Shi’a Women in Italy: Between Tradition and Traditionalism

Abstract

Through the case study of 20 Shi’a organisations in Italy, this article aims to explore the meanings of traditionalism and how it grows among certain Shi’a women who are members of these organisations. The article compares the two differing and antithetical ways in which Shi’a women relate to their traditions, one being spontaneous and emotional, the other rational and discursive. The primary objective is to show that the rationalisation of tradition, or traditionalism, develops only among women willing and capable of relating to their European host context. Instead of an organic tendency, Shi’a traditionalism emerges in this case as a reaction to Italian society, tailored to deal with the social concerns that surface in the Apennine peninsula. The social concerns eventually propel women to revamp their religious heritage.

1. Introduction

Muslim women have complex and diverse life experiences in Italy. The existing literature shows how these experiences are conditioned by the women’s national origins, migratory itinerary, and age. The differing aspects of Muslim women’s lives nuance their definition of identity and approach to Islam (Saint-Blancat 1999; Campani 2002; Pepicelli 2014, 2015; Acocella 2015; Corrao 2014). Despite offering useful insights on Muslim women’s religiosity in Italy, the literature remains silent concerning Twelver1 Shi’a women. Only a few ethnographic studies on Muslims in Italy have included information on Shi’a women in Milan and Rome (Lano 2005; Caragiuli 2013). These women deserve an independent enquiry because the strong ritualistic nature of Shi’ism involves ethnic language and ways of being that entail the particular relationship of women with their presumed ancient religious heritage. This relationship adds intrigue to their activities in Italy and ignites curiosity about the ways in which the past is re-lived by women in diaspora. Indeed, Shi’a communities are called “memory communities” because they are formed around a remembrance and commemoration of the past, especially in diaspora (Shanneik 2015).

Here, I intend to answer two interrelated questions: how do Shi’a women in contemporary Italy relate to their religious traditions and what are the factors that condition this relationship? The data to answer these questions were collected in 13 Italian cities from November 2016 to May 2021 through ethnography, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews.

Among 89 Shi’as, 28 women from Lebanese, Iranian, Afghan, Iraqi, Pakistani, and Italian origins were formally interviewed with pre-arranged appointments and a voice-recorder. The interviews were conducted in Italian, English, and Persian. Being an Iranian woman with a good command of Italian facilitated my relationship with the informants. Nevertheless, being unveiled outside of Shi’a worship places limited my access to some women’s gatherings. In addition, my nationality and competencies led me to focus more on Iranian women.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions during 2020 and 2021, the observations were continued through social media and online communities. The online communities proved to be strong instruments for data collection, both throughout the years of direct fieldwork and during the pandemic. Italy-based Shi’as had formed online communities well before the outbreak of COVID-19 to deal with a significant challenge; the Shi’a calendar, which features numerous mournful events, cannot be rigorously followed offline in the West. This is especially true in Italy, where Shi’as have neither conventional gathering places nor any organisation recognized as a religious entity under Italian law2. The non-religiousness of the Shi’a locals has created a series of difficulties for their attendees. For instance, the rituals cannot be held frequently or until sunrise (as happens in some nights of Ramadan). The online communities have since mitigated these problems and are sometimes even more active than offline communities. During fieldwork, I was part of two Pakistani groups and three groups related to intellectual circles of converts on WhatsApp. On Telegram, I was a member of seven groups of religious Iranians, as well as other Iranian groups created to celebrate important events, such as Ashura, but which were then abandoned. Some of these groups were women-only.

The Shi’as in Italy are mainly from Pakistani, Iranian, Lebanese, and Afghan origins (Mirshahvalad 2021). Iraqis and converts from Italy, Latin America, and North Africa are quite limited in number. They create communities or adhere to existing ones mainly to educate their young and transmit their cultural values, such as modesty and respect for the elderly, to the new generation (Mirshahvalad 2020a). This motivation to create a community highlights the literal definition of tradition. In its barest and elementary sense, “tradition” corresponds to a traditum or anything that is handed down from the past to the present. The acceptability of something as a heritage of the past is usually self-evident to those who are committed to that heritage (Graham 1993; Shils 1981). In this article the traditum corresponds to religious values. Common values handed down to new generations are usually accepted, exemplified, and transmitted without argument because they are considered ancient and thus authoritative (Acton 1952). As long as traditions are seen as simply repetitive behavioural patterns or familiar approaches to the world, people do not reflect on them. However, when people are confronted with dissimilar worldviews or customs, a reflection on their way of living may begin. Traditionalism is the fruit of this reflection.

