival, on the integrity of the hosts.

Any excuse to prove your manliness - almost any statement could be
taken as a challenge to "choose your weapons" and hand-to-hand
combat would then settle the issue and determine who was the better
man of the two.

Now, if these are the men and the attitudes and actions we admire in
"the best of men" from our own past, why can we not recognise the same
qualities in a different group today and respect and applaud them -
is it simply because it is all happening now or because it is taking
place in a far-off land?

A few words about Allah and Valhalla:
Despite the close similarity between the words there are no linguistic
links to be found whatsoever. Valhalla, which literally means battlefield-hall,
was the abode of the Vikings who had fallen honourably in battle and every
day they would wake up, go out on the battlefield and fight their last battle
over again, die once more, to be brought into Valhalla to be revived by
attending maidens, the Valkyries, and treated to a banquet of pork and
mead (apple cider fermented with honey), accompanied by story-telling
and recitals of poetry.

And how did you determine how someone had fallen honourably?
Simple - if the deadly wounds were at the front of the body it proved
that you were not killed trying to run away and you were therefore
eligible for Valhalla, for which "proper Viking men" openly longed.
The similarity with Muslim Jihadists receiving instant resurrection and
going straight to Jannah/Paradise without having to wait in barzakh/burzakh
like "normal" Muslims is obvious and striking.
Replace the haram pork and mead with halal fruits and spring water,
replace the Valkyries with the dark-eyed Houris, and the situations
are absolutely parallell.

So, can we spot the difference?
Of course there are differences too - the most obvious being the AK47!
Which is simply an indication of the intervening 1000 years and advances
in technology - the most deadly weapons of the Vikings were the best
avaiable in their day and their smiths and craftsmen did much to improve
existing techniques.

Is there anything new under the sun? Probably not!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Which way do I integrate?

Post No 6

As a fairly recent convert/revert to Islam (and you can read about that in my
poem "My Journey to Islam", no 032 on Poems Index on my website)
I am of course learning more about all things Islamic.
Probably the biggest practical question is this: Which way do I integrate?
In a country like Denmark, where relations between "locals" and "foreigners"
seem to get worse by the month, simply by becoming a Muslim I have
distanced myself from mainstream Denmark, in a way willingly segregating
myself from national norms.
I still wear Western clothes (simple and comfortable and all from natural fibres,
and nothing trendy or fashionable please!) but I have a feeling that might change.
As I am no longer working, in the ordinary sense of the word, I am free of those
"what do I wear" considerations and restrictions.
I have had a full beard ever since it would grow (for a defence of beards read
poem no 048 on Poems Index, "Grow Your Own"), when I was 19 or so, but it
is bigger and wilder now since becoming a Muslim.

Were I a female convert/revert I would certainly wear the headscarf/hijab as
there are two clear exhortations in the Quran for women to cover (24:31 and
33:59) although, as I understand it, the exact degree of cover can be, and
has been, argued by the scholars and there may be no uniform opinion or
interpretation.

I have a suspicion that many sisters and brothers here in Denmark do not
wear the hijab or do not grow beards simply in an effort to "blend in" more
easily or to be openly seen to make an extra effort to "fit in" and that is
perfectly understandable given the current situation.
But, if true, it is also sad because in a free and open society, which Denmark
still claims to be, there should be no such problems and no such needs,
and in law of course there aren't any problems, as para 70 in the Danish
constitution specifically guarantees equal rights (and duties of course!)
for all regardless of faith or race.
Easy to legislate - much harder to implement!

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

Some things never change

Post No 5

Some things never change -

And my older brother is one of them!
He is 5 years older than me and has only been outside Denmark twice in his
long life and then only briefly (first trip a few hours tax-free shopping and
second trip about 2 weeks).

I remember, back in the sixties, when the first of the “new-wave” immigrants
started to arrive, mainly from (then) Yugoslavia and Turkey.
Actually they were guest workers, actively encouraged by the Danish government to come here.
My brother used to call them date-pickers, regardless where they came from
and it was clear that he would rather they did not come.

