Islam in Denmark, being the country's largest minority religion, plays a role in shaping its social and religious landscape. According to a 2020 analysis by Danish researcher Brian Arly Jacobsen, an estimated 256,000 people in Denmark — 4.4% of the population — were Muslim in January, 2020. The figure has been increasing for the last several decades due to multiple immigration waves involving economic migrants and asylum seekers. In 1980, an estimated 30,000 Muslims lived in Denmark, amounting to 0.6% of the population. The majority of Muslims in Denmark are Sunni, with a sizeable Shia minority. Members of the Ahmadiyya community are also present in Denmark. In the 1970s Muslims arrived from Turkey, Pakistan, Morocco and the former Yugoslavia (mainly Bosnia) to work. In the 1980s and 90s the majority of Muslim arrivals were refugees and asylum seekers from Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Bosnia. In addition, some ethnic Danes have converted to Islam; In 2017, close to 3,800 Danish Muslims were converts to the religion. History Danish historian Jørgen Bæk Simonsen documents that encounters between Denmark and the Muslim world date back to the Middle Ages, when the Danish military participated in the Crusades to take control of Jerusalem from Muslim rule. King Frederick V of Denmark also travelled to South Arabia to collect information, plants, and artifacts. Among his co-voyagers was Carsten Niebuhr who observed and noted the customs of the region. One of the first Danish converts to Islam was Knud Holmboe, a journalist and writer of Desert Encounter, in which he detailed his first-hand account of the Libyan Genocide. An 1880 Danish census recorded 8 "Mohammadans" in the country. Censuses continued to be carried out until 1970. Large-scale immigration from Muslim countries began in the 1950s. Due to the expansion of Denmark's post-war economy and increase in industrialization in the 1950-1960s, a large number of immigrants migrated to the country from the highly-Muslim populated nations of Yugoslavia, Turkey, Pakistan, and North Africa. This period was the first wave of large-scale Muslim immigration to Denmark. The first purpose-built mosques belonged to Ahmadi Muslims and was constructed in 1967. In 1973, the Danish government stopped free migration to the country. Rules were laxed in 1974 so that people with family in Denmark, people marrying someone in Denmark, or people seeking asylum could come to the country. In the 1980s, a second wave of Muslims immigrated to Denmark, mainly from