Islam in Italy

Legal status

Islam is not formally recognised by the state. The official recognition of a religion different from Catholicism on behalf of the Italian Government is in fact to be approved by the President of the Republic under request of the Italian Minister of the Interior, following a signed agreement between the proposing religious community and the government. Such recognition does not merely depend on the number of followers of a given religion, and it requires congruence between the proposing religion principles and the Constitution. Official recognition gives an organised religion a chance to benefit from a national "religion tax", known as the Eight per thousand. Other religions, including Judaism and smaller groups, such as the Assemblies of God, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Seventh-Day Adventists, already enjoy the official recognition in the form of signed agreements with the Italian government. In 2005, a council composed of Muslim people, the Council for Italian Islam, was founded by the Italian Minister of the Interior. Strong disagreement between Council members slows its work.

Saracens

The Italian island of Pantelleria (which lies between the western tip of Sicily and North Africa) was conquered by the Arabs in 700. The Arabs had earlier raided Roman Sicily in 652, 667 and 720 A.D.; Syracuse in the eastern end of the island was occupied for the first time temporarily in 708, but a planned invasion in 740 failed due to a rebellion of the Berbers of the Maghreb that lasted until 771 and civil wars in Ifriqiya lasting until 799. Arabian attacks on the island of Sardinia, less important than those on Sicily, failed to achieve its conquest although they induced its separation from the Roman Empire, giving birth to a period of Sardinian independence, the era of the giudicati.

Conquest of Sicily

According to some sources, the conquest was spurred by Euphemius, a Byzantine commander who feared punishment by Emperor Michael II for a sexual indiscretion. After a short-lived conquest of Syracuse, he was proclaimed emperor but was compelled by loyal forces to flee to the court of Ziyadat Allah in Africa. The latter agreed to conquer Sicily, with the promise to leave it to Euphemius in exchange for a yearly tribute. To end the constant mutinies of his army, the Aghlabid magistrate of Ifriqiya sent Arabian, Berber, and Andalusian rebels to conquer Sicily in 827, 830 and 875, led by, amongst others, Asad ibn al-Furat. Palermo fell to them in 831, followed by Messina in 843, Syracuse in 878. In 902 the Ifriqiyan magistrate himself led an army against the island, seizing Taormina in 902. Reggio Calabria on the mainland fell in 918, and in 964 Rometta, the last remaining Byzantine toehold on Sicily.

Under the Muslims, agriculture in Sicily prospered and became export oriented. Arts and crafts flourished in the cities. Palermo, the Muslim capital of the island, had 300,000 inhabitants at that time, more than all the cities of Germany combined. The local population conquered by the Muslims were Romanized Catholic Sicilians in Western Sicily and partially Greek speaking Christians, mainly in the eastern half of the island, but there were also a significant number of Jews. These conquered people were afforded a limited freedom of religion under the Muslims as dhimmi, but were subject to some restrictions. The dhimmi were also required to pay the jizya, or poll tax, and the kharaj or land tax, but were exempt from the tax that Muslims had to pay (Zakaat). Under Arab rule there were different categories of Jizya payers, but their common denominator was the payment of the Jizya as a mark of subjection to Muslim rule in exchange for protection against foreign and internal aggression. The conquered population could avoid this subservient status simply by converting to Islam. Whether by honest religious conviction or societal compulsion large numbers of native Sicilians converted to Islam. However, even after 100 years of Islamic rule, numerous Greek-speaking Christian communities prospered, especially in north-eastern Sicily, as dhimmi. This was largely a result of the Jizya system which allowed co-existence. This co-existence with the conquered population fell apart after the reconquest of Sicily, particularly following the death of King William II of Sicily in 1189. By the mid-11th century, Muslims made up the majority of the population of Sicily.

Emirates in Apulia

From Sicily, the Muslims launched attacks on the mainland and devastated Calabria. In 835 and again in 837, the Duke of Naples was fighting against the Duke of Benevento and appealed to the Sicilian Muslims for help. In 840 Taranto and Bari fell to the Muslims, and in 841 Brindisi. Muslims attacks on Rome failed in 843, 846 and 849. In 847 Taranto, Bari and Brindisi declared themselves emirates independent from the Aghlabids. For decades the Muslims ruled the Mediterranean and attacked the Italian coastal towns. Muslims occupied Ragusa in Sicily between 868 and 870.

Only after the fall of Malta in 870 did the occidental Christians succeed in setting up an army capable of fighting the Muslims. Over the next two decades, most of the mainland was freed from Muslim rule. The Franco-Roman emperor Louis II conquered Brindisi and beat the Arabs at Bari in 871, but then fell captive to the Aghlabids. In his stead the Byzantines conquered Taranto in 880. In 882 the Muslims had founded at the mouth of Garigliano between Naples and Rome a new base further in the north, which was in league with Gaeta, and had attacked Campania as well as Sabinia in Lazio. A hundred years later the Byzantines called the Sicilian Muslims for support against a campaign of German emperor Otto II. They beat Otto at the battle of Stilo in 982 and for the next 100 years largely succeeded in preventing his successors from entering southern Italy.

