DOCSLIB.ORG

Italy Stella Coglievina1 1 Muslim Populations the History of Islam In

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Italy Stella Coglievina1 1 Muslim Populations the History of Islam In ITALY Stella Coglievina1 1 Muslim Populations The history of Islam in Italy dates back to the seventh and eighth centuries, when the general expansion of Islam in Europe took place. In the ninth century, Muslim Arabs invaded Sicily and some regions in Peninsular Italy. Arab dynasties ruled Sicily until the Norman Conquest (eleventh century). Arabic and Islamic art 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 Africa and Albania. Today, Islam is the second largest religion 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 Muslims, 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: Morocco, Albania, Tunisia, 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 (Immigration 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, Bangladesh, 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 Catholic Church 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 Christianity: 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 Italians 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 Paris/CNRS France and Harvard University). It should be noted that immigrants who do not have Italian citizenship have no voting rights..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Oriana Fallaci and the “Clash of Civilizations” Formatted: Font: +Body (Calibri)
    This is a draft version of the article/chapter accepted for publication in Towards a global literature Formatted: Font: +Body (Calibri) = Verso una letteratura globalizzata published by Marcos y Marcos Formatted: Font: +Body (Calibri) Draft version downloaded from SOAS Research Online: http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/31508 Formatted: Font: +Body (Calibri), Italic, Complex Script Font: Italic Formatted: Font: Italic, Complex Script Font: Italic Cannons and Rubberboats Formatted: Font: +Body (Calibri) Oriana Fallaci and the “Clash of Civilizations” Formatted: Font: +Body (Calibri) Francesca Orsini, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK Abstract Written in October 2001 as a “gut reaction” to the attack on the Twin Towers, first as a long article in the daily Il Corriere della Sera and then in book form (in its original shape, twice as long as the article) in December 2001, Oriana Fallaci’s pamphlet La rabbia e l’orgoglio (Anger and Pride) was in its 26th edition when I bought it in September 2004. Its follow-up, La forza della ragione (The Force of Reason), has already sold 800,000 copies since its publication in 2004. In other words, Oriana Fallaci has emerged after 9/11 as the strongest and most vocal Italian representative of the “clash of civilisations” theory. This essay analyses the constitutive elements of her discourse (Italian nationalism, values instead of history and politics, and violent speech conflating Islam, terrorism and immigrants) and tries to understand its appeal and the sources of its authority in Fallaci’s career, in order to outline the specific Italian version of the clash of civilisations “theory”.
    [Show full text]
  • Muslim Fertility , Religion and Religiousness
    1 02/21/07 Fertility and Religiousness Among European Muslims Charles F. Westoff and Tomas Frejka There seems to be a popular belief that Muslim fertility in Europe is much higher than that of non-Muslims. Part of this belief stems from the general impression of high fertility in some Muslim countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. This notion is typically transferred to Muslims living in Europe with their increasing migration along with concerns about numbers and assimilability into European society. I The first part of this paper addresses the question of how much difference there is between Muslim and non-Muslim fertility in Europe (in those countries where such information is available). At the beginning of the 21 st century, there are estimated to be approximately 40 – 50 million Muslims in Europe. Almost all of the Muslims in Central and Eastern Europe live in the Balkans. (Kosovo, although formally part of Serbia, is listed as a country in Table 1). In Western Europe the majority of Muslims immigrated after the Second World War. The post-war economic reconstruction and boom required considerably more labor than was domestically available. There were two principal types of immigration to Western Europe: (a) from countries of the respective former colonial empires; and (b) from Southern Europe, the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Turkey. As much of this immigration took place during the 1950s and 1960s large proportions of present-day Muslims are second and third generation descendants. Immigrants to France came mostly from the former North African colonies Algeria (± 35 percent), Morocco (25 percent) and Tunisia (10 percent), and also from Turkey (10 percent).
