Estimate includes practitioners, non-practitioners and Muslims only “by culture”
Defining the number of followers of a confession is always a complex issue, as there are no official censuses, and it is even more difficult when it comes to the religion of emigrant populations.
But PEW Research, an institution that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends, mapped the presence of Muslims in European Union and reached an approximate number of 25 million people, with around 2,6 million in Italy, almost all of them Sunnis. The most recent data is from 2016.
However, the estimate includes practicing, non-practicing and Muslims only “by culture”.
In 2017 the Istat – Italy's research institute – pointed out that the official number of Muslim residents was 2,5 million, of which one and a half million were foreigners and one million had Italian citizenship.
Migratory flow
The presence of Islamic communities in Italy grew in the early 1980s, when the search for job opportunities began to stimulate the first migratory flows from Arab countries.
With around 5% of the total population, the Islam It is the second most professed religion in Italy in terms of number of believers, behind only catholic.
Among the ten most numerous nationalities, which together account for 80% of foreign Muslims, the Moroccan and Albanian communities stand out.
Officially, Rome is the city that is home to the largest Muslim community.: around 120 thousand people.
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