Abstract

The article looks at Islamic finance from the point of view of Muslim families in immigration territories. In many countries there is no access to shari’ha compliant financial instruments, despite the presence of immigrants and citizens whose religion defines the financial world. The article focuses on a topic that is not very in-depth analysed in social sciences, it combines the perspective of studies on Islam in the diaspora with the instruments of sociology of money and finance with a particular focus on management of resources by families. What happens in contexts where the majority acts, buys and invests following different modalities, norms and attitudes? Is reconciling the respect of the norms on finance provided by religion with a daily life that speaks and is connoted by different languages and behaviours an objective of the Muslim? The article has an exploratory perspective and investigates in depth representations and practices of the Muslim community in Turin, with a field research conducted through semi-structured interviews and focus groups and dialoguing with other qualitative researches on the same subject. The study is framed in the analysis of the diffusion of Islamic finance, reported at the beginning of the article, from which emerges a logic directed to the differentiation of investments for the risk management on international financial markets, rather than a logic directed to offer services for the support of social integration of the communities.