    [Show full text]
  • Hans Christian Jasch
    STATE-DIALOGUE IN ITALY AND GERMANY FOR PROMOTING INTEGRATION OF MUSLIMS. Italy and Germany are following the example of other EU-countries and have started to establish a dialogue between the state and Muslim communities in order to promote integration. The objective of these initiatives is to develop joint and commonly owned solutions with representatives of Muslim communities, and to strengthen the moderate voices with a view to preventing radicalization. Due to divisions within and the heterogeneity of the Muslim minorities in both countries it has so far not been possible to establish single Muslim representations with genuinely representative organs. Therefore both initiatives in Italy and Germany followed a top-down approach with the Ministers of Interior carefully selecting the members of these Councils and thus establishing a forum of state- dialogue for the first time. The future will show whether this policy is successful. Hans-Christian Jasch* * The author is a Government Councillor in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and spent 2005/6 as a fellow of the Robert-Bosch-Foundation-Bellevue-Programme in Rome in the cabinet of the Italian Minister of the Interior. Currently he is working for) the Cabinet of Vice-President of the EU-Commission and Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security, Franco Frattini, in Brussels. This article reflects only the private opinion of the author. While the presence of Muslims in Western Europe often relates to the era of colonial rule – especially Britain and France experienced significant
    [Show full text]
  • Song As the Memory of Language in the Arbëresh Community of Chieuti
    MY HEART SINGS TO ME: Song as the Memory of Language in the Arbëresh Community of Chieuti Sara Jane Bell A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Curriculum in Folklore. Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Dr. Robert Cantwell (Chair) Dr. William Ferris Dr. Louise Meintjes Dr. Patricia Sawin ABSTRACT SARA JANE BELL: My Heart Sings to Me: Song as the Memory of Language in the Arbëresh Community of Chieuti (Under the Direction of Robert Cantwell, Chair; William Ferris; Louise Meintjes; and Patricia Sawin) For the people of Chieuti who grew up speaking the Albanian dialect that the inhabitants of their Arbëresh town in the Italian province of Puglia have spoken for more than five centuries, the rapid decline of their mother tongue is a loss that is sorely felt. Musicians and cultural activists labor to negotiate new strategies for maintaining connections to their unique heritage and impart their traditions to young people who are raised speaking Italian in an increasingly interconnected world. As they perform, they are able to act out collective narratives of longing and belonging, history, nostalgia, and sense of place. Using the traditional song “Rine Rine” as a point of departure, this thesis examines how songs transmit linguistic and cultural markers of Arbëresh identity and serve to illuminate Chieuti’s position as a community poised in the moment of language shift. ii For my grandfather, Vincenzo Antonio Belpulso and for the children of Chieuti, at home and abroad, who carry on.
    [Show full text]
  • Islam: State and Religion in Modern Europe by Patrick Franke
    Islam: State and Religion in Modern Europe by Patrick Franke From the early Middle Ages until the beginning of the twentieth century, Islamic states were an integral part of Europe's political geography. Throughout the modern period the Ottoman Empire, with its capital in Istanbul, was the most important Islamic power on the continent. The Ottoman conquest of south‐eastern Europe, which was already well advanced in the 15th century, initiated a phase of Islamization that came in several waves before ending in the 19th century. Other important centres of European Islam were the Iberian Peninsula (until the early 17th century), the Russian Volga‐Ural region, and the Crimea. The decline of the European Islamic states (Granada, the eastern European Khanates, the Ottoman Empire) put many Muslims under the rule of non‐Islamic states, each of which reacted with the development of its own particular policies for dealing with Islam. For the Muslim populations, this loss of power resulted in important processes of modernization. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Islamic Statehood in Europe between 1450 and 1950 2. Processes of Islamization and De‐Islamization 3. Policies of Non‐Islamic European States toward Islam 4. Islamic Positions towards Non‐Islamic Europe 5. Appendix 1. Bibliography 2. Notes Indices Citation Islamic Statehood in Europe between 1450 and 1950 In the mid‐15th century a number of small Islamic states existed on the edges of various parts of Europe (➔ Media Link #ab). The southern Iberian Peninsula1 was home to the Nasrid Emirate of Granada, which, however, was in decline in this period. In 1485 the Christian states of Castile and Aragon began their systematic conquest of the Emirate, at a time when the Muslims were exhausting their energies in a civil war.