In 1002 A Venetian fleet defeats Muslims besieging Bari. After the Aghlabids were defeated in Ifriqiya as well, Sicily fell in the 10th century to their Fatimid successors, but claimed independence after fights between Sunni and Shia Muslims under the Kalbids.

Raids in Piedmont

After they had conquered the Visigoth Kingdom in Spain (729-765), the Arabs and Berbers from Septimania and Narbonne carried out raids into northern Italy, and in 793 again invaded southern France (Nice 813, 859 and 880). In 888 Andalusian Muslims set up a new base in Fraxinet near Fréjus in French Provence, from where they started raids along the coast and in inner France.

In 915, after the Battle of Garigliano, the Muslims lost their base in southern Lazio. In 926 King Hugh of Italy called the Muslims to fight against his northern Italian rivals. In 934 and 935 Genoa and La Spezia were attacked, followed by Nice in 942. In Piedmont the Muslims got as far as Asti and Novi, and also moved northwards along the Rhône valley and the western flank of the Alps. After defeating Burgundian troops, in 942-964 they conquered Savoy and occupied a part of Switzerland (952-960). To fight the Arabs, Emperor Berengar I, Hugh’s rival, called the Hungarians, who in their turn devastated northern Italy. As a result of the Muslim defeat at the Battle of Tourtour, Fraxinet was lost and razed by the Christians in 972. Thirty years later, in 1002, Genoa was invaded, and in 1004 Pisa.

Pisa and Genoa joined forces to end Muslim rule over Corsica (Islamic 810/850-930/1020) and Sardinia. In Sardinia in 1015 the fleet of the Andalusian lord of Dénia come from Spain, settled a temporary military camp as a logistic base to control Tyrrhenian Sea and Italian peninsula, but in 1016 the fleet was forced to leave its base due to the military intervention of maritime republics of Genoa and Pisa.

Sicily under the Normans

The cultural and economical bloom in Sicily that had started under the Kalbids was interrupted by internecine fights, followed by invasions by the Tunisian Zirids (1027), Pisa (1030–1035), and the Romans (1027 onwards). Eastern Sicily (Messina, Syracuse and Taormina) was captured by the Byzantines in 1038–1042. In 1059 Normans from southern Italy, led by Roger I, invaded the island. The Normans conquered Reggio in 1060 (conquered by the Romanin 1027). Messina fell to the Normans in 1061; an invasion by the Algerian Hammadids to preserve Islamic rule was thwarted in 1063 by the fleets of Genoa and Pisa. The loss of Palermo in 1072 and of Syracuse in 1088 could not be prevented. Noto and the last Muslim strongholds on Sicily fell in 1091. In 1090–91 the Normans also conquered Malta; Pantelleria fell in 1123.

A small Muslim population remained on Sicily under the Normans. Roger II hosted at his court, among others, the famous geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi and the poet Muhammad ibn Zafar. At first, Muslims were tolerated by the Normans, but soon pressure from the Popes led to their increasing discrimination; most mosques were destroyed or made into churches. The first Sicilian Normans did not take part in the Crusades, but they undertook a number of invasions and raids in Ifriqiya, before they were defeated there after 1157 by the Almohads.

This peaceful coexistence in Sicily finally ended with the death of King William II in 1189. The Muslim elite emigrated at that time. Their medical knowledge was preserved in the Schola Medica Salernitana; an Arabian-Roman-Norman synthesis in art and architecture survived as Sicilian Romanesque. The remaining Muslims fled, for example to Caltagirone on Sicily, or hid out in the mountains and continued to resist against the Hohenstaufen dynasty, who ruled the island from 1194 on. In the heartland of the island, the Muslims declared Ibn Abbad the last Emir of Sicily.

To end this upheaval, emperor Frederick II, himself a Crusader, instigated a policy to rid Sicily of the few remaining Muslims. This cleansing was done in small part under Papal influence but mostly in order to create a loyal force of troops which could not be influenced by non-Christian infiltrators. In 1224–1239 he deported every single Muslim from Sicily to an autonomous colony under strict military control (so that they could not infiltrate non-Muslim areas) in Lucera in Apulia. Muslims were recruited however by Frederick in the army and constituted his faithful personal bodyguard, since they had no connection to his political rivals. In 1249 he ejected the Muslims from Malta as well. Lucera was returned to the Christians in 1300 at the instigation of the pope by King Charles II of Naples. Muslims were forcefully converted, killed or expelled from Europe . However a Muslim community was still recorded in Apulia in 1336 and very recently in 2009, a genetic study revealed a small genetic Northwest African contribution among today's inhabitants near the region of Lucera.

