Second-Generation Muslim Women in Italian Mosques: Feminisation Without Feminism

Abstract

This paper examines transformations of Islam in Europe through the lens of the feminisation of religion, drawing on evidence from an Italian context. It asks whether this category—traditionally applied to Christian contexts—can also illuminate gender dynamics within Muslim institutions. Focusing on those Italian mosques where generational change is underway, sustained by the active involvement of second-generation Muslims, it shows that generational change has been accompanied by both a quantitative and a qualitative feminisation: women now outnumber men in several of the associations studied and increasingly occupy public and leadership roles, while also contesting double standards and reinterpreting their participation through religious knowledge and piety. These developments express greater female autonomy and authority, challenging stereotypes of Muslim women’s subordination and echoing aims traditionally associated with secular feminist discourse. Yet, as in the historical Christian case, such transformations unfold within a religious framework, advancing women’s roles through faith-based reinterpretations rather than secular claims to emancipation. These developments point to a form of “feminisation without feminism,” a formulation that signals a theoretical stance: these transformations cannot be fully grasped through secular paradigms of emancipation alone but require attention to the ongoing interplay between religious and secular logics in shaping female agency. The article thus contributes to understanding the plurality of modernities and the post-secular reconfigurations of gender and religion in contemporary Europe.

1. Introduction: Muslim Women and the Sociology of Religion Beyond the “Islamic Exception”

The study investigates the presence and role of women in Italian Islam through a well-established analytical framework in the sociology of religion: the feminisation of religious institutions. While this perspective originally emerged from the historical study of Christianity, it has since become a canonical category, also applied to Judaism, yet it has never been explicitly used to analyse mosques in Italy. Following Pace’s (2017) call to examine Islam through the classical tools of the sociology of religion before assuming their inapplicability, this article applies the notion of feminisation to the Italian case. It asks whether a process of feminisation can be observed within Muslim institutions, what forms and consequences it entails, and how these transformations in women’s roles and presence within the community are discursively legitimised—through secular notions of emancipation or through religious reinterpretations of piety. The results are situated within the wider debate on religion, modernity, and secular frameworks of thought.

Over recent decades, the sociology of religion has undergone profound transformations. Until the 1970s, when Christianity—especially the churches—was the main object of inquiry, the dominant reading was linear: modernity correlated with secularisation as the progressive exit of religion from the world (Berger 2011; Acquaviva 1971; Stark and Finke 2000). With the crisis of classical modernity, authors such as Giddens (1997), Beck (2009) and Bauman (2013) emphasised the deep transformations affecting its very structure. This, in turn, required a rethinking of how religion relates to this new phase. As scholars such as Willaime (2007) and Portier and Willaime (2021) suggest, what defined the relationship between religion and modernity in the past does not necessarily hold today, current articulations are more complex. Two key assumptions follow. First, it is no longer enough to ask whether religion disappears or persists; one must also investigate how it transforms, adapts, and interacts with secular discourses —a perspective that also guides this study’s attention to how Muslim women articulate their religiosity and agency in relation to secular frameworks of gender and modernity. Second, the decline of institutional practice has not erased religion but has fostered forms of everyday religiosity that persist and are reworked (Davie 1994; Hervieu-Léger 1998, 2003). Comparative studies have underlined the plurality of modernities (Eisenstadt 2017) and thus of multiple secularities (Burchardt et al. 2015), where modernisation does not necessarily marginalise religion but may even enhance its social significance (Berger 1999). In this context, a post-secular lens (Habermas 2008) becomes indispensable: one that moves beyond both the narrative of inevitable decline and that of a catastrophic “return of God” (Kepel 1991), and instead investigates the concrete ways in which religion survives, adapts and evolves in contemporary Europe.

Compared to these broader theoretical advances, Islam long remained an “impossible object” for the sociology of religion, seen as irreducibly other and therefore requiring exceptional analytical tools (Allievi 2005; Pace 2017). This produced an imbalance in the study of European Islam: while innovative contributions exist, the literature has been dominated by research on political Islam, radicalism, fundamentalism, the veil and security. Yet empirical studies show that European Islam departs sharply from Weber’s image of a monotheism subordinated to a political–military elite. Far from merely resisting secularisation or passively undergoing its effects, it transforms across generations, adapting to the individualising tendencies of modernity and developing creative forms of appropriation (Cesari 2013; Roy 2000, 2002; Göle 2000). In this sense, European Islam increasingly resembles other religious traditions on the continent: not disappearing or remaining fixed but reconfiguring in response to modernity. As Pace (2017) argues, it is therefore both possible and necessary to study Islam sociologically by privileging empirical analysis and avoiding reductionism and essentialism, and by mobilising the classic tools of the sociology of religion to interpret what fieldwork reveals; the empirical inquiry itself becomes the test of whether such tools are applicable.

Building on this premise, the study turns to the question of women and Islam in Europe as a field in which to explore how the classical tools of the sociology of religion can be extended beyond their traditional Christian frame. The relevance of this framework becomes clearer when placed against existing studies on religion and Muslim women in Europe. Many studies have deconstructed dominant imaginaries that reduce them to figures of submission, showing the plurality of meanings attached to practices such as the veil (Gaspard and Khosrokhavar 1995; Acocella 2011; Göle 2005). Others have examined public controversies around secularism (Bowen 2008), Islamophobic representations (Frisina 2007, 2017a), the female body in postcolonial perspective (Mernissi 2002; Siebert 2007), Islamic feminism (Pepicelli 2014), or forms of agency and identity negotiation (Salih 2008; Moors and Salih 2009; Acocella and Pepicelli 2015). Yet this extensive body of work has been primarily developed within adjacent disciplinary frameworks—gender and postcolonial studies, migration and citizenship sociology, or secularism studies—whose analytical premises differ from those of the sociology of religion. Recent contributions have adopted sociological perspectives that engage more directly with religious practices, beliefs, and experiences. Notably, Nyhagen (2019) conceptualises mosques as gendered spaces where women both comply with and contest dominant gender norms; Ghafournia (2020) examines women’s negotiation of authority and inclusion within Australian mosques; Scheible and Fleischmann (2013) analyse second-generation Muslims’ gender ideology in relation to religious practice; and Glas and Spierings (2022) explore how religiosity intersects with support for gender equality in Western Europe. These works represent an important step toward integrating institutional and religious dimensions into the study of Muslim women, yet they do not fully adopt the theoretical and methodological framework of the sociology of religion.

From this disciplinary standpoint, and in line with Pace’s invitation to privilege empirical analysis when approaching Islam in Europe, the present study adopts a lived religion perspective—an empirical orientation attentive to how religion is enacted and interpreted in everyday contexts (Ammerman 2007; Kupari 2020; Knibbe and Kupari 2020; Allievi and Calabretta 2025). Rather than starting from doctrinal definitions, it examines a situated population and the practices, meanings, and justificatory repertoires through which actors articulate their religiosity, without seeking to reconstruct the scriptural genealogy or the history of theological interpretations behind them. This does not deny the existence of contested passages or interpretive debates within the tradition; it reflects a sociological move to treat believers’ values, beliefs, and practices as empirical objects in their own right without requiring a reconstruction of the underlying scriptural or theological lineage. In keeping with Pace’s further invitation to test the applicability of classical sociological tools, the article mobilises the notion of the feminisation of religious institutions as its analytical category. In Christianity, “feminisation” refers to the increasing female presence in religious life since the nineteenth century and to the transformations this has entailed in practices, roles and representations. The literature has offered various explanations: some scholars argue that women’s higher participation in church life was linked to the evolving public role of the church and of gender relations, or a way for women to escape the hardship of their social condition (McLeod 1981); others point to processes of “gendering” in spiritual practices that acquire feminine connotations (Trzebiatowska and Bruce 2013; Watts et al. 2025); still others show how religion has provided women with opportunities for leadership and self-realisation (Blackbourn 1991; Curtis 2002). In any case, feminisation should not be understood only in quantitative terms but also as a qualitative transformation of religious content, language and reference figures. Matei (Varga) (2024) proposes four dimensions of the feminisation: (i) feminisation of personnel, with more women in leadership roles; (ii) feminisation of practice, with greater female participation in liturgies, sacraments, pilgrimages and devotional associations; (iii) feminisation of devotion and theology, with more sentimental religious content, growing Marian devotion, feminine Christ imagery, and emphasis on saints and mystics; and (iv) discursive feminisation, whereby gender roles are adapted to new social conditions.

