Studi Emigrazione – settembre 2002 – n.147

In the last decades, Islam has made his appearance in the Euro­pean context: in the duration of a generation, it has become the second religious community in Europe (and in Italy), ranking second after Christianity. Islam is, today, a definitive and irreversible presence – a turning point in history for “the West”, and for Islam itself.
As a matter of fact, in Europe we are witnessing a process of “de-ethnicisation” of Islam, meaning a progressive-even if incomplete and not inevitable – detachment from its own ethnic, national and lin­guistic roots. In the meanwhile, a process of “Europeisation” is under way. There appears to be a shift from an Islam which is only “physi­cally” in Europe, to an Islam that is a product of Europe itself, as high­lighted in the article by Stefano Allievi (Editor of the Special Issue), Is­lam in Europe, European Islam.
Within European societies, the idea of multiculturalism itself is be­ing challenged, in relation to the growing importance of Islam. The ar­ticle by Felice Dassetto, European Islam, multiculturalism and the complexity of pluralism, underlines the crucial theoretical questions raised by the presence of Islam in Europe.