    [Show full text]
  • European Islam Challenges for Public Policy and Society
    EUROPEAN ISLAM CHALLENGES FOR PUBLIC POLICY AND SOCIETY SAMIR AMGHAR, AMEL BOUBEKEUR, MICHAEL EMERSON (EDITORS) CHRIS ALLEN, VALERIE AMIRAUX, TUFYAL CHOUDHURY, BERNARD GODARD, IMANE KARICH, ISABELLE RIGONI OLIVIER ROY AND SARA SILVESTRI CENTRE FOR EUROPEAN POLICY STUDIES BRUSSELS The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) is an independent policy research institute based in Brussels. Its mission is to produce sound analytical research leading to constructive solutions to the challenges facing Europe today. The views expressed in this report are those of the authors writing in a personal capacity and do not necessarily reflect those of CEPS or any other institution with which the authors are associated. This study was carried out in the context of the broader work programme of CEPS on European Neighbourhood Policy, and is generously supported by the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Open Society Institute. The project was initiated at a conference held in Sofia in November 2006, sponsored under International Policy Fellowship programme of the Open Society Institute. Cover photograph: Stockholm Great Mosque ISBN 13: 978-92-9079-710-4 © Copyright 2007, Centre for European Policy Studies. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the Centre for European Policy Studies. Centre for European Policy Studies Place du Congrès 1, B-1000 Brussels Tel: 32 (0) 2 229.39.11 Fax: 32 (0) 2 219.41.51 e-mail: [email protected] internet: http://www.ceps.eu CONTENTS 1.
    [Show full text]
  • A Catholic History
    Simone C. Martino1 Прегледни рад Università di Torino UDK 272/273:32(450) Italy POLITICS AND RELIGION IN ITALY: A CATHOLIC HISTORY Abstract The paper looks at the historical and contemporary role of Catholic Church in Italian politics. Over the last sixty years Catholicism has played an important role in Italian society. The paper identify three ways in which Catholicism interacts with Italian public life: as a peculiar version of “civil religion”, through Catholic inspirited political parties and the Church intervening directly in specific public debates. After identifies the change of political role of the Catholic Church in the last decades the paper recognize the main challenges for this particular relation- ship in the next future. Key Words: politics, Italy, civil religion, Catholic Church In order to understand the bond between religion and politics in Italy, we must not lose sight of one essential fact: Catholicism plays today – as it has done in the past – a basic role in defining Italian national identity and in political equi- librium. Trust in the Church can be observed from many indicators from affilia- tion to the Catholic Church (which, according to various surveys, involves more than 80% of the population) to attendance at the teaching of Catholic religion in school (88.5% of children) to the level of taxes which are donated each year to the Church. It is worth dwelling for a moment upon this last point because it is also particularly significant from a political point of view. In Italy there is a system whereby contributors may donate a portion of their taxes (eight-thousandths) to the Catholic Church one those churches/ religions which have signed an agreement with the State or to the state; and since 2014 another portion (two- thousandths) to a political party.
    [Show full text]
  • CULTURAL ORIENTATION | Italian
    ITALIAN View of Riomaggiore, Cinque Terre Flickr / Elvin DLIFLC DEFENSE LANGUAGE INSTITUTE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CENTER 2018 CULTURAL ORIENTATION | Italian TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 | Profile Introduction ................................................................................................................... 6 Geographic Divisions .................................................................................................. 7 Northwest ..............................................................................................................7 Northeast ..............................................................................................................8 Central Italy ...........................................................................................................8 Southern Italy .......................................................................................................9 Insular Italy............................................................................................................9 Climate ..........................................................................................................................10 Bodies of Water ...........................................................................................................10 Rivers ...................................................................................................................10 Lakes ................................................................................................................... 11
    [Show full text]
  • Italian Politics, 31(1), Pp
    City Research Online City, University of London Institutional Repository Citation: Hill, C., Silvestri, S. and Cetin, E. (2016). Migration and the challenges of Italian multiculturalism. Italian Politics, 31(1), pp. 225-242. doi: 10.3167/ip.2016.310114 This is the accepted version of the paper. This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent repository link: https://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/15841/ Link to published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/ip.2016.310114 Copyright: City Research Online aims to make research outputs of City, University of London available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the author(s) and/or copyright holders. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to. Reuse: Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. City Research Online: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/ [email protected] 1 Christopher Hill, Sara Silvestri and Elif Cetin, ‘Migration and the challenges of Italian multiculturalism’, Italian Politics, no.31, issue 1, 2016 ABSTRACT The migration crisis is analysed here in the context of the fundamental challenges which Italy faces through becoming a country of immigration in a period of recession. It is argued that there has been no serious debate in Italy on multiculturalism, or on religious freedom, despite the growing socio-cultural and religious diversity arising from population movements and international conflict.