In this respect, the conditions under which feminisation has been observed in Christian contexts—such as relatively stable institutional structures, established hierarchies, and long-term processes of differentiation between religious and secular spheres—differ from those characterising mosque-based organisations in Italy, which are marked by low institutionalisation, internal plurality, legal precariousness, and the absence of a centralised religious authority (Ambrosini et al. 2018). At the same time, these differences do not preclude comparison: processes of uneven participation, generational discontinuity, and challenges in the transmission of religious practice also shape these contexts. Feminisation can therefore be examined as a process that may emerge under different structural conditions, potentially involving distinct mechanisms while producing comparable transformations in the gendered organisation of religious life.

This raises a broader question: can the notion of feminisation, long used to analyse Christianity and Judaism, also illuminate the transformations currently unfolding in European Islam?

2. Context and Research Questions

Because Italy only experienced mass migration from the 1990s onwards, studying Islam in this setting means approaching a phenomenon still deeply tied to migration. It remains highly fragmented along ethnic lines, practiced largely by non-citizens, since the first generation still represents a significant share and many children of immigrants remain without citizenship, facing the identity and cultural challenges linked to their position as children of immigrants (Allievi et al. 2009). Only a minority of those with Muslim backgrounds regularly attend mosques (Allievi 2003), and an even smaller group takes part in the work of reterritorialising Islam through associations and organisations (Guolo 2004a).

Italian mosques—usually established as cultural associations—exist in precarious legal and social conditions (Rhazzali and Equizi 2013; Ferrari 2013). Located in garages, warehouses, or back rooms at the urban margins, they have long been marked by marginality: sometimes self-imposed, sometimes the result of administrative obstacles and institutional mistrust (Allievi 2013; Conti 2014). Beyond their religious function, these spaces have provided informal welfare, solidarity networks, cultural mediation, and educational services for migrant families (Ambrosini et al. 2018). While migration is a nationwide phenomenon, the majority of immigrants reside in Northern Italy, where Islamic associations are denser. The fieldwork for this study was conducted in four northern regions which, taken together, host more than half of the foreign residents living in Italy. The South shows a more concentrated pattern of settlement, mainly in larger cities (Rhazzali and Equizi 2013).

A distinctive feature of the Italian landscape is its ethnic heterogeneity: no single national group predominates, so no homogeneous ethnic districts have formed. Instead, Italian Islam is fragmented—rural and urban, polycentric and plural (Allievi 2005). This fragmentation has produced small, “ethnic” mosques—often closed to outsiders and tied to one linguistic community—alongside larger, multi-ethnic Islamic centres, especially in major cities, that are more integrated and inclusive (Bombardieri 2011; Rhazzali and Equizi 2013). No single body represents Italian Islam. Rather, a plurality of organisations reflects this complexity: some remain tied to the “Islam of embassies” (linked to states of origin), others to the “Islam of mosques” (linked to transnational currents and now working towards an Italian Islam) (Guolo 2004b, 2005). However, none of these organisations can truly claim to be representative of Italian Islam. Many mosques remain autonomous and self-managed, while the majority of Muslims have little or no contact with the world of mosques (Conti 2014). For the first generation, Islam has largely been a male phenomenon: not only because mosques were frequented almost exclusively by men, but also because they served as spaces of identity reaffirmation, a kind of “male society” facing family roles and social models challenged in Italy (Allievi 2002, p. 74).

Into this context enters the second generation. Although generational change is underway, few children of immigrants continue to frequent mosques after adolescence, whether for prayer, socialisation, or activism. When they remain religiously involved, second-generation Muslims tend to move away from ethnically homogeneous mosques towards multi-ethnic centres, where religion is distinguished from parental cultural traditions (Ricucci 2014; Acocella and Pepicelli 2015, 2018; Crescenti 2024; Mancinelli 2025). In many cases, this participation takes the form of youth-led associations composed mainly of peers and operating with relative autonomy from first-generation activities. These associations often have the stated goal of working towards an Italian Islam that allows people to live their faith fully and without contradiction, while also critically distancing themselves from their parents’ views and from the diverse dominant religious traditions inherited from countries of origin (Frisina 2005, 2007). These associations have played two main roles. First, they have incubated the small but active minority driving generational change within many mosques. Second, they have supported young Muslims in negotiating the identity and cultural tensions often experienced by children of immigrants (Frisina 2017b). Among these tensions, intergenerational conflict over religious transmission is key (Bossi and Marroccoli 2021; Ricucci 2017; Saint-Blancat 2004). The first generation experienced religious socialisation in Muslim-majority societies, where Islam was “social evidence” embedded in institutions, norms, and everyday practices (Roy 2002). Their children grow up in a minority context where religious practice itself carries declining significance (Garelli 2016), and where religion of obligation has given way to religion of choice (Davie 2008). As in other European societies, younger cohorts are marked by increasingly progressive values (Tiberj 2024). Religion thus ceases to ensure intergenerational continuity and instead often becomes a site of conflict (Hervieu-Léger 1998). Youth associations can be read as spaces of selective acculturation (Portes and Zhou 1993), mediating these tensions. Observing generational change in mosques can reveal the effects of children’s assimilation in Italian society on the Islam inherited from parents socialised in Muslim-majority contexts.

This article analyses a situated population—second-generation young Muslims engaged in multi-ethnic, mosque-based and youth-associational settings in Northern Italy—through their beliefs, practices, and moral values as expressed in everyday interaction. It treats Islam not as a fixed doctrinal corpus but as it is understood and enacted by participants; accordingly, expressions such as ‘our Islam,’ ‘cultural Islam,’ and ‘authentic Islam’ are analysed as participants’ own understandings and classificatory terms through which they draw boundaries, justify conduct, and identify legitimate practice. The study does not address Islam as a doctrinal system, nor Italian Islam in general; rather, it identifies transformations observable within specific institutional ecologies and specifies the social conditions under which such configurations can emerge.

Building on these premises, and drawing on Matei (Varga)’s (2024) typology, the analysis adopts a threefold framework, encompassing quantitative, qualitative, and discursive feminisation, and formulates three research questions that operationalise this framework within the Italian context:

• Will a generation raised in Italy reproduce mosques as “male spaces,” or will it foster processes of feminisation?
• What are the quantitative and qualitative consequences of this shift for women’s participation, authority, and internal discourses within mosque communities?
• Within a post-secular framework that questions the explanatory sufficiency of classical secularisation paradigms (Portier and Willaime 2021), how are women’s intergenerational transformations and claims to authority in Italian mosques discursively legitimised—through secular-feminist narratives or through religious reinterpretations of piety?