Reflecting on tradition generates self-consciousness. Arjomand claims that the practitioners of a tradition develop self-consciousness “either in missionary rivalry with competing traditions or in the face of serious threat of erosion or extinction emanating from […] socio-political or cultural environment [of that tradition]” (Arjomand 1984, p. 195). Considering the Other as a threat awakens an otherwise dormant set of values that traditional subjects may harbour. The traditional person is untroubled and spontaneous, whereas the traditionalist is careful and diplomatic. The actions of the traditional person are genuine, because he or she has not yet faced an external threat. Thus, his or her actions are not reactionary and apologetic (see also Mannheim 1953; Munson 2000). The traditionalist, having faced said threat, justifies the authenticity of his or her belief system or defends it against the “competitor”. Consequently, traditionalists tend to rationalise and verbalise their belief as a strategy of resistance against an antagonizing force (Arjomand 1984). While the traditional person may know little about the foundations of their traditions, the traditionalist idealises and even creates the past. This unawareness among the traditional is caused by the fact that traditions are repeatedly transmitted to new members of the community as fixed codes of behaviour. The code of conduct is taught to neophytes to save or enhance group cohesion. It is why traditional behaviour is automatic and spontaneous (Hobsbawm and Terence 1983).

Religions are closely tied to traditions. Throughout history, women have had a contradictory relationship with their religious traditions. They have been both transmitters of the religious traditions (e.g., Romos-Gonzales 2005) as well as victims (e.g., Haeri 1989). Religion practiced in a new context raises questions over the nature of the relationship that women have with this heritage.

Based on the abovementioned definitions, and especially Arjomand’s explanation, women’s approach to the Twelver Shi’a tradition is explained through two categories, called “traditional” and “traditionalist”. Here, I adopt “traditionalism” as a heterogeneous and multidimensional device to explain tendencies that diverge from, and clash with, traditional mainstream Shi’ism in Italy. As we will see, the more women reflect on their religious heritage does not necessarily cause them to be more progressive, intelligent, or modern.

2. Activities of Traditional Women

First generation women are the primary female attendees of Shi’a places of prayer. Besides the interaction level between the sexes, the decision to involve women in roles of leadership or visibility depends greatly on male community administrators and, to a lesser degree, the women themselves. In the locales of Middle Eastern and convert Shi’as, the gender division is flexible or non-existent, and women occasionally organize activities. The Iranian Imam Ali Centre (AC) in Milan, the Imam Mahdi Association founded by converts (MC) in Rome, the Lebanese Tohid Centre (TC) in Turin, the Iranian Acqua Association in Milan, the Lebanese Nainawa Group in Pavia, the Iranian Muḥibbin Ahl al-Bayt in Padua, and the Lebanese Assirat Association in Como all belong to this category. The AC has two divided spaces, one being accessible to both sexes, with the other dedicated exclusively to women.

These organisations do not have a uniform strategy regarding women’s involvement in visible roles. For instance, the 2018 annual meeting of the Confederazione Islamica degli Sciiti in Italia (the Islamic Confederation of Shi’as in Italy: CISI) was hosted by the TC. In that meeting, the heads of the Shi’a associations sat in a circle and discussed their future programs. A Lebanese woman was present as a representative of the Nainawa Group of Pavia but was neither invited to introduce herself nor to speak. Furthermore, TC administrators would always crop the women out of the photos posted on their Telegram channel. One who had never visited the TC might have thought the TC’s headquarters was void of female space. Nevertheless, the TC had two women in its executive committee and another woman temporarily managing its accounting. Similarly, the Acqua included a woman in its steering committee for a short period. Unlike the TC, when the annual meeting was held inside the AC, female converts and Shi’a-born women, both capable of speaking in Italian and with views endorsed by organisation administrators, were invited to deliver speeches. The AC also posted photos of the women’s activities on its Telegram channel.

As opposed to Middle Eastern Shi’as, gender relations were addressed in a clearer and uniform manner within all the Pakistani “imam-bārghāhs”. There was rigid sexual division and women were completely excluded from any involvement in visible roles. The “imam-bārghāhs” were present in Carpi, Milan, Legnano, Prato, and Rome. Notably, an Afghan community held its activities in bars and sportive centres in Varese. The Afghans observed the same gender division, but the women were occasionally involved in visible roles alongside the men.

In all the groups, the women did not attend Islamic worship services as frequently as the men3. They usually lacked competence in Italian, which affected their relationship with the host context. The primary female attendees of the AC were the wives of Iranian diplomats and teachers at the Iranian school4. These women had short stays in Italy, did not know Italian, had little information about their environment, and had no interest in knowing it better. Some of them did not even go grocery shopping on their own and felt isolated. The Pakistani women who attended the “imam-bārghāhs” were in a similar situation. A few of them, due to their husbands’ prohibition, did not even have cell phones. However, being financed by the Iranian consulate (as stated by its administrator during the interview), the AC could afford a wide variety of programs compared to other Shi’a organisations, which were almost completely self-financed. For instance, the AC hosted numerous gastronomic competitions and programs for women. On those occasions, it was as if the women had created sub-communities within the Shi’a communities. These “communities within communities” existed both offline and online. They were the only spaces where women found the opportunity to leave their marginal roles and become fully engaged with the activities.

