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The grand Mosque of Rome is now the most prestigious mosque in Italy, unique in design, yet blending in with its surroundings. |
The Grand Mosque of Rome, the largest mosque in Europe, was the first mosque I ever set foot in. I was an ordained minister of the Roman Catholic Church at the time and I was visiting with a group of priests from around the world, attending Rome for a summer course on interreligious dialogue. The mosque impressed us all by its size and the graceful simplicity of its design. I never imagined that one day I would be Muslim myself. I do remember leaflets being handed out a year earlier when the mosque opened, warning of the need for a new crusade at the heart of Christendom to keep Muslims out of Catholic Rome.
Unthinkable Act
It would have seemed unthinkable until only recently that a mosque could be built in Rome, the Eternal City and the center of the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1960s, at the time of the Second Vatican Council, when the Church was rethinking its attitudes toward other faiths, a group of Arab ambassadors had raised the idea of a mosque for Rome with the Italian government. Opposition at the time meant that the proposal had to be shelved. When King Faisal of Saudi Arabia visited Rome in 1973, the opposition from within the government had disappeared. The building of a mosque seemed, for the first time, a possibility, and Faisal's visit encouraged Muslims from around the world to begin donating funds for the mosque project.
| The Islamic Cultural Centre of Italy held an international competition for the mosque's design. |
A site was donated by the City Council of Rome, covering 7.5 acres of woodland in a residential area close to Saint Peter's and the city center. The Islamic Cultural Centre of Italy held an international competition for the mosque's design, whichwas won by a team of Iraqi and Italian architects. The building was opened in 1995 . It is now the most prestigious mosque in Italy, unique in design, yet blending in with its surroundings. The Grand Mosque of Rome is a fitting monument of Islam in a city still suspicious of Muslims. I remember that on my visit we were kept waiting outside because the great gates were kept firmly locked!
Muslims, of course, are not new to Italy. There used to be a very strong Arab presence in Sicily and the South, reflected in the architecture and even in some Italian words that have been borrowed from Arabic. In the 11th century, however, with the start of the Crusades, Catholic Italy was not the place to be, and the Muslims left out of fear for their lives. There was no Muslim community right up to the 1950s and 1960s, when immigrants began to arrive from North Africa. Italy's Muslim population is now almost entirely made up of people born in Morocco, Albania, Tunisia, Senegal, and Egypt.
Fear and Suspicion
It is thought that about 25,000 Italians have become Muslim and 25,000 Muslims have become Italian citizens. The remainder of the estimated 1.5 million Muslims are immigrants, and therein lies the problem. Many of them have no proper documents and are present in the country illegally; that is just one of the reasons for fear and suspicion from many Italians. Add to this the general state of paranoia resulting from the so-called War on Terror, plus the domestic political scene, where one party is looking for secession from the rest of Italy and is actively campaigning for the expulsion of all foreigners, and we begin to understand the climate in which Italy's Muslims live.
| It is thought that about 25,000 Italians have become Muslim and 25,000 Muslims have become Italian citizens. |
Many of them left hardship, poverty, and unemployment, and came to Italy, at one time easily accessible without documents, looking for their dream. Dreams, however, do not always come true in this world. The far-right Lega Nord (Northern League) Party, which was a coalition partner in the previous government of Silvio Berlusconi, has called for their expulsion. The NorthernLeague even proposed a draft law to restrict the building of any more mosques, which it suggested were centers for recruiting fighters for Iraq and Afghanistan. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bologna, Cardinal Biffi, playing to a domestic audience rather than a spiritual one, even suggested that immigration be restricted to Christians. Islam, he claimed, was posing a threat to traditional Christian values, just as Pope Benedict has suggested Turkish entry into the European Union would threaten the Christian heritage of Europe. Only a few years before, Italy's prime minister had famously declared Christian civilization to be superior to that of Islam.
Calm to Troubled Waters
It would have needed a truly great man to bring some calm to these increasingly troubled waters where, as in much of Europe, events seem to be spiraling out of control. Such a man came in the person of Pope John Paul II. It was his personal intervention that had encouraged the authorities to grant permission for the building of Rome's mosque. In his tireless work of promoting dialogue and respect between all people of faith, that pope had also once recommended that Roman Catholics join their Muslim friends and fast for world peace on the last Friday of Ramadan. John Paul's outspoken views against the war in Iraq and against Israeli oppression of Palestinian people's rights made him less than popular in some quarters. During his final illness, Italian Muslims prayed for his health during Friday prayers, knowing that they were losing a friend. We all know that his successor, Benedict XVI, has been less than enthusiastic in encouraging closer ties with Islam, at a time when such a course is desperately needed.
So the Grand Mosque of Rome, then, is a beacon of Islam at the very heart of Christendom. Its architects took great care to make it blend in with its Italian surroundings, being at the same time faithful to a traditional Islamic style. The mosque, for example, makes plentiful use of gardens, fountains, and streams of water, reminding worshipers of descriptions of Paradise in the Qur'an, [flowing with rivers of water incorruptible.] Palms, cypresses, pines, and myrtle hedges are the setting for streams in stony beds. The effect is very beautiful.
| Islam is at home in every culture and in every civilization, bringing a simple message to people everywhere. |
Why, though, is there such a Grand Mosque in Rome at all? What place does a mosque have in the Eternal City? The answer is very simple. Islam is at home everywhere. There is no clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, as
some politicians would like us to believe. Islam is at home in every culture and in every civilization, bringing a simple message to people everywhere, that we should all submit to the will of Almighty Allah in order to live in peace with those around us.
Rome's Grand Mosque serves the needs of the local Muslim community, providing them with a home away from home as they try to fit into the new society they have adopted as their own. The mosque also has a library and conference facilities, and it disseminates Islam throughout Italy by talks and exhibitions. It also plays a symbolic role. Islam is the natural religion of mankind, and it has existed since the beginning of time. Islam respects other faiths and wishes to engage with all people of good will. Neither popes nor politicians will ever be able to silence its sweet and gentle message. From amidst the pines of Rome, Italy's Muslims are able to give witness to the greatness of Allah and to the universality of His Message. They remind Muslim minorities everywhere of their proud history, and they exhort them to play a leading role in the communities in which they live, while never forsaking their traditions. Muslims in Europe do not want to change the societies in which they live, but they do wish to enrich them, bringing the values of Islam to Italy and to Britain and to Denmark. Muslims are not a threat to Tony Blair or to the Vatican or to anyone else. Living as good Muslims, faithful to prayer and to their Islamic heritage, they can provide an example for all people of faith, and people of no faith at all, to follow and to prosper.
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