To address these questions, the analysis proceeds in three steps. The first and second address the first two research questions—whether processes of feminisation are occurring and how they take shape across generations—by analysing both the numerical presence of women and the symbolic transformations in their roles and participation. The third analytical step focuses on discursive legitimations, responding to the third research question by examining how women’s authority and visibility are framed within secular-feminist or religious narratives. The discussion then reconnects these findings to the theoretical framework, showing that feminisation in Italian Islam unfolds as part of a broader generational negotiation between religion and modernity: it challenges patriarchal structures and promotes new forms of female protagonism, yet grounds their legitimacy in religious reinterpretations rather than in secular paradigms of emancipation. In doing so, the study contributes to the renewed sociology of religion—no longer limited to measuring the decline of belief, but tasked with analysing how religious forms persist, adapt, and engage with the discourses of modernity.

3. Methods

This article is based on qualitative fieldwork conducted between September 2022 and May 2023 in four provinces of northern Italy—Mantua, Verona, Trento, and Bologna. In addition, I carried out ethnographic observation during festivals, seminars and congresses of three different Islamic youth associations. Data collection combined participant observation (Beaud and Weber 2010) and in-depth interviews. The core of the sample is composed of 97 biographical interviews with young men and women (51 men, 46 women, aged 18–37) who self-identify as Muslim and whose parents immigrated from Muslim-majority countries. Following Rumbaut’s (2004) classification, both 1.5 and 2.0 generations are included. The 97 interviewees (see Table 1) comprise two groups selected according to different sampling criteria. The first and larger group (74 interviews: 40 men, 34 women) was selected on the basis of active participation in religious associations and recruited in mosques that hosted initiatives for the second generation; because such participation is uneven across Italian mosques, fieldwork focused on settings where the involvement of children of immigrants was empirically observable, with multi-ethnic composition emerging as a recurrent feature of these settings rather than a sampling criterion. The second, smaller group (23 interviews: 11 men, 12 women) was recruited outside of mosque contexts using a snowball sampling strategy starting from the first group. These participants self-identify as Muslim but are not involved in any form of religious association. They served as a control group. The interviewees were selected across the city, the suburbs, and the countryside, in line with the typical Italian case (Allievi 2005), where migration does not concentrate in single neighbourhoods within densely urbanised areas but is instead distributed throughout the territory, both in urban and rural settings. The participant pool reflected the demographic and social profile typically observed in mosque-based youth groups in Italy. Most respondents were children of working-class migrants and were themselves enrolled in or had completed higher education. The main sampling criterion was mosque participation. Because the selected mosques were multi-ethnic in composition, the sample naturally included participants of diverse national origins (mainly Moroccan, Pakistani, Tunisian, Egyptian, and Bangladeshi), mirroring the heterogeneity characteristic of Italian Islam.

Table 1. Socio-demographic Profile of the Interview Sample.

	Affiliated	Non- Affiliated	Mantova	Trent	Bologna	Verona	Extra	MENA + SSA	South Asia
Males (51)	40	11	13	13	11	12	2	35	16
Females (46)	34	12	11	10	12	11	2	34	12
Total	74	23	24	23	23	23	4	69	28

To complement this material, I conducted 10 semi-structured interviews with imams and mosque leaders (first and second generation), focusing on the functioning of their structures, relations with local institutions, and their perspectives on generational change. All participants gave oral informed consent, and all data were anonymised according to ethical research standards. As a non-Muslim Italian researcher, I was generally received with openness and curiosity. Only one participant requested to be interviewed remotely and without revealing personal details. All interviews lasted on average two hours. Transcripts were analysed thematically through manual, iterative coding, combining inductive interpretation with reference to existing sociological literature. The coding grid, initially based on the research questions, was refined inductively until thematic saturation. Cross-checking between interviews and ethnographic observations was used to ensure internal consistency and interpretive validity.

In reporting the interviews, I distinguish between imam (a figure primarily devoted to ritual functions) and mosque leader (a more administrative role). When the interview concerns a first-generation individual, this will be explicitly indicated; when no specification is provided, the reference is to a second-generation participant.

4. Results of Fieldwork Analysis

The analysis unfolds across three dimensions corresponding to the study’s research questions and following Matei (Varga)’s (2024) multidimensional framework of feminisation. First, we verify the existence of quantitative feminisation in mosque participation (RQ1) and assess its implications for visibility and authority (RQ2). Second, we explore qualitative feminisation (RQ1–RQ2), showing how intergenerational change redefines organisational life, gender roles, social interaction, and moral frameworks within mosque communities. Finally, we analyse discursive feminisation (RQ3), that is, how these transformations are legitimised and narrated through religious rather than secular frames.

4.1. Quantitative Feminisation

The first generation of Muslims active in Italian mosques and associations is predominantly male. Leadership of major organisations has traditionally been exclusively male, and Friday or weekend mosque attendance remains overwhelmingly male. In mosques exclusively attended by first-generations, women participate mainly in specific events or festivals rather than daily mosque life. Many mosques lack dedicated women’s sections; when present, these are smaller and often empty.

This pattern shifts in mosques attended by second-generation Muslims. Even though it should be specified that only a few mosques are attended by the children of immigrants beyond adolescence. Overall, Italian mosques remain strongly tied to specific languages and ethnic groups (Allievi et al. 2009; Ambrosini et al. 2018); for instance, in Bologna only one out of roughly fifteen mosques can be described as genuinely multiethnic, prioritising the construction of an “Italian Islam” over the preservation of ethnic boundaries. In ethnic mosques, often linked to more recent immigration and managed by South Asian communities, we rarely observe youth engagement. By contrast, multiethnic mosques—typically established earlier and led by MENA migrants or Italian converts—are the main sites where youth participation continues beyond adolescence. These settings frequently host local branches of national Islamic youth organisations which we followed during the fieldwork and, for reasons of privacy, will refer to as Association 1 (A1), A2, and A3. These associations are key sites through which generational change is unfolding, as national organisations are increasingly led by individuals raised in Italy.

Our observations indicate that, in those mosques while the first generation remains overwhelmingly male, second-generation mosque attendees display a more balanced—and in some cases even reversed—gender ratio compared to the first generation. In other words, the visibility of second-generation participation, limited to multiethnic contexts, marks a clear quantitative feminisation of mosque attendance, thereby confirming RQ1.

Following Matei (Varga)’s (2024) framework, this shift is evident both at the level of participation in rituals and activities, and at the level of responsibility and leadership roles.

In January 2025, A1 published on its official page a chart showing the demographic profile of its members. Almost all were aged 18–35, with a gender ratio of 1 man to 1.92 women (about 0.5 man per woman). At association meetings, such as the 2023 Bologna gathering, around 120 people attended, including about 70 young women. A similar pattern appears in A2 and A3 congresses. This trend is acknowledged by both first- and second-generation leaders and by members past and present.

Woman_Morocco_A2: “At many events I attend, we are mostly girls. At the last A2 Bologna event, we were six boys and thirty girls.”

Man_Morocco_A3: “Our section is rather isolated; at the last meeting we were fourteen girls and four boys.”

Woman_Tunisia_A2: “At the peak, between 2011 and 2015, up to 200 people joined events, with more girls than boys.”

President_A2: “We do not collect membership data… but I would say in many sections women are now as numerous as men, often more so.”