    [Show full text]
  • Europe-And-Islam.Pdf
    Laurent Basanese, Bert Broeckaert, Stanisław Grodź, Timo Aytaç Güzelmansur, Damian Howard, Luboš Kropáček, Michaela Moravčíková, Francesco Zannini, Cornelis Hulsman EUROPE AND ISLAM Proceedings of the international conference held on 3rd of March – 4th of March 2015, Olomouc, Czech Republic Jaroslav Franc (ed.) OLOMOUC 2015 This publication has been produced with the assistence of the Education for Competitiveness Operational Programme (ECOP) Institute for Intercultural, Interreligious and Ecumenical Research and Dialogue, CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0154. ISBN 978-80-7412-194-4 © Refugium Velehrad-Roma, s.r.o., 2015 Editor Jaroslav Franc Typeset by Tomáš Černošek and Tomáš Karczub Published by Refugium Velehrad-Roma, s.r.o. Křížkovského 4, 772 01 Olomouc e-mail: [email protected] www.refugium.cz Printed by Matice cyrilometodějská, s.r.o. Contents Pavel Ambros Christian Bravery, Islam and Europe .........................................7 Jaroslav Franc (ed.) Europe has changed: an introduction ...................................... 10 PLENARY SESSIONS Laurent Basanese SJ (France) The Question of “True Islam”: Europe faces Salafism ..............17 Bert Broeckaert (Belgium) European Muslims and End of Life Ethics: A Belgian Perspective ...............................................................50 Stanisław Grodź SVD (Poland) Muslim Presence in Poland – A Marginal Issue in Contemporary Europe? ...........................77 Timo Güzelmansur (Germany) Muslimische Präsenz in Deutschland und Antwort der katholischen Kirche – eine Zusammenstellung
    [Show full text]
  • Muslims in Europe: a Short Introduction Justin Vaisse
    US – EUROPE ANALYSIS SERIES September 2008 Muslims in Europe: A short introduction Justin Vaisse This paper aims to briefly present the basic Eastern Europeans moving west", even though facts and issues concerning Muslims in Europe, a) not all of the migrants from this region are from a political and sociological perspective, Muslims, b) "Eastern Europeans" would never be and to offer elements of comparison with the labeled "Orthodox" or "Catholics", and c) that is US.1 There will be a slight emphasis on France, not the issue anyway, since the article is about due to author's area of specialty – and to the immigration. For a couple of weeks in fact that France is home to the largest Muslim November 2005, the media used the term population in Europe. "Muslims riots in France" to describe the wave of urban violence that resulted in burnt cars and property damage. But these riots had nothing ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Justin Vaisse is a to do with Islam, and everything to do with the Senior Fellow in the Center on the social and economic conditions of largely United States and Europe at the immigrant communities. Muslim groups, who Brookings Institution. tried to play a mediating role, discovered themselves to be irrelevant and powerless. A few popular myths about Islam in Europe Myth #2: Muslims in Europe are, in one way or should first be dispelled, in order to grasp the the other, inherently foreign, the equivalent of real issues and challenges: visiting Middle-Easterners who are alien to the "native" culture. Myth #1: Being Muslim constitutes a fixed identity, sufficient to fully characterize a person.
    [Show full text]
  • Islam Councils
    THE MUSLIM QUESTION IN EUROPE Peter O’Brien THE MUSLIM QUESTION IN EUROPE Political Controversies and Public Philosophies TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia • Rome • Tokyo TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 www.temple.edu/tempress Copyright © 2016 by Temple University—Of Th e Commonwealth System of Higher Education All rights reserved Published 2016 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: O’Brien, Peter, 1960– author. Title: Th e Muslim question in Europe : political controversies and public philosophies / Peter O’Brien. Description: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : Temple University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2015040078| ISBN 9781439912768 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781439912775 (paper : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781439912782 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Muslims—Europe—Politics and government. | Islam and politics—Europe. Classifi cation: LCC D1056.2.M87 O27 2016 | DDC 305.6/97094—dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040078 Th e paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992 Printed in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Andre, Grady, Hannah, Galen, Kaela, Jake, and Gabriel Contents Acknowledgments ix 1 Introduction: Clashes within Civilization 1 2 Kulturkampf 24 3 Citizenship 65 4 Veil 104 5 Secularism 144 6 Terrorism 199 7 Conclusion: Messy Politics 241 Aft erword 245 References 249 Index 297 Acknowledgments have accumulated many debts in the gestation of this study. Arleen Harri- son superintends an able and amiable cadre of student research assistants I without whose reliable and competent support this book would not have been possible.
    [Show full text]