[TOD4wDTQ]

13) In your opinion, what is greatly needed for Italian Muslims?

They need to get in touch and get to know what the proper, solid references and authentic scholars of
Islam, as the portrait of Islam which is offered them is a watered-down, inexact one.

I'm not afraid to say that the main impression I have, in the most concise way in which I can express
it, is that Muslims in Italy, most of the times are not exposed to the real, true, orthodox Islam; they
live in a bubble of what they have been made believe Islam is, and thus can't taste its real fragrance
in all its aspects, as well as being deprived of the blessed company of the pious scholars and
Mashaykh which benefit other parts of the world.

Alhamdulillah, the `Ulama' al-Haqq exist also in our time, but it's very unfortunate that the Muslims in
Europe are generally deprived of the possibility to benefit from their works and are thus victims – even
the sincere, committed ones amongst them - of many huge misunderstandings and doctrinal and
methodological deviations.

Alhamdulillah, in the last years we've tried our best to act as a link between the Muslims in Italy and
the `Ulama' al-Haqq, translating their articles and fatawa, offering the Muslims in Italy the opportunity
to contact them for fatawa, presenting their works and offering information about the real authentic
Islamic methodology and Ahl as-Sunnah stances on many issues, and this happened maybe through
our internet forum (www.islam.forumup.it), which is alhamdulillah the biggest and more well-known
Islamic forum in Italian language.

But so far this work has only been done through the internet, thus with a very limited impact on our
community as a whole (even though, alhamdulillah, we can still see some results and more and more
brothers have started doubting the legitimacy).

Only in the last year we have started expanding our work “on the ground”, setting up an Islamic
Association/musalla in our city (Genova) which has organized meetings two times a week in order to
cover (sufficing ourselves with reading books on their own, without any real teacher):
-basic tawjid and Qur'an reading,
-basic fiqh (Ma la budda minhu; Maraqi as-Sa'adat),
-basic 'Aqidah,
-tafsir (reading from Ma'ariful Qur'an),
-introduction to Tasawwuf (Path to Perfection, etc.),
-zikr majalis,
Also, so far we've:
-inviting a scholar from the UK for a three-days seminar on the basics of Islam (and we plan to
insha'Allah invite other scholars in future),
-been giving da`wah to non-Muslim,
-distributed copies of Qur'an translation,
-been offering the correct prayer times for our city (according to the correct criteria),
-been announcing the correct beginning and end of Islamic months (and eventually hosting a
separate Salah al-'Id if the rest of the community celebrated it in the “wrong day”),
-been established Isha Salah in its correct time during Ramadan, followed by 20 Raka`at
Tarawih
-celebrated nikah according to Shari`ah.
etc..

It's very heart-warming the see the results we had with convert brothers who attend our halaqah,
many of them, even though having been Muslims even for as much as 25 years, due to being
neglected by the local community and not having any reference, often were still committing big
mistakes in their Qur'anic recitation, or still didn't have clear even some of the most basic masa'il
related to the essential daily-life fiqh.

Now, the next step would be that of publishing translated books, in Italian, in order to offer reliable
text on various Islamic subjects; the first project is the translation of “Maraqi as-Sa'adat”, which I've
already started as my thesis for graduation at University (I request your ad`iyah that Allah accept my
efforts and guide me in translating in a correct and effective way). Also, many of the translations we
have published on-line in the last years may be published as pamphlets to be distributed for da`wah
and ta`lim, insha'Allah.

Then, our main objective for the future is that to permanently host a scholar and having him as our
resident appointed Imam in a musallah run according to Shari`ah, but we don't have the funds nor
the place for this, yet, nor a community big enough which could be able to sustain this project: times
are not mature yet for this, it seems.

The time to establish a madrasah in our country, according to my estimation, are, though, still very
immature, both for the political situation (an Egyptian primary school following the secular Egyptian
scholastic programs, recognized by the Italian government, was shut down by the authorities a few
years ago, following the polemics unleashed by the media and by Islamophobic parties and
personalities), and even more for the immaturity of our community, which still fail to understand the
importance and essential role of the `Ulama'.

As I often said, we don't just have the problem of lacking the presence of `Ulama' in our country: we
even lack the understanding, the acknowledgement of their essential role in a normal Islamic
community.

Thus, we need starting from scratch..