The emergence of second generations is also marked by greater female representation in leadership roles, both within mosques and as association leaders.

Woman_Tunisia_A2: “The A2 in Verona has existed since 2005. The section was created when I was in middle school… I was one of the founders […] In the meantime, a younger girl became group leader, trying to move the association forward. I returned, and today I am the leader.”

Man_Morocco_A3: “In our A3 section, for example, the leader is [female name]; we are a mixed group, half women, half men.”

According to the official A2 page, at the 2024 congress in northern Italy, eighteen local sections participated, thirteen led by women. Some women trained in youth Islamic associations have since taken responsibility at national level, in mosque coordination bodies or national Islamic organisations. In 2023, the A2 national board included two women and three men; in 2022, three women and two men. Between 2016 and 2019, A2 was chaired by a woman who now serves as vice-president of a major national Islamic association, previously run by first-generation leaders. During the same period, another woman led the A2 section in Brescia and now serves as vice-president of the local Islamic Centre. In Bologna, the A2 leader—also a woman—serves as secretary of the city’s mosque coordination body; in Verona, the A2 head—again a woman—is likewise part of the mosque board and city-wide coordination. One A2 founder, the first woman to become a religious guide in Italy, now presides over the national body that coordinates imam training. In 2023, the first Italian academic centre for Islamic studies was inaugurated; organisers reported that most enrolled students were women, and 20% of the teaching staff were female.

The growing presence of girls in second-generation has led to some tensions between immigrant parents, older mosque members, and youth leaders raised in Italy.

Male_Egypt_A2: “But this idea of always separating everything between men and women—that’s their thing [referring to the first-generation leaders], it’s cultural. We think it’s much better to do things all together, if that means young people are more willing to come. They grumble, but I say: it’s much better for young people to get to know each other and maybe find a wife here in the mosque, rather than in a bar.”

But it is important to stress that this shift has rarely been conflictual. Rather, it appears as an expected and, in some ways, prepared development—one that both sides acknowledge. This awareness is most evident among second-generation Muslims now holding leadership roles in organisations once directed by the first generation, as illustrated by the words of the current grown in Italy president of one of Italy’s most influential Islamic associations: “Another important element is the increasingly central role of girls. It is remarkable to note that, in most boards or sections, the main protagonists are primarily girls. This shows that, among youth, gender is not an issue at the leadership level. This was already evident at the beginning of A2; one might have feared it would fade over time, but we have seen that this trend has persisted.”

This process concerns not only internal balance and organisation but also the public image of Italian Islam. Over recent decades, several women active in Islamic associations have obtained degrees in Italian or European universities, or pursued political and entrepreneurial careers leading to positions of responsibility—not only as teachers or community leaders but also in the broader Italian public space. In other words, internal feminisation often translates into a feminisation of the public image of Muslims. Among civically and politically active Muslim figures in the cities studied, many were women with prior involvement in youth Islamic associations. Furthermore, at seminars and conferences, it is now common to invite professionals trained in Italian universities in fields such as psychology, pedagogy, or law. First-generation women are rarely invited as experts, while Italian-trained women with established professional careers are frequently asked to lead workshops. In some cases, those engaged in youth Islamic associations during their studies now combine their careers with dissemination or activism projects, linking their expertise with Islamic perspectives. Many publish books, contribute to editorial projects, or collaborate on television productions, shaping new representations of Islam in Italy. Their engagement spans social media, cultural production, and educational initiatives. A transformation in authority and visibility can thus be observed, partially addressing RQ2, although it is not sufficient to establish a causal link. The mere fact of increased female participation does not in itself constitute a sufficient cause to explain women’s access to leadership roles or public visibility. One could observe a rise in female presence at the grassroots level without this necessarily translating into access to positions of responsibility or visibility. This suggests that increased female participation may be only one of several contributing factors to these transformations—and that this very increase may, in turn, be the effect of other dynamics not solely determined by what occurs within mosques.

These dynamics suggest two conclusions: first, compared to previous generations, feminisation is emerging, at least quantitatively, with daughters more present than their mothers; second, given the well-documented difficulties of second generations in education and employment (Lagomarsino and Ravecca 2014), these associations can also function as vehicles of social capital and upward mobility (Portes and Zhou 1993).

These conclusions remain situated. Since national quantitative data on Muslim participation in communal worship are lacking, the evidence presented here combines publicly available association-level data, ethnographic observation, and actors’ own accounts. The observed pattern should therefore not be generalised to all Italian mosques, but to the specific settings in which generational change is empirically visible. Across all such contexts observed in this study, however, youth participation was consistently accompanied by a more balanced—and sometimes female-majority—gender composition.

4.2. Qualitative Feminisation: The Good Muslim Is Also a Good Muslim Woman

In the mosques observed, quantitative feminisation is accompanied by qualitative transformations—new ways of conceiving and organising space and coexistence, reduced tolerance for double standards rooted in imported Islam, and a redefinition of gender roles.

First, feminisation changes the organisation of space and mixed-gender coexistence. In Italian mosques, many respondents recalled that from childhood, activities were separated by sex. In adolescence, rituals were strictly divided between men and women, and teaching sometimes occurred in two rooms with different instructors. This separation was often justified by the saying “when a man and a woman are alone, the third is Satan,” implying a permanent sexual tension that made uncontrolled interaction sinful. Youth associations, however, increasingly normalise interaction. Outside mosques, at school, work, and university, such divisions do not exist, and these practices now appear to be internalised by the younger generations.

Female_Morocco_A3: “In class, there are male and female classmates. From the Moroccan cultural point of view, speaking or joking with boys is considered bad, elders would only see malice. But I learned from Italians that it is not true that every time you speak to a boy, he just wants to sleep with you. I talk to boys every day, and I will wait for marriage. So even when I go to the mosque, I speak to whomever I want. It has become a habit, and I know that in my religion it is not a problem.”

Male_Morocco_A3: “In our A3 section we are a mixed group. The goal here is honourable, meeting to study together is a good intention, so if we sit men and women side by side, it is no problem. Problems arise only in two cases: when the context is one of flirting, like in nightclubs, or when someone speaks to the opposite sex only for sexual interest. If you learn self-control, you can talk to whomever you want. At school, if I have a question, I ask a man or a woman; what matters is the intention.”

Some associations remain stricter, such as Verona’s A3 section, which paid close attention to separation of the sexes, organising meetings and activities for men and women at different times and in different spaces. Yet according to the group’s leader, this arrangement is likely to change.

Male_Morocco_A3: “At present, men and women meet separately, and each group has its own leadership. But we realised that after a few experiences, we work much better as a single group. Probably from next year, we will have only one.”

In all other observed cases, youth activities were mixed. This is likely due both to younger generations’ greater familiarity with and awareness of gender interaction, and to leaders’ recognition that it is impossible to organise activities attractive to young people without incorporating practices that are now part of their lived experience. Nonetheless, compromises are sought. At many events, two blocks of chairs are arranged, separated by a central aisle, with men invited to sit on one side and women on the other. In some cases, this amounts to strict spatial separation, while in others it is more a “recommendation.” Indeed, during the seminars and conferences we attended, we observed that when one block of chairs (usually the women’s side) filled up, it was not uncommon for late arrivals to sit on the “male” side, without eliciting any particular reaction. This does not represent the disappearance of boundaries, but rather their redefinition in light of the new roles women occupy within the community.