In the AC’s women-only gatherings, some symbolic elements were present that could not be comprehended by outsiders. The Iranian traditional sufreh nadhrī, or simply sufreh, serves as an example. Sufreh is an old Iranian tradition with likely Zoroastrian roots (Jamzadeh and Mills 1986; Omidslalar 2006). It is a gathering around a meal cloth spread on the floor, which has both religious and social functions. During sufreh, prayers are offered to the person for whom the ritual is practiced. Moreover, women use this occasion to reinforce the bonds of sisterhood or even to raise funds (Rahmani and Farahzad 2015).

In Iran, this ritual usually runs from mid-afternoon to early evening (McDonough and Hoodfar 2009). In the AC, the all-female gatherings were held before the mixed gatherings, so that women who so wanted could participate in both. On those occasions, the ahl al-bayt5 members were invoked6 as intercessors to resolve problems or obtain favours. The anniversaries of birth and martyrdom of the Prophet’s daughter Fatima were moments in which the women created their “communities within communities”.

On 19 February 2018, I participated in a sufreh organised for Fatima’s martyrdom. The sufreh of Fatima al-Zahra was announced some days earlier on the Telegram Channel of the AC with the expression “nadhr-e banī” (sponsor’s vow) as an indication that a certain woman had sponsored the banquette. On the AC’s Telegram channel, the women’s names are never mentioned or are referred to by their husband’s surname.

The sufreh started in the early afternoon. The women, all dressed in black, sat around a green7 cloth of lace spread on the floor. The sufreh contained bread, cheese, nut-stuffed dates, vegetables, fruit, and Ash-e Rishtih (an Iranian dish), besides small Qurʿāns, Mafatihs, sheets of Ziyara Hadrat Zahra, and candles. A middle-aged woman recited and commentated Hadith Kisa, and afterwards the Ziyara Hadrat Zahra was collectively recited. An Afghan woman who had just come from the hospital was crying for one of her relatives who was about to undergo surgery. After the sufreh, the weeping woman and two other women put salt in plastic glasses that were then distributed among the participants. At the end, each of the women tore off pieces of the green cloth, wrapped some elements of the sufreh in it, and took the bundle with a candle. They believed that whoever took a part of the sufreh (either foods or candles) would have to contribute to the same sufreh next year if her wish was granted, distributing the same objects as a gesture of giving thanks. In the early evening, when the sufreh finished, some women joined the men in the mixed hall where collective prayer, a sermon, Persian and Turkish elegies, and chest-beatings were performed by the men.

The high number of women participating in the sufreh, their low number in weekly gatherings of duʿā Kumeyl (led by men), and their almost total absence from weekly sportive activities were emblematic. At one time, the AC had organised various free female sportive courses with a female trainer to compensate for the absence of female-only gyms and pools in Italy. After less than a month, the courses were interrupted because there were no more than three participants. Indeed, even in the context of diaspora, sufreh remained the most popular ritual among Iranian practicing-Muslim women. They would hold similar female gatherings even for non-Shi’a reasons in their homes. For instance, in Milan I participated in another female gathering of traditional Iranian women with other symbolic dishes in the afternoon of the last Tuesday of the Iranian year, called Charshanbe-Surī. The women were keen on such gatherings. Even in Iran, traditional women prefer sufreh to the mosque initiatives led by men. The sufreh is preferred because of the physiological comfort and agency it offers to the women (Shirazi 2005).

Traditional Shi’ism in all its manifestations has components that are unexplainable to modern rationality. To clarify, as we saw in the abovementioned example, traditional Shi’ism considers sacred objects as abodes of spirits (Kerr 2012). By taking components of the sufreh, the women intended to save the barakat (blessing) with which the ritual objects had been imbued. Being a female and hence private affair, the organisation of the sufreh remains beyond male control8. Perhaps for this very reason, institutionalised Shi’ism has not yet allowed it within the realm of orthodoxy9. Clerics challenge the validity of these “female parties” to which men’s access is absolutely prohibited (Shirazi 2005; Torab 2007; Rahmani and Farahzad 2015).