Many years later, when I was back in Denmark in 2001, his favourite joke was:
”Did you know that the Supplementary Benefit Law is the first chapter of the Quran?” – which he thought was very funny.
Although I was still several years away from formally becoming a practising Muslim I had very strong sympathies and empathies for Islam and Muslims.
So, obviously, I was not amused, in fact I was offended, not only on behalf of
Islam and Muslims but in a more general way – that my older brother still had
such a limited view of the world.

True to form, he proudly votes for the far-right Danish People’s Party (founded in 1995), as do sadly also both of my two nieces and their husbands.
In last November’s general election the DPP got almost 14% of the votes and
therefore 25 seats in the 179-member parliament, an increase of 1 from the previous election.
Can anyone explain why so many in such an (otherwise) educated and enlightened nation as Denmark vote for such simplistic not to say primitive concepts and ideas??

As you all know, this is currently not just a Danish phenomenon – many other European nations face the same problem.
That well-known Islamophobe Geert Wilders, Dutch MP, visited Copenhagen a few weeks ago and spoke to several hundred members, including parliamentarians, of the DPP. His suggested “solution” to the “problem” of the creeping Islamisation of Europe? 1. Ban the Quran -2. Close Islamic schools -
3. Stop immigration. It is desperately sad that an otherwise intelligent man can utter such fascistic nonsense and sadder still that so many take him seriously! Whatever else it may be, it is precisely as fundamentalist, radical, extremist, inflammatory etc (you recognise the terms!) as the groups he and others like him hate so much!
As an aside, presumably Geert Wilders would still welcome immigration to the
EU from both America and Israel?!!?
He is known to have visited Israel more than 40 times and of course he is free
to travel where he wants but it does raise serious questions about where he gets his instructions from.

If such attitudes become the prevailing ones, which of course is not the case yet but in Denmark we are approaching a critical point, what chances are there
for Muslims, and other minorities for that matter but Muslims are overwhelming seen as “the problem and the threat”, to make a success
of integration even if they sincerely want to?
The way my brother speaks, he makes it totally obvious that either they should behave like us or “go back where they came from” as he so childishly puts it, and if they don’t want to go we should throw them out.
Denmark in fact a few years ago introduced a voluntary repatriation scheme, offering substantial financial incentives to enable those who accepted the deal to start up again in their home countries.
I have no statistics to hand at the moment as to whether the plan has been a success or failure but will report back here if and when I find out.
But my feeling is that it is most unlikely to be popular.

>>> For Viking-Muslim's ARCHIVE please visit Ibraheem's website <<<

30 July 2008

Note to New Readers

Last updated: 28 June 2011

Welcome to my place!
Should you decide to spend some time
browsing my website you will find that the
section with poems is becoming increasingly
important.
Please read this brief post now -
Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy.....

I wrote that on 11 April 2007 and, looking back,
it seems that subconsciously I knew what was
happening already for since then I have only
written a handful of ordinary posts, and not
really about current affairs, but my collection
of published poems has grown from
5 poems totalling 744 lines
to (as of today 28 June 2011)
144 poems totalling 20,191 lines
and there seems to be no slowing down, plus
writing a 400-page book about Islamophobia
which was published last January.

Even so, should you become a regular visitor to
my website -and I hope that you will- expect
most of the activity to be in the poems section.
But of course Site News will always keep you
updated on what is new.

Thank you for visiting my website and if you
like it please tell all your friends!

Denmark a Christian country - but what if...

Post No 4

Denmark has been a Christian country for at least 1000 years – and that’s official:

Proudly proclaimed in pictures and runes on the larger of the two Jelling stones in southern Jutland, the Danish mainland which connects with Germany and the rest of the continent.

It says: "King Harald ordered this monument made in memory of Gorm, his father, and in memory of Thyre, his mother; that Harald who won for himself all of Denmark and Norway and made the Danes Christian."

This was done by King Harald Bluetooth (935 AD-985 AD), son of King Gorm the Old and Queen Thyra, as far as it can be pinpointed to one specific year it was in 965 AD, and thus roughly four generations after the French missionary - later Saint - Ansgar came to Denmark in 826 AD as an envoy of the catholic bishop of Bremen/Hamburg, but several generations passed before we can say that Christianity was the dominant belief system in the country as a whole and that country may not have been already a coherent Denmark – more likely it was several petty kingdoms at that time.

Catholicism came to an end in Denmark around 1520 with the Reformation of Martin Luther and the country has remained Lutheran-Protestant ever since.

