Representations of the Islamic community in Italy 2001-2011

Abstract

In the wake of Oriana Fallaci’s highly tendentious but widely circulated representation of the relationship between the West and the Islamic world, a growing number of texts have been published which seek to provide more knowledge about the working of the Islamic community in Italy and about Islam in general. This article examines the different forms that writing of this kind has assumed and the issues that it has addressed. It looks at the ways in which various writers have sought to represent the changing physical and cultural landscape of Italy, how they have written on the relationship of women to Islam and the extent of the activity of radical Islam in Italy. The article concludes by looking at how writers talk about Islam as an internal actor in Italian society and culture not only in the present but over a much more extended period of time.