During the sufreh witnessed here, it seemed that emotional involvement with the ritual depended on something other than religious belonging. Some hours before the event, an Iraqi Shi’a man called the author and asked if we could give a gift to his wife during the ceremony that he had bought and pretend that we had bought it. His Italian wife had converted to Shi’ism years before this study, but she was unwilling to participate in the women-only events. Her unwillingness was caused by her inability to communicate with other women. However, the Iraqi man had interpreted it as a signal that she was on the verge of abandoning Shi’ism. Through the gift, he meant to facilitate the integration of his Italian wife into the Iranian community. Nonetheless, the Italian woman came at the end of the sufreh, received the gift, and entered the mixed hall to follow the male elegies and prayers. The convert’s aloofness was due to elements of traditional Shi’ism having strong ties with local languages and popular beliefs. The comprehension of these elements requires familiarity with their specific social contexts, even when integrated into the religion. Due to the linguistic and cultural barriers, the converts in general did not manage to comprehend demotic manners of traditional Shi’ism or to sympathise with them. Therefore, what they called the “cultural part of Shi’ism” remained an unconquerable terrain of uncertain rhythm, far beyond verbal communication and the converts’ grasp (Mirshahvalad 2020b). Consequently, the activities of traditional Shi’ism were performed in either the physical or emotional absence of the converts. In their study, Inloes and Takim (2014) noticed the same difficulty American and Canadian female converts faced among the Shi’a-born.

Such cultural challenges also occurred among the Shi’as born of different ethnic backgrounds. For instance, the chest beating and chanting style of Pakistani women who were sometimes hosted in the AC (as they did not have a stable headquarters), and their absolute refusal to join men in the AC’s mixed hall, were strange to Iranian women. Whenever Iranian clerics, with their wives in black chador, participated in the Pakistani processions, they would destabilise the rigid Pakistani sexual division observed even on public land with banners. In the same way, an Iraqi woman was surprised by the rather sober Iranian chest beatings, which she sarcastically called “self-cuddling”. Traditional Shi’ism has developed different regional expressions with their specific aesthetic features and behavioural code, as have other religions and ideologies. It is very much dependent on the local milieu that compromises its universality. The differences are notable in the West, where the local languages of Shi’ism coexist10.

The ingenuity of traditional language is another characteristic that renders it incompatible with the institutionally established religion. On 15 June 2019, in an “Imam-bārghah” after the end of the Arbaʿīn procession, Pakistani women gathered in front of a small replica of the Imam Hussain shrine located on a table. They mumbled supplications, then touched the replica and rubbed their hands on their face as if they wanted to transmit the baraka of the replica to their body. They then dispersed and sat around the hall to await the collective meal. At that moment, a woman arrived with her young son. She asked her son to prostrate in front of the replica, as if he was praying towards Mecca. The spontaneous act of the woman, which would have scandalised the Shi’a clerical authorities11, was a genuine expression of the desire of a mother to transmit her past to her offspring.

Other examples of how the ingenuity of traditional Shi’ism clashes with the institutionalised religion took place during processions and mourning sessions. During the processions, Pakistani women in Brescia, Milan, Legnano, and Carpi followed the male group by a few meters of distance. The Pakistanis were very careful about maintaining this distance among the sexes both within their locales and outdoor events. In these occasions, the mourners would pass through the residential neighbourhoods and curious onlookers would watch out of their windows to observe the event creating considerable noise pollution. Nonetheless, nothing stopped the women from chanting. On 16 September 2018, I also participated in an Ali Asqar procession in Brescia. Around 50 barefoot Pakistani women and girls covered in black garments were conducting a slow procession behind the male group, which was carrying a symbolic coffin of Imam Husayn. While a woman was chanting elegies loudly, others flung either one or two arms up into the air and then brought them swiftly back to strike themselves sharply on the chest with either one hand after the other or both at the same time. The women chanted in turn and passed around notebooks or cell phones where elegies were visible. Witnessing this act was quite surprising, given that women singing in the presence of non-maḥrams12 is absolutely prohibited by the maraji.

On 23 September 2018, I further participated in an Afghan Muharram ceremony in Varese. The Afghans had rented a bar and divided the space with a black curtain. When I arrived, the chest beatings had already started. I was led to the female space where a chant in high soprano, mixed with the sound of palms hitting chests, could be heard from the male space. Some minutes after the elegy finished, two women passed between the curtains and entered the female space. I presumed that they had gone in the male space to photograph or film the men, as I was used to seeing among Iranian mourners. A while later, two other women stood up, passed through the curtain, entered the male space and a new round of elegies started. It was only at that moment that I decided to overstep the curtain and see what was occurring in the other side of the hall. To my complete surprise, there was a tribune covered in a black flag with the red writing of Ya Husayn-e Maẓlum. Behind the tribune, two women were reciting elegies with a microphone in their hands while the men were beating their chests in response to their rhythm. Sometimes, between two elegy sessions, a talk was given by a woman on Ashura and germane topics, to which the men were listening silently. This incredible overturning of roles was in direct contrast to outstanding maraji expectations.

3. Activism of Traditionalist Women

Besides the first generation of Shi’a-born women, there is a handful of women in Italy with strong socio-political motivations for activism. Their activism is aimed at the wider public and especially non-Muslims, whereas the activities of traditional women remain in ritual grounds and focus on reinforcing communal bonds. Thus, one is faced with two intellectually and politically different subjects. The activism of traditionalist women can be called “outer-leaning” or be conceived for outsiders and meant to justify and publicise the Self, whereas the activities of traditional women are “inner-leaning”, designed for inner consumption. The traditionalist women are competent in European languages and bureaucratic processes. They can interact easily with non-Muslims and European authorities. They are well educated and willing to develop ties with the European context. Some examples of this kind of relationship with the Shi’a tradition are presented here.

