Salvatore Senatore

In recent years, several prayer rooms have been established in Salerno and its province. The religious personnel who manage these spaces circulate forms of knowledge and practice shaped by transnational religious organizations, thereby linking local believers to a complex, global, and multipolar religious field. Within the province, the Agro Nocerino-Sarnese and the Piana del Sele host large Moroccan communities. These rural areas, known for intensive tomato cultivation, have long been characterized by the caporalato (gangmaster) system, which exploits seasonal agricultural labor. The resulting patterns of mobility limit sustained participation in local religious activities, fostering an informal Islam experienced primarily in individualized and intimate forms rather than through stable institutional engagement. This informality has also contributed to the organizational autonomy of these muṣallayāt, which operate independently of nationally recognized Islamic associations and consequently remain excluded from formal arenas of negotiation between Islam and the Italian state. In the city center, by contrast, a muṣallā managed by members of the Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities, part of which is affiliated with the Ğamāʿat al-Tablīġ, serves as an important religious reference point. Many of its members formerly worked as street vendors along the waterfront; however, following the municipal ban on street trading, they have faced increasing marginalization and social fragmentation. The first objective of this research is to analyze the connections between transnational religious organizations and local actors through an examination of the discourses and forms of knowledge articulated by religious personnel and addressed to ordinary believers. The second objective is to investigate how these discourses are received and reworked by believers in their everyday lives. Ultimately, this study moves beyond the analysis of a merely local phenomenon and instead seeks to examine the interconnections linking the actors of Global Islam, the leadership of local muṣallayāt that disseminate its norms and practices, and the ordinary believers who inhabit this provincial context.