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Shari’a Law in Catholic Italy: A Non-agnostic Model of Accommodation

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The Sociology of Shari’a

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Abstract

The Italian Constitution and its interpretation by the Constitutional Court have led to the development of a model of accommodation of religious practices that seeks to balance a commitment to promoting religious pluralism whilst, at the same time, maintaining the neutrality of state institutions. What is distinctive about this quasi-neutral constitutional stance is the commitment to reduce the discrepancies between the legal and religious effects of key life decisions. I call this stance ‘positive secularism.’ In this essay, I would like to show that, thus far, positive secularism has been particularly effective in accommodating the demands of Muslim immigrants. For instance, some aspects of the Shari’a law, such as marriage and divorce (including some effects of unilateral divorce), are already recognized by Italian international private law. The second stage for the accommodation of Shari’a law in Italy is likely to be the recognition of Islam as one of Italy’s official religions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, Australia, QLD

    Vito Breda

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  1. Vito Breda
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Correspondence to Vito Breda .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Social Sciences, Western Sydney University, Penrith South DC, NSW, Australia

    Adam Possamai

  2. Grant Sawyer Center for Judicial Studies, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, NV, USA

    James T. Richardson

  3. Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University, North Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Bryan S. Turner

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Breda, V. (2023). Shari’a Law in Catholic Italy: A Non-agnostic Model of Accommodation. In: Possamai, A., Richardson, J.T., Turner, B.S. (eds) The Sociology of Shari’a. Boundaries of Religious Freedom: Regulating Religion in Diverse Societies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27188-5_10

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