Abstract
This chapter’s intention is to analyse and reconstruct the role Imams play in relation to the religious care provided to Muslims in Italian prisons. In the prison context, one can notice some of the features that are contributing to the creation of a novel European Imamate. Based on a multi-annual empirical research study, it stresses the importance of the intensification or more often the recovery of religious practice as an alternative response, replacing total passivity as the reaction to the existential failure that a criminal sentence and imprisonment may represent for a prisoner. Such a practice should not be seen as an identity ‘refuge’ but rather as a complex cultural resource which can offer a symbolic heritage on which original interpretations and narratives can be built. The author analyses and discusses the forms religious care assumes in this context and how the actors combine religious communication and intercultural mediation, showing in particular the existing continuity with the community outside the prison, where a new Imamate is being reinvented. This reinvention results in a departure from theological traditions, through a dialogue that is both external, with public society, and internal, following the ethical and intellectual developments of the Muslim community.
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Notes
- 1.
The use of the term ‘religious’ care, instead of ‘spiritual’ care, is an intentional methodological choice. Both in the legislation on the topic and in other writings and conversations with the interlocutors consulted during this research study, all assume the two terms as synonymous. But I wish to keep the two terms as distinct, since we believe that the care that is provided by Muslim care providers is religious in that it refers to a precise and codified tradition (Sunnah), although within this there is a plurality, and it belongs to a group that is, at least symbolically, homogeneous (the Umma, or Islamic Community). Whereas the category of ‘spiritual’ (in the case of Islam, one would consider the Sufi tradition, and we found no instances of Sufi care providers in prison) refers to a relationship with the sacred that goes beyond identity and belonging, privileging instead the personal experience, over and above dogma and truth. On the ambiguity of these terms, refer to the interesting recent debates in the field of sociology of religion on ‘spirituality’. Cf.: Heelas and Woodhead (2004); Giordan (2006); Flanagan and Jupp (2007).
- 2.
Religious care provided specifically in prisons is the main focus of a multiyear research on Italian jails carried out by the author of this chapter, starting in 2004 and still ongoing. Furthermore, the care provided by Imams in various social settings was also the topic I addressed in three different research projects: the first (2011–2013) was a Programme of National Interest promoted by the Italian Ministry of Education and Universities (PRIN-MIUR—Programma di Interesse Nazionale del Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università della Ricerca Scientifica), conducted jointly by five Italian universities (Padua, Bologna, Rome, Turin and Palermo), which produced a national survey called: ‘Il pluralismo religioso in Italia: Per una Mappatura e un’interpretazione delle diverse presenze socio-religiose nella società italiana’ (Religious Pluralism in Italy: a mapping and interpretation of the different socioreligious presences in Italian society), directed by Enzo Pace, and in which the author coordinated the research group on the Muslim presence; the second (2011–2013) was a research study financed by the University of Padua called: ‘La leadership socio-religiosa dell’imam in Italia in prospettiva europea’ (The socioreligious leadership of Imams in Italy, seen in a European perspective); the third was a joint research and action project on religious care provided to Muslims detained in Italian prisons (2012–2013), carried out by Youssef Sbai as his project work during his Master’s on the Study of Islam in Europe, under my supervision. This last study involved mapping the Islamic religious care in all prisons: it included 15 semi-structured interviews and the preparation for a daylong training workshop at the University of Padua for about a dozen Imams from the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII), who were active care providers in the prisons of Northern Italy.
- 3.
As is well known, the Grounded Theory proposes an innovative relationship between data collection and theoretical organizing, and also between quantitative and qualitative methodologies: on this subject cf. Glaser and Strauss (1967); Strauss and Corbin (1990, 1997); Paillé (1994); Glaser (2003); Tarozzi (2008).
- 4.
- 5.
In recent years, the media have often stressed a correlation between the presence of undocumented (or irregular) migrants and the high number of immigrants in prisons, highlighting the considerable size of the Muslim presence.
- 6.
It is worth remembering the classic notion of the pluridimensionality of religion as proposed by Glock (1964): apart from the dimension of belonging, he also indicated as equally important the dimensions of experience, of belief, of knowledge and practice.
- 7.
On the prevalent tendency today, in the methodological debate on the sociology of religions, to combine quantitative and qualitative methods, cf. Berzano and Riis (2012).
- 8.
As far as the prison administration’s questionnaires on religious affiliation is concerned, Rosati and Fabretti’s report addresses the question from the viewpoint of the prison staff and comes up with a very credible explanation (Rosati and Fabretti 2012, p. 36).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
Cf footnote 5.
- 12.
The Imamate is a highly important institution for Shi’a Islam, which does not have a direct equivalent in the notion of Imamate pertaining to the Sunni Islamic tradition that the majority of European Islam recognizes itself as belonging to. On this topic there have been several scholarly works in recent years: Shadid and van Koningsveld (2002); Lewis (2004); Frégosi (2004); Cesari (2004); Cohen et al. (2004); Ciaurriz (2004); Saint-Blancat and Perocco (2005); Dassetto (2011); Caeiro (2010); Jouanneau (2013).
- 13.
Groups of Islamist detainees in the prisons of Arab-Muslim countries, such as Morocco and Tunisia (in the past), have referred to the rights envisaged in the international declarations in submitting their demands for facilities in which to hold prayer sessions and the request to be granted Imams as prayer-leaders.
- 14.
Important, for the topic of Imams, are the studies that Reeber (2004) devoted to the Khutbah (Sermon) in France.
- 15.
Cf. the references to Imams and prayer facilities in the report on religious care provided to Muslims in prison by the Ministry of Justice, in section III (Analysis and monitoring) where the results of the monitoring are described as useful contributions to the work of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Terrorism. Cf.: http://www.giustizia.it/giustizia/it/contentview.wp?previsiousPage=mg_14_7&contentId=ART149091.
- 16.
It is worth mentioning the initiative, that began a couple of years ago, of Hilal, a Moroccan association that benefited from funding from the Moroccan government and organized activities targeting Moroccan detainees especially during Ramadan. Cf. http://it-it.facebook.com/pages/Il-Carcere-una-Terra-comune173298056197427 /ةكرتشم-ةيضرأ-نجس ?sk=info
- 17.
Cf. Rosati, Fabretti, op. cit., p. 47.
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Rhazzali, K. (2015). Religious Care in the Reinvented European Imamate Muslims and Their Guides in Italian Prisons. In: Becci, I., Roy, O. (eds) Religious Diversity in European Prisons. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16778-7_8
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