15th century: Ottomans in Otranto

During this century, the Ottoman Empire was expanding mightily in southeastern Europe. It completed the absorption of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 under Sultan Mehmet II by conquering Constantinople and Galata. It seized Genoa's last bastions in the Black Sea in 1475 and Venice's Greek colony of Euboea in 1479. Turkish troops invaded the Friuli region in northeastern Italy in 1479 and again in 1499–1503. The Apulian harbor town of Otranto, located about 100 kilometers southeast of Brindisi, was seized in 1480 (Ottoman invasion of Otranto), but the Turks were routed there in 1481 by an alliance of several Italian city-states, Hungary and France led by the prince Alphonso II of Naples, when Mehmet died and a war for his succession broke out. Cem Sultan, pretender to the Ottoman throne, was defeated despite being supported by the pope; he fled with his family to the Kingdom of Naples, where his male descendants were bestowed with the title of Principe de Sayd by the Pope in 1492. They lived in Naples until the 17th century and in Sicily until 1668 before relocating to Malta.

Attacks in the 16th century

It is a subject of debate whether Otranto was meant to be the base for further conquests. In any case, the Ottoman sultans had not given up their ambition to take over the Italian Peninsula and to install Islamic sovereignty. After the conquests of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Hungary in 1526 and the defeat of the Turkish army at Vienna in 1529, Turkish fleets again attacked southern Italy. Reggio was sacked in 1512 by the famous Turkish leader Khayr al-Din, better known by the nickname of Barbarossa; in 1526 the Turks attacked Reggio again, but this time suffered the setback and are forced to turn their sights elsewhere. In 1538 they defeated the Venetian Fleet. In 1539 Nice was raided by the Barbary states (Siege of Nice), but an attempted Turkish landing on Sicily failed, as did the attempted conquest of Pantelleria in 1553 and the siege of Malta in 1565.

Next to Spain, the biggest contribution to the victory of the Christian "Holy League" in the battle of Lepanto in 1571 was made by the Republic of Venice, which between 1423 and 1718 fought eight costly wars against the Ottoman Empire. In 1594 the city of Reggio was again sacked by Scipione Sinan Cicala, a renegade who converted to Islam

Present day

According to latest Italian official statistics, Muslims are 1.850.000-2.250.000 (3,1-3,7% of italian population), one third of Italy's foreign population (250.000 are italian citizens). The majority of Muslims in Italy are Sunni, with a Shi'ite minority. There are also a few Ahmadi Muslims in the country.

Despite illegal immigrants representing a minority of the Muslims in Italy, the issue of Islam in contemporary Italy has been linked by some political parties (particularly the Lega Nord) with immigration, and more specifically illegal immigration. Immigration has become a prominent political issue, as reports of boatloads of illegal immigrants (or clandestini) dominate news programmes, especially in the summertime. Police forces have not had great success in intercepting many of the thousands of clandestini who land on Italian beaches, mainly because of the sheer length of the Italian coastline, some 8,000 km in total. However, many of the clandestini landing in Italy are only using the country as a gateway to other EU nations, due to the fact that Italy offers fewer economic opportunities and social welfare for them than Germany, France, or the United Kingdom.

While in Medieval times the Muslim population was almost totally concentrated in Insular Sicily and the southern mainland, especially Apulia and Calabria, it is today more evenly distributed, with almost 60% of Muslims living in the North of Italy, 25% in the Centre, and only 15% in the South. Muslims form a lower proportion of immigrants than in previous years, as the latest statistical reports by the Italian Ministry of Interior and Caritas indicate that the share of Muslims among new immigrants has declined from over 50% at the beginning of the 1990s (mainly Albanians and Moroccans) to less than 25% in the following decade.

Recent points of contention between native Italians and the Muslim immigrant population include the presence of crucifixes in public buildings, including school classrooms, government offices, and hospital wards. Adel Smith has attracted considerable media attention by demanding that crucifixes in public facilities be removed. The Italian Council of State, in the Sentence No. 556, 13 February 2006, confirmed the display of the crucifix in government sponsored spaces. Smith was subsequently charged with defaming the Catholic religion in 2006.

In November 2016 Italian minister of the interior Angelino Alfano reported that Italy had deported 9 imams for inciting racial violence.

In January 2017 community groups representing around 70% of the Muslim community in Italy signed a pact with the government to "reject all forms of violence and terrorism" and to hold prayers in mosques in the Italian language or at least to have them translated.

Mosques

There have been a number of cases of extraordinary rendition of Muslim activists, as well as attempts by a past government to close mosques. In September 2008 the Lega Nord political party was reported to have introduced a new bill which would have blocked the construction of new mosques in much of the country, arguing that Muslims can pray anywhere, and do not need a mosque. The construction of mosques had already been blocked in Milan. The bill was not approved.

Organisations

A minority of Italian Muslims belong to religious associations, the best known of which are: