Prayer Times in Italy

Muslims and mosques in Italy

Italy does not ask about religion in its census, so figures for Muslims are estimates. The Pew Research Center projected about 1.4 million Muslims in 2016, 2.3% of the population, up from about 520,000 in 1999 and 1.2 million in 2009. The largest groups come from Morocco and Albania, followed by recent migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Tunisia, the Balkans and India. Almost 60% of Muslims live in the north, about 25% in the centre and 15% in the south, drawn by factory, farm and service work in regions such as Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna and Veneto, and in cities like Milan, Turin and Rome.

Muslims are not new to the country. Sicily was ruled by the Aghlabid dynasty from 827, starting at Mazara, and became an emirate that lasted until the Normans took the last Muslim strongholds in 1091. Arab and Norman Palermo left palaces and churches with Islamic craftsmanship that are now World Heritage sites. The modern community grew from the 1980s, when Italy turned from a country of emigration into one of immigration.

Islam is not formally recognised by the Italian state. Recognition needs an agreement (intesa) approved through the President of the Republic, and none has been signed. The Consulta per l'Islam Italiano was created in 2005 as an advisory body with 16 members, and in January 2017 community groups representing about 70% of Italy's Muslims signed a pact with the government on matters such as imam training, transparency and Italian-language sermons. The main national groups include the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), which counts about 70,000 converts among Italians since 2000, and the Italian Islamic Religious Community (COREIS). In practice Italy has only a handful of purpose-built mosques, eight according to Wikipedia, of which the Great Mosque of Rome, opened in 1995, is the largest, and most worshippers pray in prayer rooms in garages, shops and warehouses, which is why local disputes over new places of worship are common.

For prayer times, Italy runs from Sicily at about 36 degrees north to the Alps at nearly 47, so the length of the day and the gap between Fajr and Isha differ noticeably between Palermo and Bolzano. Clocks go forward in March and back in October, as elsewhere in the European Union. Communities follow different calendars: some mosques follow the announcements of their countries of origin, others Saudi Arabia, and some use their own sighting or calculation, so Ramadan and Eid may begin on different days in the same city. The times on this site are the start of each prayer; congregation times are fixed by each mosque and change with the season.

Sources, checked 2026-10: Wikipedia: Islam in Italy; Wikipedia: Mosque of Rome.