Applying media analysis, this article addresses how the exclusion of Muslim women from fields of common public interest in Sweden, such as partaking as an active citizen, is materialized. Focusing on a specific event-the cancellation of a screening of Burka Songs 2.0-and the media coverage and representation of the cancellation, it discusses the role of discourses of gender equality, secularity and democracy in circumscribing space for Muslim political subjects. It casts light on Islamophobic stereotyping, questionable democracy and secularity, as well as the over-simplified approaches to gender equality connected to dealings with Muslim women in Sweden. Besides obstacles connected to Muslim political subjects, the study provides insights into media representation of Muslim women in general, specially connected to veils and the role of lawmaking connected to certain kind of veiling, in Sweden and Europe.

This article discusses social positions of Swedish female converts to Islam who have previously passed as white majority Swedes, but whose experiences have changed, sometimes radically, since donning the hijab. It addresses their accounts of being treated and evaluated differently by teachers, co-workers, family and friends, and having their choices questioned by strangers. It also examines the double standards that white converts to Islam must negotiate when dealing with daily life in Sweden, and how becoming a Muslim leads to frequent exclusion from constructed whiteness and Swedishness and the privileges attached to those positions.

This article takes the ruling of the European Court of Justice concerning the so-called neutral clothing policy, within private companies, as a starting point. The ruling facilitates prohibition of visible religious, philosophical and political signs. The resulting neutrality policies are studied from the point of view of their consequences, both concrete and emotional ones, as well as how they are perceived and experienced among Muslim women in Sweden. One of the concrete consequences appeared in an employment process at Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), which is discussed together with subsequent media representation that questioned practices of active citizenship among Muslim women in Sweden. Furthermore, I study how the resistance against the ruling was articulated in different arenas in Sweden. These issues are analyzed in the light of a normative secularity and how such an understanding impacts on exclusion of Muslim women in Sweden and hinders their possibility of belonging and partaking in social matters on equal terms.

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Gender is a primary key for understanding Islam and Muslims in present day Scandinavia. Through norms and regulations, gender has proven inherent to how Islam is governed, perceived, and debated in public, but also pivotal for how Scandinavian Muslims understand, practice and negotiate their own religion. Moreover, the correlation between gender and Islam is a topic addressed by an increasing number of researchers in the Scandinavian countries. In this special issue of the Scandinavian Journal of Islamic Studies, we have gathered a selection of the ongoing research in this field. The articles included here, offer a peak into some of the currents in the highly diverse and emerging research field gender and Islam in Scandinavia. They also give an idea of the breadth of topics, disciplines, approaches and perspectives involved in such studies.