A recent undercover investigation by an Italian news program has cast a troubling light on problems being caused by radical Islam in Italy, and which are gradually changing the fabric of society in a country that used to be a bastion of Catholicism in Europe.
Aired by the Italian news programme Fuori dal Coro (Outside the Chorus) during the month-long Muslim festival of Ramadan, “Immigrants and Violence, The Muslims Who Hate Italy” reveals the dark underbelly of toxic Islamic antipathy toward Italian Catholics and Jews.
In the documentary, the lead reporter takes viewers to an illegal mosque in the Via Padova area of Milan. “It is written in the Quran that we are going to kick the Jews out,” a Muslim man brazenly tells the news team, who are given permission to enter the mosque.
When the reporter asks if Muslims will conquer the world given their numerical strength, the man replies: “Yes, yes. The first place will be Italy, because Italy is very close to Islam, because Italy has a good heart.”
“Just look at the churches, a few elderly people, five here, five there,” says the young Muslim immigrant, who compares the empty churches with mosques that are overflowing with worshippers.
In addition to encountering antisemitic views, the documentary highlights the rising tensions with local indigenous Italians who say they are often threatened by Muslim men attending the mosque, gangs of Muslim teenagers and the rise of no-go zones—a phenomenon already present in Britain.
“I live upstairs. Look, they have already threatened me with death twice,” a local tells the news team, on the condition of anonymity.
As a Brit living in Rome for the last four years, I can confirm many of the concerns expressed in the television programme. I have visited illegal mosques in remote parts of the province of Rome. I have spoken to dozens of illegal Muslim immigrants from Asia and Africa.
My barber, an illegal alien from Afghanistan, tells me he paid $6,500 to be smuggled into Italy five years ago. The rates are now higher. His cousin is paying a human trafficker $8,000 just to be transported from Kabul to Iran en route to Italy.
I ask my barber how he learned to speak Italian so fluently. “I had three Italian girlfriends. All Catholics. I slept with all of them. That’s the best way to learn a new language,” he replies.
Just a hundred meters away from the Via Padova make-shift mosque lies another mosque — Milan’s first official mosque. The building is under construction and Italian law prohibits worship until the completion of the building. But Muslims defiantly use the mosque for prayer. They’ve even built a working a kitchen on the premises.
The documentary crew goes to inner-city Milan—the train station of Porta Garibaldi. This is where notorious Muslim youth gangs operate with impunity. In February, a gang of six youths of Egyptian and Tunisian origin were arrested and incarcerated in juvenile prisons.
In one month alone, armed with knives and bottles the gang carried out seven robberies, mainly targeting Italian youth for their smartphones.
“The area is completely under the control of so-called child gangs, made up of second-generation immigrants,” the reporter observes, noting that most are Muslim.
The reporter asks a group of Muslim youths if they feel integrated into Italy. “No, I don’t. Never. I don’t feel this is my country,” one of them replies. “I was born here in this country [but] I feel more like a Moroccan.”
“Even if we have dual citizenship, we are still Moroccans,” a friend of his chimes in.
Suddenly, the news crew is surrounded by a gang of more than 30 boys. Many are speaking Arabic. “Things get bad, so we decided to leave,” the reporter informs her audience.
One of the icons of such youth gangs is 22-year-old Zaccaria Mouhib, an Italian rapper of Moroccan origin who goes by the name “Baby Gang”. Mouhib has been electronically tagged and placed under house arrest since February for shooting at an acquaintance.
Mouhib, who has been arrested before, wrote on social media: “We grew up with injustice. Unlike before [when] we suffered. Now let’s have a laugh.” He appended a picture of himself showing the middle finger to the police. The rapper is scheduled to face trial for death threats allegedly made to a female reporter.
Meanwhile, working class radicalised Muslims who are calling for the conquest of Italy are receiving ideological input from leading Islamic scholars.
In December 2022, world-renowned Islamic scholar Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, media celebrity and chairman of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, recalled that when the prophet Mohammed was asked which city would be conquered first, Rome or Constantinople, the prophet is said to have replied that “the city of Hirquid (Constantinople) will be conquered first”.
Al-Qaradawi goes on to say: “The city of Hirquid was conquered in 1453 by the young Ottoman emperor of 23 years of age, Mohammed bin Murad, known to history as Mohammed the Conqueror. The other city, Rome, remains and we believe and hope…This means that Islam will return to Rome conquering and victorious after having been expelled twice, once from the South, from Andalusia, and a second time from the East when it knocked several times at the gates of Athens.”
He concludes: “One of the signs of the victory will be that Rome will be conquered, Europe will be occupied, the Christians will be defeated, and the Muslims will grow in number and become a force which will control the whole of the European continent.”
I have been speaking to small groups of Italian evangelical and Pentecostal pastors who, unlike Catholic priests, bishops and the Vatican hierarchy, appear to better recognise the looming threat of the Islamisation of Italy.
They are working in small ways to try and counter this threat: their strategy is to preach the Gospel to immigrant Muslims. The pastor of my local Assemblies of God Church organises a weekly outreach to immigrants and homeless folk, offering blankets, food and Christian fellowship, while boldly sharing the saving message of Jesus to the Muslims.
A team of American evangelical missionaries, who speak fluent Italian, scour the Muslim strongholds of Rome through the week, befriending and evangelising young Muslims.
I was delighted to meet one of their Muslim converts—a young man from Bangladesh—who is now working as a full-time evangelist among Muslims. “Jesus has completely transformed my life. I am prepared to live and die for him,” Abdul (a pseudonym) tells me.
I sit down with him for a cup of coffee and a samosa in a café near Vittorio Emanuele in central Rome — an area dominated by Bangladeshi Muslims. In a tri-lingual conversation mixing Italian, English and Urdu, we manage to talk about the Great Commission, a concept that has been used to support the missionary activities of many Christian denominations, and which refers to several passages in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus Christ urges his apostles to make “disciples of all the nations” and “baptise” them.
“If only the Catholic Church would wake up and send evangelists to work among Muslims,” he tells me. “They are not making the slightest effort to evangelise my people,” he laments. “They don’t believe in evangelism. They only talk about interfaith dialogue.”
I ask him if he has had any success seeing Muslims come to faith in Christ. “It’s difficult. It’s slow. But it’s rewarding. And that’s what Jesus commanded us to do, right,” he says.
“But you know what?” he adds, putting his half-munched samosa down with seriousness. “It’s easier to work with Muslims than with Roman Catholics. Because most of them don’t go to church, don’t know the Gospel, and don’t even care anymore,” he says.
“If they don’t wake up, Italy is finished. L’Italia è finita!” he exclaims.