In 1983, he decided to go on pension, reverting to Islam later in 1986 after he mastered Arabic and learned Qur’an by heart.
Share It :
Paying tributes to Mohammed Knut Johan Richard Bernström, a former Swedish ambassador to Morocco who reverted to Islam, has been remembered in a special screening of a documentary about his life that was displayed in Morocco during the weekend.
“No sooner did the Princess Shamsa Bint Hamdan Al Nahyan hear the story of the Swedish Ambassador in Morocco, she decided to fund the film, so that it could become a bridge between two worlds that lived in misunderstanding,” Ibtihal Jeffry, Deputy Director of Tabah Foundation UAE, which funded the film, told Hespress, Morocco World News reported on Saturday, October 18.
The late ambassador, Mohammed Knut Johan Richard Bernström, was born on Oct 22, 1919 and passed away on Oct 21,2009.
As a diplomat, he worked in Spain, France, Soviet Union, United States, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Morocco. He was the Swedish ambassador to Morocco from 1976 until 1983. During the time he spent in Morocco, Mohammed became very involved in Moroccan culture.
In 1983, he decided to go on pension, reverting to Islam later in 1986 after he mastered Arabic and learned Qur’an by heart.
Later on, he translated the Qur’an into the Swedish language under the title “the Message of Qur’an”.
Recognizing his efforts to bring the two worlds closer, Morocco paid homage to him by screening the film “Between Two Worlds,” directed by Ovidio Salazar, an American director.
The film explored the life of the Swedish ambassador who could live as an open minded, Western man and as a new Muslim who truly love to his religion.
A diplomat who knew the Ambassador, said, “He, [Mohammed], was living between two cultures, and tried to blend between them; as the walls of his house were filled up with paintings of Western and Moroccan art at the same time.”
She added, “he was a speaker of 13 languages, and was always longing to be more knowledgeable; thus he headed to Morocco, where he studied the Qur’an and Arabic, and he found an ordinary authentic Islam.”
Solid Relations
A representative of the Ambassador of Sweden in Rabat praised the solid relation between Sweden and the Muslim world.
“Sweden and the Muslim world’s solid relationship dates back to an old age, since the time of the Caliphate and the Viking,” the diplomat said.
“Museums in Sweden still retain copies of Moroccan currencies since the era of the Moroccan states of Idrisis,” she added.
According to Hespress, the film will be also screened in in Rabat, where Mohammed Knut worked as the Ambassador of his country for about seven years.
Muslims make up between 450,000 and 500,000 of Sweden’s nine million people, according to the US State Department report in 2011.
Earlier this month, Aida Hadzialic was named as the new Upper Secondary School and Adult Education Initiative in Sweden.
Turkish born Mehmet Kaplan has also been named Sweden’s new Housing Minister in Stefan Löfven new cabinet.
