Le giovani del GMI (Giovani Musulmane d'Italia) Tra hijab ed etica della cittadinanza

The paper discusses the results of an ethnography carried out in Perugia, at the Islamic Cultural Centre, with the young women of the GMI, through observations, interviews, participation in religious festivals and public activities. The association has several objectives: to build intra-religious competence through group discussions (peer education), to make Islam known in institutions and in public space (da'wa), to relate faith and action, and to activate interreligious dialogue. They recognise themselves in a scripturalist Islam (Sunna) distant from the local and traditional practices of their parents and are therefore active in reading the Koran. They live in a transnational dimension, as they are in contact with other European Islamic youth groups. They try to combine the values of the Italian Constitution with faith in Islam, Italian culture and the Muslim religion, with what they call dual loyalty. In this ethic of citizenship, they implement an agency that makes them protagonists of social and cultural activities (religious theatre, peace marches, public seminars on Italian Islam, cultural mediation in schools) through their testimony of faith. The aim is to deconstruct the stereotyped image of young women wearing hijabs, and to see them as autonomous subjects, active in an interreligious dialogue and builders of a second-generation Italian Islam.