Secondly, within the associations studied, intergenerational transformations can be observed regarding the gendered division of productive and reproductive roles within the community and family. Gender roles are omnipresent in the discourse promoted by youth associations, and the importance of motherhood for women is consistently reaffirmed during seminars, meetings, and sermons. Marriage is presented as an indispensable step for every Muslim, and the roles of men and women within marriage are religiously defined. Yet certain transformations emerge in the definition of what constitutes a “good Muslim woman”. Many young women interviewed expressed a strong desire for education, careers, and personal fulfilment. Those attending the observed mosques are often university students or professionals, who also play active, public roles within both the religious community and Italian civil or political society. On these associations’ social media pages and during ceremonies or conferences they organise, it is rare to see celebrations marking pregnancies or engagements. By contrast, it is common to witness celebrations of young women’s university graduations, professional achievements, or even the start of political careers. The ambition and the educational, professional, and public achievements of Muslim women are not sanctioned but, on the contrary, repeatedly praised and showcased. Identification with traditional gender roles of wife and mother does not mean reproducing the models of their mothers or of women in countries of origin.

Woman_Pakistan_A1: “Our mothers here are all housewives […] In Muslim countries, it is normal, many women do not work. I have nothing against women who choose this life… It’s simply not the life I want for myself. I want to be a wife and a mother, but a wife and mother like Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife: she was a businesswoman, did you know?”

Woman_Pakistan_A2: “I could never marry a Pakistani man who grew up in Pakistan. I want to marry, and I want to marry a Muslim… marriage is very important for a woman… but he must have grown up here or be an Italian convert… I know many… you see… Pakistani men who grew up in Pakistan think of their mothers doing everything for them. […] I studied, I want to work, and I want to be with a man who values my work…”

This intergenerational redefinition of roles is often legitimised through references to women’s right to earn a living (Qur’an 4:32, An-Nisa), to examples of working women (Qur’an 27:20–44; 28:23–26), or to prominent female figures in Islamic tradition, such as Khadija, the Prophet’s first wife and a leading entrepreneur in seventh-century Mecca, or Fatima al-Fihri, the Muslim scholar who founded the University of Fez in the ninth century. The importance of these references lies not in their representativeness of women’s historical condition in Islam, but in their function of ethnogenesis: a symbolic reformulation of the role of the “good Muslim woman,” now framed not only as a mother but also as a public actor who can and should aspire to success for herself—and for the community.

President_A1: “This Saudi-inspired thinking is not dangerous for the State or for security, but it weakens the believer. Understand that if, in Italy, the message arrives that women must not work where men also work, this weakens the European Muslim community, because half of the community—the female part—cannot work. You make the community weaker, because these women do not study and simply raise children who are less aware.”

Thirdly, mosques can become places where Muslims raised in Italy confront and debate their experiences as Italian Muslims. Indeed, second generations often show strong interest in studying their religion, frequently as a way of contesting or moving beyond the rigidity of parental teaching—teaching often shaped more by memory than by real religious competence—thus producing a reversal of roles (Frisina 2015). For young women, rediscovering religion often leads to critical distancing from the beliefs and practices imported by parents from countries of origin. Such critiques do not target Islam itself, but the adults’ habit of judging girls’ and boys’ sins, vices, and virtues by different standards. The widespread tendency of many parents or older community members to view men as less sinful “because they are men” is a central theme in the discourse of young Muslims.

Man_Morocco_A3: “Today, it is normal to see a Muslim boy smoke, but if it’s a girl, everyone criticises her. I often argue with the boys: ‘If smoking is a sin for you, why should it be worse for her?’ Or: ‘If you, as a boy, go to the nightclub, you cannot then get angry if girls your age also go.’ The law is the same for you and for her. Our aim is to make these boys understand that they are not saved just because they are men, that they cannot accuse their sisters of things they themselves do, and that they should instead take them as examples. […] There is a lot of hypocrisy among Muslim boys today: they go to clubs, do whatever they want, and then, when they want to ‘settle down,’ they look only for pure, chaste girls. You did everything you wanted, and if she has only known one boy, then she is considered frivolous? No, it doesn’t work like that. I often make this kind of speech.”

Woman_Tunisia_A2: “… when the Qur’an invites us to be modest, to be disciplined, it does not address men or women… it addresses believers. All believers have the duty to protect their hijab. In Islamic tradition, women must respect their hijab. But often, when parents teach you this, they forget to tell you that men also have their hijab. They too have parts of their body they should not show to strangers. For example, did you know that a good Muslim should not show his knees? Or his navel? That is his hijab. But in summer, men come to the mosque in shorts, and no one says anything.”

As the interviewees’ words show, the pivot of these positions is the equality of sins before God, summarised by a young Tunisian woman: “A sin is a sin. We all sin. But sin is not less serious if you are a man!”

It is therefore possible to affirm that with generational change there has also been a profound qualitative transformation compared to mosques founded and frequented by the first generations of immigrants, described by Allievi as essentially male spaces, which fathers attended “also to escape a family role continually questioned by their children, but also by their daughters and sometimes their wives. The mosque has played and still plays an important role as a men’s society, and a men’s society in identity crisis, even if perhaps not explicitly or consciously” (Allievi 2002, p. 74). Looking at our control group—those who do not attend mosques—it is possible to say that while intergenerational transitions in gender roles are justified by young people inside mosques through distancing from the parents’ “cultural Islam,” outside mosques both the Islam of their parents and the image of Italian mosques themselves are criticised as intolerant and backward. This is likely due, on the one hand, to the fact that most mosques remain ethnically closed and inhospitable to young people who have assimilated Italian values and habits, and, on the other, to the fact that young people who no longer attend mosques retain stereotyped images tied to memories of Qur’anic school attended in childhood.

These qualitative transformations were identified through the triangulation of ethnographic observation, interview material, and comparison between youth-led activities and first-generation mosque practices. In analytical terms, feminisation was treated as qualitative when women’s increased presence was accompanied by observable changes in organisational practices, normative expectations, and internal discourses: for instance, mixed-gender activities, women’s leadership roles, the public valorisation of female educational and professional achievement, and recurrent critiques of gendered double standards. These elements appeared across the different field sites, suggesting that they are not isolated examples but recurring features of the contexts in which second-generation participation has become stable.

Overall, Section 4.2 offers a partial response to RQ2, revealing that qualitative feminisation accompanies generational change in how gender roles, moral hierarchies, and spaces of participation are conceived. However, taken together, these findings address RQ2 only partially. While they demonstrate that quantitative and qualitative feminisation occur simultaneously within mosque life, the data do not allow us to establish a clear causal direction between them. Rather, feminisation and generational change appear as mutually reinforcing dimensions of the same transformation in Italian Islam.

4.3. Which Discourse Legitimises These Transformations?

The third analytical step, corresponding to RQ3, shifts attention from practices to meaning-making. Here, the aim is not to measure feminisation, but to understand how it is discursively justified and made legitimate within post-secular frameworks. Once the justificatory references mobilised by interviewees have been identified, the aim is not to assess their philosophical lineage or the correctness of their interpretation. Rather, the analysis asks what interviewees themselves use to define and legitimise their representations of gender, and which frameworks they claim, accept, ignore, or reject as meaningful points of reference, regardless of whether their understanding of those frameworks is doctrinally or theoretically accurate.

The generational transition reveals greater agency and empowerment among daughters, marked by autonomy, self-realisation, contestation of double standards, and emancipation from traditional roles of subordination. Rarely are these transitions grounded in secular Western discourses on gender equality. Rather, young Muslims legitimise themselves by reference to sacred texts, distinguishing between an “authentic Islam” (Roy 2008), consciously studied and appropriated by the “we” of Muslims raised in Italy, and a “cultural Islam” reflecting traditions from countries of origin, inherited without critique by first generations (Frisina 2015). Importantly, when interviewees refer to ‘their Islam’, this is rarely the product of a specific teaching or tendency, a legal school, or a recognised authority, and in almost all cases they do not know their imam’s juridical or theological affiliation. Instead, it draws on peer socialisation and autonomous, contingent discoveries, often oriented towards an individual re-reading of the Qur’an as a primary point of reference, with circulating resources found via word-of-mouth and online browsing (associations, online preachers, Instagram pages, podcasts, blogs, books) assembled into an elective bricolage of trusted sources. In this framework, the culture-versus-Islam schema legitimises both their ideas and the re-appropriation of religious discourse in redefining gender roles and autonomy.

Woman_Morocco_A1: “My mother’s generation arrived without language, without work, so men did as they wished and she had to endure for the children, with no choice. Today things change, we have more knowledge, more independence. If something does not convince us, we ask and check. If someone tells us Islam is a certain way… we study, we can read, we check… and if it is not true, we do not follow it. […] Reading the Qur’an I discovered that whenever it speaks of hypocrites, fornicators, etc., it speaks of both men and women… always both sexes, the rules apply to all. I became angry, because culture had polluted my religion.”

Woman_Tunisia_A2: “Many think religion and culture are the same, but they are two different things. In Arab countries, people think religion is this harsh, prohibitive thing, with rigid separation of men and women. Our parents, who grew up there, think this is religion, but it is only the mentality they learned. Arriving here in Italy, in a more Western world, is a shock, as it is totally different. There, women are always accompanied, many still cannot study or work. Here, it is normal: if a woman wants to be a doctor or waitress, she does it, that’s it. There, male superiority dominates; here it is different […] Our Arab parents often think something that is not Islam. Islam is closer to the West than to what our parents learned. In Islam, women’s dignity is essential, and I discovered this through study, not from my parents, because if you ask them, for them a woman cannot go out after 7 p.m. But that is absurd.”

Woman_Tunisia_A2: “The first mosque founded by the Prophet was a single open space, archaeological excavations prove it. So why build mosques with halls for men and tiny rooms for women where I cannot even hear the imam, because children must stay on our side… only because I am a woman? I often got angry about this. Many say ‘Islam says…’, but when you ask for sources, it is nowhere in the Qur’an. Of course, there are philosophers who wrote many things, but it is not the Qur’an. My practice is based only on the Qur’an.”

Man_Egypt_A2: “Our parents lived most of their lives in Arab countries, there men and women are never together, it is cultural, their habit. Here in Italy, we are used to being together and it is not a problem.”

Woman_Morocco_A3: “One must go slowly, because in Islam not everyone has studied the Book, not everyone knows the Sunna, not everyone knows the examples […] We advanced gradually to interpret things so even those without study could understand. […] The problem is that what makes women submissive and dependent is not the Qur’an’s message, but ignorance and the macho traditions taught to them. We want to continue improving the knowledge women and men in Italy have of their religion. […] These women must be trained, because their religion is a distortion, the product of family and husband’s interests and heritage. They think they obey God, but in reality they obey their husbands.”

In modern Europe, feminism—often positioned in opposition to religion—has been central in structuring and legitimising the progressive feminisation of public and professional life and the contestation of gender roles (Dulong 2021). In the testimonies, however, the discourse legitimising a rearticulation of women’s roles vis-à-vis patriarchal forms of Islam rests almost exclusively on religious reasoning, with little or no reference to secular frameworks of European modernity. Feminism is often openly contested. Yes, within the control group of non-practising youth, a few identified with feminism and women’s struggles:

Woman_Pakistan: “I would define myself as a feminist, it’s part of my culture. Since I was little, I have always been disturbed by the situation of Pakistani women. I know that here in Italy many struggle to imagine a woman who wears the veil and is also feminist.”

… and some claimed they once were:

Woman_Morocco: “In leftist clubs it’s perhaps worse: they carry the white man’s burden, ‘poor exotic girl, let me save you with my knowledge,’ haha. I prefer Meloni [note: Prime Minister, from conservative right]. There [note: leftist clubs] you are valued only if you fit the category of the needy. Speaking with leftist women, I moved away from feminism. I was feminist, now I am not.”

Among practising youth, feminism is rarely discussed, and when it is, the tone is usually critical. References to feminism often introduce critique of majority culture. In the rare interviews where young women spoke explicitly about feminism, they recognised its historical role in Europe but tended to adopt a selective stance, extracting what seemed compatible with their own frames of meaning.

Woman_Morocco_A2: “I was feminist… the problem is today’s feminism. The feminism of the 1960s, no problem. […] Then I realised that all I valued in feminism I also found in Islam. I didn’t need to be feminist, only Muslim. Feminism taught the West to see women as human, worthy of respect. In Islam, women have always been honoured: before the Prophet, Arab tribes treated women terribly; he introduced rights much earlier than the West. Women in Islam always had important roles: the world’s first university, in Fez, was founded by a woman. […] Today’s feminism, especially online and in social centers, often says ‘we don’t need men’ or denies all differences between men and women. That world felt full of labels. Of course, I support women’s right to vote or to study at university! I’m not stupid ! […] But for me, Islam is a package: there are roles, part of a pact with God. No one can force me, but once I trust God, I accept them. […] Of course, there are issues outside religion where I fight: for example, in medicine, my field, there is systemic machismo. But at home, I want someone who protects me.”

As this testimony suggests, the feminism from which interviewees distance themselves is the “popular” one, circulating on social media, often presented as inseparable from LGBTQ movements and perceived as a tool to stigmatise the faithful of their religion (Ali 2020). None of the interviews referred to recent, less Eurocentric feminist advances (which appear instead in the non-mosque control group), nor to Islamic feminism, even though much of the discourse articulated overlaps with the early theorists of Islamic feminism such as Fatima Mernissi, Leila Ahmed, and Amina Wadud, who proposed a critical rereading of the Qur’an and tradition. From the perspective of Islamic feminism, the patriarchal roots of Muslim culture lie not in the Qur’an itself but in the fact that, for over 1400 years, interpretation was monopolised by men unwilling—or keen to avoid—recognising the egalitarian dynamics introduced by the prophetic message vis-à-vis pre-Islamic tribal culture. Yet none of the interviewees made explicit reference to these movements, and when asked, they showed no awareness of them. Thus, despite many parallels, there were no references to “cultural” or “difference” feminism (Alcoff 1988).

In light of this, it is possible to state that, in response to RQ3, the transformations, contestations, and increased autonomy observed so far are legitimised by the interviewees through an explicitly religious discourse. While several elements clearly resonate with Islamic feminist arguments, interviewees showed no awareness of Islamic feminism as an intellectual or political movement. If we consider familiarity with feminist frameworks and self-identification with feminism or its variants as a necessary condition for classifying a discourse as feminist, the empirical material does not support such a categorisation. This does not exclude the possibility that some of these ideas circulate indirectly or have been internalised through broader discursive environments. However, from the perspective adopted here, feminism—whether Islamic or otherwise—is not the category used by interviewees to define their own understanding of the gender-related issues addressed in this study. It is in this sense that the observed transformations are analytically framed as non-feminist and can be described as unfolding “without feminism.”

