Islam and Me by Fazel, Shirin Ramzanali; Brioni, Simone;

Long description:

Growing up in Mogadishu, Somalia, Shirin Ramzanali Fazel was immersed in the language and culture of Italy, Somalia’s former colonizer. Yet when she moved to Italy as a young mother in the 1970s, she discovered a country where immigrants and Muslims were viewed with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion­–where, even today, she and her children must seemingly prove they are Italian.

In Islam and Me, Fazel tells her story and shares the experiences of other Muslim women living in Italy, revealing the wide variety of Muslim identities and the common prejudices they encounter. Looking at Italian school textbooks, newspapers, and TV programs, she invites us to change the way Muslim immigrants, and especially women, are depicted in both news reports and scholarly research. Islam and Me is a meditation on our multireligious, multiethnic, and multilingual reality, as well as an exploration of how we might reimagine national culture and identity so that they become more diverse, inclusive, and anti-racist.

Table of Contents:

Foreword
Charles Burdett

An Introduction to a Meticcio Text
Simone Brioni

Note on Translation and Alphabetization
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel and Simone Brioni

Dear Italy

My Daily Islam

Birmingham

Islamophobia

Contradictions

A Dialogue on Memory, Perspectives, Belonging, Language, and the Cultural Market
Simone Brioni and Shirin Ramzanali Fazel

Coda: A Note about This Collaborative Project

Acknowledgments

Notes

References

Notes on Contributors