There’s a new mosque opening down the street from me this spring, a big one.  It will be the first mosque with minarets in Denmark, although the minarets are legally prohibited from calling to prayer. 

The people behind the mosque are doing everything they can to blend in with the local neighborhood – they even went to observe at a local church service a couple of Sundays ago.  They were probably the only ones there.

There are a lot of Muslims in Denmark, about 250,000 out of a population of 5-and-a-half million, most of who have arrived here in the past 40 years, or their descendants. 

And contrary to what the Danish right-wing parties might say, they’ve brought a a lot of good things to Denmark, and not just Shwarma shops.