The only secular principles repeatedly evoked were Italian right to religious freedom and formal equality in public life, which enable young women to claim their right to participate fully in public space without renouncing any aspect of their religious or gender identity. This does not mean that religious and secular frameworks operate as separate or mutually exclusive domains. On the contrary, the empirical material suggests a process of hybridisation: educational aspirations, professional trajectories, public engagement, and claims to equal participation are shaped within Italian secular institutions and civic life but are legitimised by interviewees through religious vocabularies. What appears, therefore, is not a simple opposition between religion and secular modernity, but a co-production in which norms acquired in the broader Italian social context are rearticulated within an Islamic moral and discursive framework. In this context, it should be emphasised that the object of analysis is not Muslims in Italy as a whole, but the active minority who attend and participate in mosque life.

Rather than an opposition between a religious submissive woman and an emancipated one, it may be more accurate to identify two models of emancipation in contemporary European societies: one based on negating “natural” roles, the other on extending and re-signifying them.

5. Discussion: Feminisation Without Feminism

The results document substantial quantitative and qualitative transformations in women’s participation between the first and second generations in Italian mosques. These transformations are best understood against the backdrop of a fragmented and largely bottom-up Islamic field, but also of intergenerational tensions in religious transmission. In the youth-associational spaces examined, participants bring heterogeneous familial and institutional religious backgrounds, shaped by different national, ethnic, and religious repertoires. Confronted with a shared challenge—finding ways of living fully as Muslims in Italy—they collectively work toward a rediscovery and reformulation of religiosity that may depart from parental expectations and inherited traditions. For this reason, the dynamics analysed here are not primarily intelligible through the lens of specific legal schools, established currents of thought, or the genealogies of Qur’anic exegesis; they are more accurately approached as the outcome of situated negotiation and religious “ethnogenesis” within particular Italian institutional ecologies. The claim of feminisation is therefore deliberately situated. It does not concern Islam in general, nor “Italian Islam” understood as the religious life of all persons of Muslim background, nor even all practising Muslims. Rather, it concerns specific local configurations, and it is advanced on the basis of a set of explicit empirical criteria. Drawing on the classical sociological usage of feminisation in the study of religious institutions and operationalising it through Matei (Varga)’s (2024) multidimensional framework, the empirical material meets these criteria: women’s numerical presence increases and everyday participation becomes more visibly female; women occupy recognised organisational roles and gain visibility in public-facing activities; female religious exemplars acquire salience in learning environments; and normative discourse within the community increasingly legitimises women’s education, public engagement, and leadership while criticising double standards and subordinate conceptions of women. To the extent that these dimensions are concurrently observable, the evidence supports the conclusion that a process of feminisation is underway in the specific institutional ecologies examined. The data do not allow the establishment of causal links between quantitative and qualitative aspects.

Recent studies of religious aggregation in other traditions reveal similar trends, such as in American Pentecostalism (Malogne-Fer and Fer 2017) and in Jewish communities (Assaf 2021; Rosman 2021). These works emphasise that, despite the preservation of gendered essences, their meanings tend to adjust to modernity. This does not preclude compatibility between deep religiosity and open feminist identification, as recent studies on American Christian women demonstrate (Hernandez 2024).

5.1. A European Islam: Selective Acculturation and Intergenerational Transformations

In Europe, Islam is a recently implanted religion, whose main feature lies in adaptive transformation (Allievi 2022). European Islam is indeed a minority and reterritorialised Islam (Allievi 2002; Roy 2002). Religious deterritorialisation in the diaspora denotes the detachment of beliefs and practices from the concrete culture and territory in which they developed, followed by reterritorialisation in a new context. According to Roy (2000), such reterritorialisation in Europe produces dynamics of individualisation: the crisis of ethnic communities in favour of chosen religious identities; the absence of a single recognised Islamic authority; the impossibility of coercively enforcing communal norms, left instead to personal decision; and, finally, the subjectivisation of faith, with symbols and practices individually reinterpreted. For Roy (2008), the appeal to a “pure” religion rediscovered beyond ethnic affiliation marks the transition from deculturation—detachment from the country of origin—to re-acculturation, i.e., the reformatting of religion to the new context. This process reflects a broader European pattern observed in studies of second-generation Muslims, where distinctions between a “pure” Islam and a “cultural” Islam of parents structure dynamics of religious re-appropriation and adaptation (Maliepaard and Alba 2016; Glas and Spierings 2022; Glas 2023; Cesari 2014; Acocella and Pepicelli 2015, 2018). Our interviewees exemplify this process.

Two reflections follow. First, although these associations are linked to transnational Islam and appeal to international scholars and imams, peer-led training and knowledge produced in Europe (Allievi 2022) are widespread. Most participants do not frame their religious life through formal labels such as legal schools or Islamist movements; when prompted, many are unsure about their imam’s juridical affiliation or the history of transnational organisations. What is empirically salient instead is a practical and reflexive repertoire centred on peer discussion, learning-oriented activities, and everyday circulation of religious content (e.g., podcasts, blogs, and social-media sources produced by European Muslims). It is unsurprising that such discourses diverge from centuries of Qur’anic commentary (Allievi 2002) or from the official preaching of countries of origin. This highlights the inadequacy of essentialist approaches that, unlike the study of other religions, have long regarded textual or political analysis as sufficient, neglecting fieldwork and the classical tools of the sociology of religion (Pace 2017; Allievi 2005). In other words, studying “official Islam” of the countries of origin, or focus on sacred texts, is not only insufficient for understanding Muslims raised in Italy, but may even be misleading, as it can contradict the Islam reshaped by European Muslim citizens.

Second, the findings confirm what has been noted in France (Cesari 2005) and Italy (Acocella and Pepicelli 2015; Frisina 2005): forms of orthodoxy or neo-orthodoxy within pietistic and devotional organisations align with broader patterns of modern European religiosity. On one side, we see widespread abandonment of the fathers’ institutions; on the other, orthodoxy framed through choice rather than obligation. This reflects a pluralisation and deinstitutionalisation of internal discourses in favour of informal, subjective, and ordinary bricolage by engaged laity (Davie 1994; Portier and Willaime 2021). Precisely because this rests on identifying “our Islam” of the children versus the parents’ “cultural Islam,” it can be interpreted as part of broader processes often described in the literature as the emergence of a European Islam.

From a migration sociology perspective, these religious spaces can be considered social resources aiding intergenerational adaptation during assimilation. Through selective acculturation (Portes and Zhou 1993), elements of parental culture and host society are combined into hybrids preserving intergenerational ties while enabling cultural adaptation. The women in the mosques studied are not only Muslim but also daughters of immigrants, raised in a society that, since the 1960s, has experienced feminisation of the public and professional sphere in domains once male-dominated (Dulong 2021). This has reshaped roles and representations, embedding values of equality—once feminist struggles, now almost taken for granted. Given that major value shifts occur across cohorts rather than within lifetimes (Tiberj 2024; Tormos 2019; Hout and Fischer 2014), it is plausible that young people raised in Italian schools, while maintaining religious continuity, develop value frameworks profoundly different from those of their parents, learned in another time and place.

5.2. Feminisation Without Feminism: Post-Secular Bricolage

If we try to situate these results within the wider literature on feminisation, it becomes clear that, as during the feminisation of Christianity in the nineteenth century, new gender roles and identities emerge. A recurring historical pattern shows that when women enter a previously male-dominated domain, quantitative feminisation is often accompanied by a qualitative transformation. For instance, in medical research, feminist struggles in the 1960s opened access to women, broadening inquiry into conditions that primarily affected them and reshaping priorities—a process that led to gender medicine (Gazzaniga et al. 2018). Similarly, in religion, the feminisation of participation is rarely neutral: it redefines discourses, roles, and symbolic hierarchies.