Denmark has an international reputation for being ultra-secular and ultra-permissive and in many ways that is of course true, but did you know that the Lutheran-Protestant church is the official state church, enshrined in the Danish constitution’s para 4 and as such is supported largely.

And that means paid for from the bishops to the local priests and grave-diggers to the upkeep and maintenance of all churches and associated buildings and infrastructure by the state, meaning through taxes – unless you specifically opt out of paying the special church-tax (only about 0.5% of your total taxation) but still you can be as secular as you like but you may unwittingly pay the church tax all your life without knowing it! I opted out of church-tax when I first started paying tax when I was 18 or so.

Para 70 of our constitution guarantees religious freedom for all citizens and specifically prohibits any form of discrimination on the basis of religion or race – but did you know that religious freedom does not extend to our monarch, currently Queen Margrethe II (who is a cousin of the Queen of England), for para 6 of the constitution states that the regent MUST be a lutheran-protestant but does not have to be a member of the church!

So, whether he or she wants to or not – no freedom of choice there! I find that quite extraordinary and in a way quite comical.

Christianity is generally seen here as something typically Danish, indeed one of the more extreme members of that already extreme right-wing party the Danish People’s Party (more about that another time!), Soren Krarup, who is both an MP and a theologian and a priest, has stated bluntly that you cannot be truly Danish unless you are a Christian.

I have not yet had the opportunity to debate him in public but I would like to ask him the following:

- How on earth can it be seen to more “truly Danish” to subscribe to a belief-system which grew up around a Jew from Palestine (Jesus-Isa) than embracing a faith which grew up around an Arab from Arabia (of course Muhammad – pbuh/saws)???
- It is interesting to speculate: Suppose that some of the early Muslims had not only spread South and West and East and North locally but travelled much further North than they did – they would have had plenty of time to have arrived in Northern Europe and Denmark say around 700 even if they had walked all the way, that is well over a hundred years, or about 4 generations, before 826 and the Ansgar that I mentioned at the beginning.

Meaning of course that Denmark could well have been a Muslim country for 1300 years or so instead of Christian for 1000 years – with a mosque in every village and the prayers call ringing out 5 times a day!
And not only Denmark of course.....Food for thought for all Islamophobes!!

It is also obvious from the wording of the runic inscription at Jelling that the Danes (and possibly also Denmark as a country) existed before they were "made Christian" by Harald.

So, logically, if you wish to be "truly Danish" you should become a pagan and worship the old gods of the Vikings like Odin-Woden-Wotan (the god of wisdom who also gave his name to Wednesday!) or Thor (thunder / power + Thursday!) or much older fertility gods like Frej-Frey (male) and Freja-Freya (female) who collectively gave their name to Friday.

Some of the early kings and other rulers who accepted Christianity may well have done so out of conviction and sincerity – but most historians believe that they were at least as attracted by the enormous unifying influence that the new faith gave them, an influence which could be, and was, used for welding smaller realms together into larger “proper” kingdoms – in short, to increase
their strategic power and magnify their self-glorification. And that is a very understandable and human thing to do – if you get the opportunity.

Incidentally, for many years, including of course all the time I lived on my sailing yacht VIKING, I always carried around my neck a pendant in the form of a Thors-hammer (which is called Mjolnir and is used by Thor to bash the clouds, so creating thunder and lightning) – they are very popular with Danish men and, if you take them seriously, they signify that you still embrace the old religion
and the old gods as opposed to the new.

They were widely used throughout the Viking age (c800-c1100) when Christianity began making inroads.

Others preferred the cross. Archaeologists have unearthed a mould for casting jewellery, it is a cast made of a single piece of soap-stone (a very soft rock ideally suited for moulds) and has room for casting 3 pieces of jewellery in one operation – 2 of one and 1 of the other!!
I cannot remember whether it is 2 crosses and 1 Thors-hammer or the other way round but what is interesting is that the craftsman and the vendor did not particularly care what the customer believed in, so long as it was good for business – some things never change!

Is this maybe a distant forerunner of the European Union?!!?

Personally, having spent half my life in other countries, I do not feel particularly Danish one way or the other and I am quite content to consider myself a Muslim world citizen - if that makes me in any way less Danish then that is a small price to pay!