WHO PAYS FOR EUROPE'S MOSQUES?
Let me tell you.
In Copenhagen stands one of the largest mosques in Europe. It carries the name of Qatar's former emir.
The Hamad Bin Khalifa Civilisation Center opened in 2014. Qatar paid $27 million to build it. More followed.
In 2020, the newspaper Berlingske revealed that organizations tied to Qatar had given at least 227 million Danish kroner, more than $30 million, to the foundation behind the mosque.
That same year the foundation's board was replaced, and five people from Qatar's inner circle took the majority. One of them had headed Islamic affairs at Qatar's own ministry of religion.
On paper, a local organization runs the mosque. The money comes from Doha. So does the majority on the board.
And Copenhagen is no isolated case.
In 2019, two French journalists obtained internal documents from Qatar Charity, an NGO closely tied to the Qatari royal family. Their book, Qatar Papers, maps around 140 projects across Europe... mosques, schools and Islamic centers.
By 2014 the organization had already spent close to 72 million euros on 113 of them in 14 countries. Italy received the most. According to the authors, the money went to associations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Qatar is not alone either.
In 1969, Brussels handed Saudi Arabia control of the city's Grand Mosque. 99 years, rent free. Belgium got cheaper oil in return. Only after the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels did the state take the mosque back in 2018, to end Salafist and violent extremist influence.
In Germany, DITIB (Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affair) stands behind roughly 900 mosques. It was founded as a branch of the Turkish state's religious directorate. The imams are trained in Turkey and paid by the Turkish state.
Austria is one of the few countries that drew a line. A 2015 law bans foreign funding of religious groups. In 2018 the government used it to announce the closure of seven mosques and the expulsion of imams paid by Ankara.
It is the same pattern again and again. Foreign states pay for the buildings, the imams and the boards. That means they also pay for what is preached.
Whoever pays, decides.
And Europe allows it. Then we wonder how political Islam keeps gaining ground in the West. Incompetent people lead our countries. They are supposed to serve the best interests of their people. With their silence, they do the opposite. Weak. That is what they are.