On 8 March 2018, the AC hosted a completely different, women-only gathering. Within this cultural context, International Women’s Day and the feminist rhetoric behind it lost its meaning. The AC supports the positions of the Iranian state, which considers feminism as a Western snare for disintegrating the family and masculinising women (Lola-avar and Shahmoradi Zavareh 2014). However, in 2018, the 20th Jumada ath-thanī (Fatima’s birth anniversary according to Shi’as) coincided with the 9th March (which was a Friday). As Thursday evening was the weekly appointment for this centre, the birth anniversary of Fatima al-Zahra was celebrated on the 8^th March. Both the sufreh and this ceremony were organised to honour one single figure: Fatima. However, the organisation of the birth anniversary diminished its traditional elements and, thus, the emotional involvement of the participants. On 8th March, the AC administrator had put some chairs in the typical classroom setup in front of a table with numerous presents and a bunch of flowers on it. Consequently, women instead of sitting in circle on the carpet (similar to sufreh) were seated for a lecture. The space arrangement suggested that the administrator had decided to replace the acephalous community with a hierarchical structure, wherein women were supposed to receive a unilateral communication. The women presented themselves in makeup and colourful dresses. There were even those who, due to their different outlooks, did not usually attend the AC. No supplication and prayer were recited and the clamour reduced the spirituality of the atmosphere. The language was composed of Persian and Italian and, consequently, two female converts attended as well. The coincidence of the two anniversaries provided a good reason for a female convert, called Chiara here, to compare “decadent” Western role models with the deeds and thoughts of the most prominent woman of the Shi’a tradition. I accepted the role of interpreter from Italian to Persian and vice versa as almost no Iranian woman in the meeting was competent in Italian.

Chiara had brought with her the French translation of Fatima Is Fatima (there is no Italian translation) by Ali Shariati. As theorised by Shariati, Fatima al-Zahra is an active woman who protects Shi’a feminists from clerics’ accusations of promoting Western feminism (Guolo 2002). Chiara depicted Western women as abused and objectified. She asked the Iranian women to involve Italians in their gatherings and to present figures such as Fatima to them. Her interlocutors, however, grumbled. The women were tired of this cliché of Western women that they had heard of abundantly in Iran via the government media. The participants wanted to comment on her speech and some even raised their hands, but the presence of the Iranian console’s wife stifled their interventions.

During my visits, the female converts usually preferred to sit beside me as I was almost always the only woman capable of communicating in Italian; Chiara did the same. After her speech, while the presents were distributed among the women, she came to me and complained about the fact the Iranian women did not communicate in Italian and did not invite Italians to understand Shi’a values. She regretfully remembered the wife of the previous Iranian consul, who was more willing to engage the outsiders. Chiara believed that Shi’as in Italy were not utilizing the full potential of their religion to proselytise and that was why Italians converted to Sunnism more than Shi’ism.

Chiara is a member of the European Women’s Council of the Followers of Ahl al-Bayt (ECFA), which is a remarkable expression of traditionalist female activism. It seems that a few years ago, the ECFA, which is the first of its kind, emerged out of a similar entity in Germany. The organisation is composed of converts of different nationalities and Middle Eastern women. It is not clear whether the ECFA is registered somewhere in Europe or if it has an informal structure, similar to that of the Iranian Islamic Student Associations and other European branches of the Ahl al-Bayt World Assembly. Since I was denied access to two meetings of this organisation in Milan and Turin, and the women there were not available for interview, the few pieces of information regarding the organisation were gathered through their websites in Persian, English, and Italian13, as well as one of their online meetings.

The ECFA, which seems to be a fringe of the Ahl Al-Bayt World Assembly14, has been active in Germany for several years15. It recently expanded its initiatives to many other European countries and, being German, has recently become European. The first meeting of this council in the European format was held on 6 May 2017 within Europe’s largest and oldest Shi’a mosque, the Hamburg Islamic Centre. The other meetings of this council were held on 28 April 2018 in Turin, on 14 October 2018 in Milan, and on 2 and 3 February 2019 in Oslo. The titles of these meetings, according to their posters, were The Defence of Women’s Dignity (Turin) and the Conjugal Rights in Islam (Oslo). In the online interviews, Shi’a female speakers complained about the “wrong” image of Muslim women in Western media and expressed their desire to promote the “right” image, namely women empowered thanks to Islamic law. These meetings had non-Muslim speakers as well. In the photographs, smiling women in black chador were present with their European, non-Muslim counterparts. The latter declared in interviews that the encounters were useful as they enhanced inter-religious dialogue. Many lecturers and attendees of these gatherings were male preachers and clerics whose presence conferred credibility to the women’s initiatives. Based on the available materials, one can presume this entity was formed to promote the long-awaited mélange between Islam and feminism as a locus of Islamic feminist political intervention.

