ABSTRACT
This introduction describes the main goals of the book, based on the relation between constitutional democracy and Islam, with a specific focus on Italy. Constitutional democracy is a result of a western, never-ending secular age, during which the dynamic relation between equality and diversity has devised the concept of liberty, with all its necessary Unbehagen (discontents), to put it in the words of Sigmund Freud. These discontents perform as the vital paradoxes of human rights. For instance, as a form of discontent, the human right of freedom of religion emerges from its practical problems, such as those referring to the legal status of Muslims and Islamic groups. That is evident in the case of the current Italian constitutional democracy, which helps in analysing how the politicization of religion, the process of glocalization, and incessant states of emergency (from immigration to religion-inspired terrorism) touch on the raw nerve of the historical dilemma between the principle of equality and the right to be different, which remain indispensable devices to a functioning and pluralistic constitutional democracy.