Once excluded from active religious life, women now play an increasingly central role in Italian mosques. Alongside quantitative feminisation, we observe more frequent references to prominent women of Islamic tradition and the emergence of female values implying greater autonomy and public responsibility. Unlike the Christian case, however, where discursive and theological feminisation was directly promoted and guided by the clergy, Italian Islamic institutions appear to adapt reactively to a spontaneous process originating with the younger generations. This is likely linked to the diasporic condition, where national institutional support is absent and religious institutions become heavily dependent on their congregants (Ebaugh and Chafetz 2000). Faced with intergenerational decline, the presence of women shifts from being problematic to a vital resource, producing a transformation of the mosques themselves.

Several explanations have been proposed for the feminisation of religion in the West. Luckmann’s (1967) suggestion that feminisation results from women being sheltered from secularising pressures by remaining at home seems inadequate here. The young women interviewed are generally engaged in university studies, pursue ambitious careers, and in some cases even political involvement. Far more consistent with our findings are the conclusions of Walter and Davie (1998), who, after examining the so-called “vulnerability hypothesis”—which interprets women’s greater religiosity as a response to social, economic or physical deprivations such as childbirth, illness and death—argue that, while this multifactorial phenomenon also reflects women’s differential exposure to secularisation and the centrality of caregiving roles, the study of these processes “seems to find it difficult to integrate the idea that women may have found personal fulfilment in what feminists perceive as second-class citizenship” (Walter and Davie 1998, p. 640). This is in line with Blackbourn (1991) and Curtis (2002). Particularly significant in our results are the impressive number of women in positions of responsibility and the opportunities for self-realisation through activism and learning offered by these associations. In other words, the available data and literature suggest that, among the many factors shaping women’s participation, one crucial dimension is the agency and empowerment young women find in associations that enable them to participate in public, religious and civic life in Italy, while affirming their dual identity as both Muslim and Italian (Frisina 2015, 2017b).

At the same time, although expressed in a religious register (Habermas 2008), the discourse of young women in mosques resembles in many respects that of interviewees in the non-practising control group: namely, the distinction between the “cultural Islam” of their parents and a rediscovered religion. The difference is that women outside mosques more easily identify with or refer to feminism and other secular frameworks of female emancipation, whereas those inside mosques either ignore or openly reject them. This may signal the existence of strong social sanctions against members who approach such systems of thought, but it may also reflect a tension between assimilating peer norms around gender and an identity-based defence of their community, perceived as under attack through external stigmatisation (Hamel 2006). Moreover, gender equality historically established itself in the West in opposition to religion, making it difficult—for actors as well as for sociologists—to conceive that its principles might re-emerge within the ethnogenesis of the great monotheisms. Yet, as Watts et al. (2025) points out, the feminisation of religion today unfolds in a context where many aspects of “cultural” or “difference” feminism—which envisages an egalitarian essentialism between genders, conceived as having natural yet complementary roles—have penetrated and become normalised within the mainstream.

We therefore argue that these forms of modern, egalitarian yet simultaneously religious and conservative femininity can assert themselves without mobilising feminism, while at the same time resonating with part of it since many effects of feminism are now perceived as obvious and taken for granted. What once had to be affirmed in opposition to the churches has today become banalised for younger, increasingly progressive cohorts (Tiberj 2024), making it possible to integrate such values into religious discourse. This seems consistent with theoretical approaches that distinguish between (i) an initial modernity marked by the emancipation of politics, science, moral, and the individual from an institutional and hegemonic religious order, a process driven by secular systems of thought and structured through explicit conflict; and a second stage, defined by the pluralisation of voices: not only has religion lost its monopoly, but the modern systems of thought that once replaced it are themselves destabilised and individual reflexivity becomes unavoidable (Willaime 2007). Religion, in this view, does not disappear but is reconfigured. Europe remains secular but not irreligious, with a sacred reinvented in fluid forms where hybridisations once deemed unthinkable within religious discourse can now be observed. This contributes to showing that modernity should not be considered a single necessary model, but rather an ensemble of elements open to multiple articulations (Portier and Willaime 2021).

The expression “feminisation without feminism” is not meant to suggest that the religious feminisation observed here differs fundamentally from that historically seen in Christianity, which also unfolded within a religious framework. Rather, the formulation serves a theoretical purpose: to mark a post-secular perspective (Habermas 2008). The aim is to underscore that these transformations cannot be fully understood only through the secular frameworks that have historically defined women’s emancipation in Europe. Instead, they call for an analytical approach capable of capturing the mutual interaction between secular modernity and religious life—showing how contemporary forms of female agency are shaped through their ongoing dialogue.

6. Conclusions

In conclusion, we have examined the presence of women in Italian mosques within the broader transition from a generation socialised in Muslim-majority countries to one raised in Italy. It is not possible to speak of the feminisation of Islam in Italy in the sense of an Islam becoming primarily female; yet, in many contexts and on multiple levels, the shift from male predominance to gender balance—sometimes even reversal—can be observed. This is visible both at grassroots and leadership levels, with significant effects on internal and external imaginaries of who a Muslim leader is, and what roles and virtues define a “good Muslim woman.” We see a movement toward greater female autonomy and independence.

Unlike processes of feminisation in European public and professional life, these transformations are not legitimised through secular or feminist discourses, but almost exclusively through a religious framework in which participants contrast ‘our Islam’ with their parents’ ‘cultural Islam’. While such feminisation is partly the effect of assimilation in Western contexts, it must also be read as a consequence of the material and religious autonomy and self-realisation young women find in these spaces, promoting a European ethnogenesis. Today, values once achieved and legitimised by secularisation have entered the mainstream and are now available for incorporation into religious discourse without invoking feminism or engaging with it explicitly.

Our case illustrates how, in post-secular societies, processes historically tied to secular struggles—such as equal representation in leadership roles and the contestation of gender roles and double standards—may find legitimacy within religious frameworks, without following the same dominant trajectories as Europe’s modernity. Overall, the findings confirm and refine the specificity of the Italian case within European Islam. Change emerges in decentralised, ethnically mixed contexts, where local and second-generation initiatives—rather than institutional coordination—drive religious renewal. This bottom-up dynamic shows that female agency can foster transformation through lived, generational practices rather than formal reform, echoing the notion of lived religion (Allievi and Calabretta 2025). While the dynamics highlighted here—such as the de-ethnicised and individualised re-elaboration of inherited religious models and the redefinition of gender balances among European Muslims—are not in themselves unprecedented, the novelty of this work lies elsewhere. Its contribution consists of bringing these well-documented transformations into dialogue with the classical theoretical apparatus of the sociology of religion, applying it to the Italian case. This approach serves a threefold purpose: first, to advance understanding of Italian Islam and its distinctive trajectory within European Islam; second, to demonstrate the analytical usefulness of applying established sociological categories—such as feminisation—to the study of Islam in Europe; and third, to show that a process historically observed in Western Christianity can also emerge, under different conditions, within contemporary European Islam.

Looking ahead, the question remains whether what we observe should be understood as a transitional moment—where otherwise subordinated women negotiate emancipation through religion, within a broader context of mosque abandonment consistent with classical secularisation theory—or rather as a more enduring change, making mosques spaces of both male and female individual and spiritual fulfilment.