Thanks to the pandemic and the absence of offline gatherings, the opportunity to attend an online event of the ECFA open to everyone finally presented itself. This event was held on 6 February 2021 for Fatima al-Zahra’s birth anniversary. The international anniversary hosted men and women from different European countries. Some Iranian clerics participated from Qum and some from Europe. Initially, women presented the ECFA’s activities in Arabic. Afterwards, an Ayatollah Khamenei representative and the head of the Imam Ali Centre in Hamburg, Muhammad Hadi Mufattih, compared Fatima to Maria and Asiya (the Pharaoh’s wife). Mufattih emphasized the superiority of Fatima over other blessed women and underlined her right in the Fadak dispute. Other clerics, such as Seyyed Hashem Mussavi, the director of the Islamic Centre, and Seyyed Murtada Kishmiri, the head of the Imam Ali Foundation in London, praised Fatima for her merits, both worldly and otherworldly.

As described by the clerics, Fatima was a social activist with an important political role who stood against Abu Bakr16 in favour of the Ahl al-Bayt’s right to political power. Nevertheless, no one had ever seen her because, when she went to the Kufa mosque, other women surrounded her so no man could recognise her. Hence, she was a perfect role model: extremely modest but socially active. In other terms, she represented both the ethical and political messages of the Quran. Dr. Mufatteh claimed that Fatima’s high level of modesty could even be observed today, where suitable methods are adopted. Women should stand for justice (as Fatima fought for Fadak) and at the same time safeguard the social unity of the umma with their modest behaviour and hijab. After the clerics’ speeches, women from different European countries presented the ECFA’s activities since its inception in their own languages. These women were European converts or Shi’a-born who had studied and lived in Europe for a long time and thus had excellent command of European languages.

By poising Fatima between visibility and invisibility, the clerics aimed at reconciling the extremely modest Fatima, respectful of the patriarchal system, with the demands of modern and European societies. They rationalised such a contradictory image, primarily forged by Shariati, to cause her to be desirable to non-Muslim Europeans. This Fatima was substantially different from the suffering mother of popular Shi’a piety.

The ECFA’s executive committee has members in different European countries. An Italian-based member of this entity, raised in Italy and called Sara here, was born to an Iranian father and an Italian mother who had converted to Shi’ism. She graduated from the seminary of Qum and teaches at the Milan branch of the Jamiat al-Mustafa. Sara is extremely active in both offline and online spaces. Her main collaborators are Italian traditionalist intellectuals and associations that share the cultural value of the Italian far-right front. She manages an Italian Telegram channel, entitled Fronte della resistenza al mondialismo (Globalization Resistance Front), where she regularly publishes multimedia materials that promote Iran’s foreign politics in the Middle East and Europe. She also shares content from neo-fascist Telegram groups on topics such as Italian identity, threats of globalization, the US conspiracy, and imperialism. She is the focus of a study centre’s initiatives that is linked to a publishing house of Italian converts, called Dimore della Sapienza (Abodes of Wisdom), where she expresses her ideas on geopolitics, international relations, and religion. She observes the dress code promoted by the Iranian state, namely a long wimple and manteau in dark colours. Her outfit differs from what one usually sees among second generation Sunnis in terms of colour and form. Nevertheless, thanks to her excellent Italian, she has built a considerable presence on social media. This presence has sometimes cost her the closure of her Facebook pages, as she publishes materials that clash with current Italian cultural and political values. As an example, on 19 October 2017, Sara published a Facebook post on the sacredness of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and her account was then blocked. A day after that, on her Telegram channel, she mocked “moderate Islam”, which is an expression adopted by the Italian authorities to define their ideal Islam for Italy.

Sara presents books, moderates events, interprets Iranian diplomats, and interviews like-minded activists. On 23 May 2021, during Israel’s attacks on Gaza, she organised and moderated a sit-in at the Piazza dell’Unità in Florence in solidarity with the Palestinians. At this event, supporters of various far-right and conservative organisations, such as a fringe of CasaPound Italy, the Florence Casaggì, and the Cerchio Publishing House, presented and spoke in support of the Palestinians. In all these initiatives, there is an intimacy between her and the other male participants such that they call her by her first name, as is typical in Italian gender relation norms. This female loyal supporter of “Imam” Khamenei and his extremist Islamic regime in Italy translates and publishes Khamenei’s sermons with his statements regarding various political issues on her Telegram channel.

