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Home , Islam in Europe, Islam in Italy, Religion in Italy

Stella Coglievina1

1 Muslim Populations

The history of in Italy dates back to the seventh and eighth centuries, when the general expansion of Islam in took place. In the ninth century, Muslim invaded and some regions in Peninsular Italy. Arab dynasties ruled Sicily until the Norman Conquest (eleventh century). Arabic and and science continued to be influential in Sicily and some Arabic-speaking communities have survived in Sicily from that time. Thereafter, Islam was almost absent in Italy until the 1970s. By the 1970s and 1980s, Italy had begun to attract migrant workers, among them Mus- lims from North and . Today, Islam is the second largest in Italy, after Catholicism.2 There is no official census of religious communities, and little reliable data on the Muslim population in Italy is available. According to latest estimates, the number of , who are mostly Sunnis, is around 1.5 million (2% of the total population of over 60 million).3 Muslims in Italy are mainly registered residents without Italian citizenship and they make up about 33% of foreign residents in the country. Italy’s Muslim community is significantly ethnically diverse; the main countries of origin are: , Albania, , Senegal,

1 Stella Coglievina is a PhD Fellow in Ecclesiastical and Canon Law in the Faculty of Law of University of Insubria (Como) where she is also a research assistant. Her research activity is focused on antidiscrimination law in the EU and legal regulation of religious diversities. She is the editor of Le Conferenze episcopali in Europa (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 2010) and author of various papers about religious freedom and non-discrimination in Europe. 2 An estimated 87% of native-born citizens are nominally Roman Catholic. See US Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report for 2011. Italy, at www.state. gov/j/drl/rls/irf/religiousfreedom/index.htm?dlid=192823, accessed 13 March 2013. 3 Caritas Migrantes, Dossier statistico immigrazione 2011 ( Statistical Dos- sier 2011) indicates about 1,505,000 Muslims (data available at www.caritasitaliana.it/ materiali/Pubblicazioni/libri_2011/dossier_immigrazione2011/scheda_religioni.pdf, accessed 22 November 2012). According to the Pew Forum, in 2010 Muslims in Italy are estimated to be 1,583,000 (see The Future of the Global Muslim Population, 2011, at http:// features.pewforum.org/muslim-population/, accessed 22 November 2012). 352 stella coglievina

Pakistan, , Macedonia, and Algeria.4 There is no reliable data about how many Muslims have Italian citizenship.5 Italian citizenship laws are very strict, while obtaining work and residency permits is easier, so many immigrants who have lived in Italy for years cannot obtain Ital- ian citizenship. The high number of Muslim non-citizens, including illegal immigrants, is one of the obstacles to their integration into Italian society. As immigration is a quite recent phenomenon in Italy, many foreign Mus- lims are still first-generation immigrants, living in poor socio-economic conditions. However, the rising number of family reunifications and the growing number of young Muslims (second generation and new families) are changing the picture of the Islamic community living in Italy. Muslim groups have settled throughout Italy but tend to be concentrated in urban areas. Muslims have begun to make a place for themselves in Italian poli- tics, mostly at the local level, while there are two Muslim members of the Parliament.6

2 Islam and the State

Italy is a secular republic with no state religion. Roman Catholics nominally constitute the majority of the population and the enjoys some privileges, stemming from the sovereign status of the Vatican and its historical political authority. According to the Constitution (Articles 7 and 8), relations between the state and religious confessions are governed by bilateral agreements: for the Catholic Church, the 1929 Lateran Pacts as amended in 1984; for non-Catholic confessions, separate accords (intese)

4 See Caritas Migrantes, Dossier statistico immigrazione 2011, op. cit. 5 Data from 2002 indicate about 40,000–50,000 Muslims with Italian citizenship and among them about 10,000 converts from : see Open Society Institute, “Rap- porto di monitoraggio della protezione delle minoranze nell’Unione Europea: la situazione dei musulmani in Italia (Monitoring report on the protection of minorities in the Euro- pean Union: the situation of Muslims in Italy),” (2002), available at www.abuondiritto.it/ liberta/religiosa/pdf/rapporto_osi_italia.pdf; Spreafico A., “La presenza islamica in Italia”, in “Instrumenta”, Scuola Superiore dell’Amministrazione dell’Interno-SSAI, IX, 2005, p. 186, available at http://ssai.interno.it/download/allegati1/instrumenta_25_09_-_spreafico_(da_ pag._1_a_40).pdf (both accessed 9 January 2013). According to the UCOII, in 2012 converted to Islam were about 70,000 (see http://islamineurope.blogspot.it/2012/05/italy- 70-000-converted-to-islam.html, accessed 15 January 2013). 6 See www.euro-islam.info/country-profiles/italy/, accessed 9 January 2013 (Euro-Islam is a Research Network Sponsored by GSRL /CNRS and Harvard University). It should be noted that immigrants who do not have Italian citizenship have no voting rights.