Transcending the ‘profane’: Shias’ space-making in Italy

Abstract

This article explores how Twelver Shia Muslims in Italy transform unpretentious gathering and worship sites into sacred spaces, and examines the nature of the sacredness imbued in these places. Shia strategies for space-making have developed in response to the absence of conventional gathering places, largely due to legal and financial constraints. In this context, Shias employ a series of interrelated and pragmatic methods to replicate the sacred spaces and times of their homelands. Rather than emerging from hierophany, civic religion, or Shia orthodoxy, the sacredness of these places evolves indipendently of physical structures. It is shaped through the intersection of ritual practice and practical necessity, reflecting efforts to address functional gaps in available time and space. These strategies reveal the struggles involved in constructing the sacred and demarcating it from the “profane” under conditions of legal and socioeconomic precariousness. The data for this article are based on ethnographic research and semi-structured interviews conducted in 13 Italian cities.