Recasting the past is one of the instruments that traditionalism employs to rationalize its approach to tradition. On 22 January 2018, I attended one of Sara’s lessons at the Milan headquarters of the Jamiat al-Mustafa in the presence of five Italian students. She explained the history of Islam and talked about the concept of marjaiyya. Sara presented marjaiyya as an institute that has existed since the seventh century and even throughout the period of the infallible imams. She did not accept that marjaiyya had become as an institute only in the modern period and as a fruit of the evolution of Shi’a law.

I observed another new reading of Shi’a history to which women contributed during the Ashura Worldwide campaign. This campaign was initiated by an Iranian PhD student from the Polytechnic University of Milan to present the Karbala Tragedy to non-Muslims. During the Muharram of 2017 and 2018, I was asked to participate in the campaign because the organizers did not have competence in Italian and wanted me to act as a public informer alongside another Iranian girl who was raised in Italy. Many female Iranian students collaborated with the campaign, distributing water bottles and pamphlets designed and printed in Iran. The Iranian students who attend the Italian-based Shi’a gathering places come to Italy as visiting students for from six months to one year or to attend master’s and PhD courses in English. Their short stays in Italy and the English language of their university courses do not allow them to develop linguistic competence in Italian. They cannot relate to Italian society, but are interested in relations with the outer world, as opposed to traditional women. The Ashura Worldwide Campaign was created because Iranian students felt that traditionally commemorating the Karbala event would create embarrassment and provoke derision from Sunni Muslims, who criticised the chest-beatings in the public processions. As admitted by the campaign creator, the initiative was initially born as a reaction to the Pakistani manner of mourning (Mirshahvalad 2019). Sunni Muslims viewed the lamentations and chest-beatings as an inheritance from Jahiliyyah (lit., ignorance, the state of affairs in Arabia before the advent of Islam). In 2018, alongside a procession in Milan, while I was explaining to a Salvadoran man who had got off his bicycle to observe the procession and was very interested in learning more, an Algerian man kept interrupting me, saying to him: “Do not listen to her … they are all liars … they are neither Muslim nor Christian … no one knows who they are and what they want” (Mirshahvalad 2019). The campaign was thus a sort of defensive strategy against these accusations.

During the campaign, female students would hold quite long conversations with non-Muslims, a practice that was primarily sought by the women themselves and not the bystanders. The women eschewed the shyness and reticence praised by the traditional understanding of the modest woman.

The campaign took place in Rome, Milan, and Turin, where there are hubs of Iranian students. The pamphlet contained information in Italian on Imam Hussain and the meaning of Ashura. The students had extracted this information from Murtada Mutahari’s lectures (d.1979), published in a book entitled Hamasiy-e Husayni (Husayn’s Epic). In the third chapter of Hamasiy-e Husayni, dedicated to an examination of the similarities between Jesus and Husayn, Mutahari criticized the emotional approach to the “epic” of Husayn “fabricated” by preachers whose aim did not go beyond emotionally arousing the mourners. Mutahari believed that this approach caused conceptual distortions that originated from Christian theology.

The campaign organizers asked all informers to shorten the story and limit the narrations to Imam Hussain and a few important dates. During the campaign, the Karbala Tragedy had its historical context relocated to become comprehensible to outsiders. This operation inverted the process of mythopoesis, a three-step mechanism through which a historical event becomes a symbol capable of representing complex identities17. Here, the important question is why this face of Shi’ism should be accentuated to the detriment of its traditional and emotional face. What is the “problem” of nonverbal, performative, and symbolic methods of mourning, and what is the advantage of the verbal and conceptual methods of commemorating Hussain in Europe?

Mutahari was one of the ideologues of the current Iranian political system. The Iranian revolution and the theocratic political system that emerged from it are the fruits of Shi’a traditionalism having been provoked by Western imperialism (Keddie 1994). What causes Mutahari’s discourse to be suitable for such a pamphlet is its rational and discursive nature, which surfaced as a reaction to a presumed threat from the Other, namely the West. The demotic language of traditional Shi’ism, both in the Shi’a homeland and in the West, is incapable of dealing with the challenges of the West. It was why Ayatollah Khomeini would encourage clerics to learn European languages and travel to the West as missionaries18. In Italy, whenever social concerns are involved, Shi’as prefer discursive and rational approaches to their history instead of traditional rituals19. The abovementioned campaign was an example of this kind. Another benefit of verbalizing the tradition is that it becomes translatable to foreign languages and can thus affect outsiders. The Iranian students restructured the tradition by reinterpreting Hussain’s mission in Karbala. In light of the concerns in Europe at the time about the brutalities of ISIS, Hussain was presented as a peacemaker instead of a political agitator in the pamphlet. Moreover, to create distance from ISIS dress codes, the volunteers were asked to avoid black outfits. The female students, therefore, replaced their black veils with white shawls and even found the courage to provide flowers to male bystanders.

