Mosque plans bring controversy to Tuscan town

Jennifer Carlile Reporter • Profile • E-mail

COLLE DI VAL D'ELSA, Italy — For hundreds of years, Colle di Val d’Elsa has been renowned for its crystal and as the birthplace of medieval sculptor and architect Arnolfo di Cambio. But, the picturesque Tuscan town, situated on the road between Florence and Siena, may soon be better known as home to one of Italy’s largest mosques. That is, if it’s ever built.

The controversy over the planned construction has been brewing for seven years and has split the local community. The outcome here could set the tone for Muslim endeavors and integration across Italy.

“Those of us who live here are really afraid,” said Lucia Prizzi, who lives in an apartment beside the field and vineyards where the mosque will be built.

“It’s not right that the local government gave them this land without consulting us first,” she said.

Her sentiments are echoed on graffiti along a nearby wall: “No Mosque,” “Christian Hill,” and “Thanks to the communists the Arabs are in our house!!!” Another calls on the mayor, who supports the mosque’s construction, to build it at his house.

From emigrant to immigrant nation
Once a nation of emigrants, Italy has only had a sizeable immigrant population for around 15 years, and is still adjusting to the changing circumstances. Yet, in many areas someone from an adjacent town can still be seen as a “foreigner” — as they have a different dialect, cuisine, and patron saint — let alone someone from across the Mediterranean Sea who practices a different religion.

With one of the European Union’s highest unemployment rates, wages at a near standstill and prices shooting higher along with the euro currency, many Italians see little room for immigrant labor.  And since the rise of international terrorism, the growing Muslim community — now at around 1 million, or 2 percent of the population — is being eyed with even greater scrutiny than other immigrant groups.

After the July 2005 London transport bombings, dozens of suspected Islamic extremists were deported from the country. And in April, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government said it thwarted planned attacks by such extremists on Milan’s subway system and on Bologna’s cathedral, which houses a painting that depicts the Muslim prophet Mohammed in a Dantesque hell.

Feeding on the country’s fears, the political party La Lega Nord — or the Northern League — switched its platform of separation from southern Italy to kicking out all foreigners, but most notably Muslims.

Meantime, although there are more than 500 Islamic centers of varying sizes across the country, Italy does not recognize Islam as an official religion.

This charged atmosphere has affected life in Colle di Val d’Elsa, where the Muslim community and the mayor have been working to build a new, larger, Islamic center to accommodate the town’s growing number of Muslims and to promote cultural exchange.

‘A place to exchange cultural knowledge’
The historic center of Colle di Val d’Elsa — which means “hills of the valley of the river Elsa” — rests on a verdant hill, looking over the businesses hub where medieval facades stand alongside modern buildings.

On a recent Friday, the fruit and vegetable market was winding down in Piazza Scala, in the center of the lower town, as the muezzin’s call to prayer rang out from the current Islamic center, a former bakery with an entrance along the piazza.

As the imam lead the prayer, the small room filled with up to a hundred people. Men stood hip-to-hip, wall-to-wall, bumping each other as they bent over in prayer. On the other side of a cloth partition, women sat cross-legged, knee-to-knee, with children clambering on top of them and vying for room.

“As you can see, we need a bigger space,” said Imam Feras Jebareen, adding that “on religious holidays we are forced to rent another hall that can hold more people.”

“The idea came about to create a center that would not only be an area to pray but a place to exchange cultural knowledge and assist integration,” he said.

Plans were put forth, and in 1999 the town’s previous mayor, Marco Spinelli, approved construction of an Islamic cultural center in the Badia quarter’s San Lazzaro park on the edge of town.

The center would comprise a mosque with a dome and minaret, made from local crystal and covering 600 square yards, as well as a library, open air-courtyard, playground with basketball hoops, and parking lot. Pedestrian and cycling paths would link the center with the town’s sporting grounds.

“It’s not really a mosque, but an open structure for cultural activities as well as Islamic prayer,” said the current mayor, Paolo Brogioni.

Construction costs would be paid for by a donation from Monte dei Paschi bank’s cultural fund and the Muslim community, with the local council paying a small fee to the architect who drew up the plans.

Jebareen, the imam, said each working Muslim in Colle di Val d’Elsa was asked to give 500 euros, and that no outside country had sponsored it.

“We want it to be an Italian mosque, for Italian Muslims, that represents an Italian Islam,” he said.

Both mayor and imam said that the Muslim community was integrating well and that there had never been problems with the current Islamic center.

Opposition to the new construction therefore took both parties by surprise.

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