4. Conclusions

In this article Arjomand’s theoretical framework was adopted to address the two abovementioned questions. Regarding the first question, namely the nature of the relationship that Shi’a women have with their tradition, his theory allowed for an arrangement of the case. Through this theory, the differing approaches of Italian-based Shi’a women to their religious tradition were categorised into two analytical units: “traditional” and “traditionalist”. The benefit of the theory for the analyses of this case was not unilateral. Additionally, the case of Shi’a women in Italy was useful for the development of Arjomand’s theory. The adequacy of this case for such a breakthrough derived from the characteristics of the Shi’a tradition, its practitioners and its context of resettlement. First, Shi’ism is deeply connected to its rituals, which serve as repositories of the past. Second, women initiatives are traditionally kept private and beyond male access. This allows women’s initiatives to maintain their genuineness. Third, because of immigration, the West, similar to Mecca, has become a venue in which differences among local Shi’a traditions surface and Shi’as confront each other. Therefore, the process of self-awareness and becoming traditionalist accelerates. The student campaign to restructure traditional methods of mourning for a non-Shi’a audience is a clear example.

Here, the theoretical progress occurred thanks to the attempts that were required to answer the second question of this article, namely the factors that condition the aforementioned relationship. To add to Arjomand’s theory, the present article emphasizes the conditions that compel certain individuals to develop a traditionalist attitude more readily. As demonstrated by the Shi’a women in Italy, not all traditional subjects in contact with other traditions develop a traditionalist attitude. To cultivate traditionalist tendencies, the individual must conceive the situation as competitive or threatening; otherwise, he or she will not adopt the defensive strategies for shielding the Self. Therefore, the threatening feature of the Other is subjective and may depend on perception.

In the case in question, Europe is not threatening simply because Shi’a women live there. It becomes so only when Shi’a women are both capable of and willing to engage in its socio-political norms. Thus, the isolated, first-generation Shi’a-born women in Italy usually do not develop self-defence strategies, as neither these women nor traditional Shi’a men are concerned about organising public events to justify their ways of being. As observed, the first generation of Shi’a women attend the locales much less frequently than men. They live their traditions as private affairs without any desire to externalise it, rationalise it, or promote it. They consider the Italian social context unfamiliar and inaccessible, but not threatening. Traditionalist women, by difference, use the available tribunes to defend their cause against the “threatening” Other.

The main factor that conditioned the relationship between Shi’a women and their tradition, in this article, was considered to be the language. Competence in the language of the host society was a crucial instrument that facilitated the development of awareness about the surrounding social context. Language proficiency, on the one hand, put women in contact with prevailing social issues and, on the other, provided women the instrument necessary to defend what was understood as a heritage of the past. The discovery of the Other motivated women to reflect about the Self. The self-aware women used language and online platforms to disseminate new narratives about their traditions in Italy. These narratives were a reconstruction of the past to save the present.

Such a reconstruction had some consequences both for the practitioners of the tradition and the tradition itself. The propensity for the outspoken advocacy of the tradition offered a visibility to traditionalist women that traditional women were deprived of. The support for socio-political causes pushed traditionalist women to surpass traditional gender divides. While traditional women safeguarded their tradition on their own through women-only rituals, traditionalists appealed to subjects who were more exposed to the surrounding environment and were socially concerned. In the current case, the clerics and male ideologues primarily produce the universally accessible versions of the tradition suitable for the modern world.

Regarding the tradition, this reconstruction entailed mutations in the forms in which the religious heritage was expressed. Traditionalism sacrifices ethnic features and demotic languages in favour of universally translatable concepts. We saw that traditionalists verbalised their tradition, translated it, simplified it, removed its mythological elements, and historicised it. Conversely, the traditional Shi’as maintained their familiar methods of expressing tradition through ethnic languages. Consequently, traditional Shi’a women from differing ethnic backgrounds sometimes could not comprehend the ritual manners of the other group because the language of traditional Shi’ism is ethno-specific and culturally exclusive. Examples of this kind were observable in the encounters between Pakistani, Iranian, and Iraqi women. An ethnic language can only communicate with a restricted group of interlocutors, yet the isolation of its users from the outgroup is a key element in its genuineness.

The reconstruction of the past was exemplified by new narratives about Fatima and Husayn. These narratives were attempts for rehabilitating the building blocks of the Shi’a tradition in front of the Other. In this case, the reshaping of the past was not sought to provide progressive views but to introduce “better” alternatives for the “decadent” modern Europe.

Due to the abovementioned differences between the two approaches, continuity with the past in the case of traditionalists is largely factitious since traditionalist behaviour breaks with tradition significantly. The behaviour of traditionalist women is dissimilar to traditional Shi’a social prescriptions for women. Despite the clerics’ attempts to revamp the past to accommodate the present, women’s subjectivity and public personality diverge from the traditional image of Shi’a women, who are supposed to live and die anonymously.