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Radio Islam — Visiting Rome. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
June in, listen in, say something. Radio Islam International on all your favorite networking sites. The travel segment here on the weekend Black Rest Program. And this morning, I was speaking to Najma Ansari, an Italian national who has worked at an Italian news weekly with was a radio and TV presenter as well. An editor of Islamic manuscripts and has worked in Pioneer and Islamic Internet. Present. She is also a multi-lingual and has lived in many different cities across the four continents. She now calls South Africa home and trash chats to us about Rome. Najma, Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, Tuzakmullah Khairun, for taking out the time and joining us on Radio Islam International. Waliikum Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Now, Sister Najma, let's start by giving us some background into the history or the historic city of Rome. Gee, well, it's one of the big historic cities. It goes all the way back about 3,000 years. It began as a small settlement on the River Tiber. And it moved from Roman paganism, a republic-roam, then the Roman Empire, Imperial Rome, then early Christianity, to medieval papal Rome, and then we had the Renaissance and then the kingdom. The shape that it is today, it was formed in 1946. It's massive. And in all the roads, you see bits of history from all these eras. And what are some of the interesting sites to see in Rome? Well, Saint Peter is one of the biggest. If you want to go down in history from the time of the Romans, it was the Colosseum.
The Forum, where if somebody's read the Shakespeare story of Julius Caesar, that's where he was murdered. So all those sites are still there. They're the catacombs when the Christians were being persecuted. So those are underground cave things that they've made where they would save themselves. For those who read all these stories and rockulies in the lion, he sort of was there in the Colosseum with the lion when they had those things. And many, many more mostly around pagan history. Christian history then, the Vatican, it's immense. The museum is immense. Lots to see there. And for us as Muslims, I'd like to put on the Rome muskete, which is the largest of Europe in terms of size or construction of its land, the size. And it's one of the last ones also to be made because of the resistance to Islam. But otherwise, this plenty, this plenty, also not just as monuments and, but even their parks, the things that the fountains of the,
you know, the piazza, all of that is very interesting. What's the regards to tourists, you know, for South African tourists, what are the visa requirements when visiting Italy, and which is the best flight route to take together? Well, the requirements of the same is the triangle all over your van, where you're going to stay, where you're going. And so that's the thing. I'd like to say that if you love the things, you have to get the shengar use that country where you're going to visit. Because you can sort of get a visa from somewhere where you get from anywhere, or to go, and then the type of the booking bird. So if you plan to, if you prefer, you have to go to the accounting consulate in Johannesburg, and that's the way you'll do that. So those are the basic shengar, you know, somewhere where people get stuck, they get a visa from somewhere else or they have it.
And then that's not their first port of entry. But if it's you know, it's a long term visa and you've got it, you've been wherever you had to wear, wherever you got the visa from, then there's no problem. So that's a technicality level. The best, the flights that are best to take, there's no direct flights, unfortunately. Usually as Muslims, we usually go via middle east and take a big, double divide, or don't wear them. But the direct flight, because it's, Rome is physically north of us, and our timeline in the summer is the same, our, you know, our standard time. And therefore, if you go via Ethiopia, Kenya, or Egypt, that's a shortest in that sense. And usually, because of the pit stop when you count the stopover, it's going to take about 15 hours or under, nothing under 13. Because the pit stop, otherwise nonstop flights used to be eight to nine hours before.
And what would you say is the best time of the year to visit and how long would you recommend staying for? Yeah, in the best time of the spring at the autumn and their spring is April, May, May, June, July, August gets very hot. And it's the high season to receive and it's a very crowded. And the other time is September, late September, October is very pretty like our, you know, spring as well. That's their autumn. So those are the best times to visit climate wise, because most of the sites to see are outdoors. And therefore, you need to be in pleasant weather to be. And it's beautiful. You might catch an odd rain shower, but otherwise those are the best time to go in. All right, lovely. What about the culture and the language of the people? The culture is obviously predominantly Christian, but out of all the Europeans, Italians tend to be the most friendly, the most family oriented.
Families are big for them, for at their Christmas times and other things. And also, they are very helpful. So their big culture is around food, of course, very good food. And so when they have their lunches, it goes on for a few hours, the, you know, courses at a time. Now maybe in the global world, everything is fast food, so that might not have light. So, or even at home was a two to three hour social setting around the meal. And, and, and then they will have the CSF thereafter. This was their basic culture. The norm now because of the, you know, Americanization of everything and, you know, time is money and nobody has time to leisurely live. That has changed somewhat, but nonetheless, you find a better pace of living in, in Rome in it's in Rome primarily. That's what I'm talking about.
And there was the other thing about the, the language and communication. The language is a beautiful language in terms of itself. We have a lot of, a lot of literature in it. So, it's not a crude language. It's very refined. Very well, what can I say, is the language, also, than many others? And tell us a little bit about getting around the city, you know, your accommodation options that are available that would suit every pocket. Yes, I'm not going to let me, they are also pockets, look. Or like any other place, some places, if it's near the tourist spot, they're more expensive. The otherwise it's not so expensive. Getting around is very easy.
The public transport system, the underground and the buses are well connected. And the beautiful, it's still, I think, one of the cheapest cities in the world regarding getting your bus passes. One little ticket was one Euro 50, which lasts you 90 minutes. In an hour and a half, you can sort of zip over and even come back and you just have used one ticket. But otherwise, you know, multiple you get the car. So traveling is actually very easy. You don't need a car. Especially downtown cars are limited to go and so that's very easy to go around. That's what you're talking about Islam in the Muslims out in Rome. They were very few and when they were constructing the Masjid, the Italian authorities even asked, why do you want to construct a Masjid? You're so few of you here and so the answer was no.
By the time you'll take a good 20 years to build it or whatever, by the time you will have built it, there will be an influx and it will be plenty. So the Eid, I'm sorry, I'm jumping into the Masjid, but the Masjid has three Eid guards on the Eid days, if it's not four, because there's such a population that they have to, you know, different imams and read different e-pres. And the Muslims are, there are two things. Our diaspora there is not monolithic. We are not all from Libya or the Afrika or from here or from there. It's vast Bangladeshies, subcontinent Indians, African Arabs. But everybody is sort of sprawled out. We don't have a ghetto of Muslims, unlike maybe Paris or London. And therefore, we're sort of pockets are everywhere. In every area they make their own Jammat Khanah,
what they call it, Moll Islamic Center. Most of them are with it like in a garage or in a basement other than the big mosque. But the presence is wide and because of their own particular languages and English not being a mainstream language, you either need to know Italian to communicate with fellow Muslims because Arabic, not mostly, you know, the other non-Arab Muslims won't speak it. And because of that lack of communication, the Bangladeshies will stay within their own community and everything. So plenty of Muslims now, plenty of halal now, which wasn't so before, there was actually allowed for Muslims to eat Zabihah simply because halal was unavailable totally. And finally, you were saying Najiba? No, I was just saying that now things have obviously changed because the influx of migration and immigrants and they're also,
so halal residents are there, but very, very, very rarely would you find a halal place to eat, which does not serve alcohol. Because alcohol is part of the government ruling. If you are opening an inquiry, you need to be able to provide everything for the community because of country citizens. And finally, as Sister Najiba, I believe that your father was instrumental in building one of the first Muslim children room. Tell our listeners a little bit about that. Well, from the sixties, there was nothing. These despised flats, they had the decoy, the Islamic center, broke. Most of them were run coordinated by the Arab country. Initially, we picked Morocco, so I don't know if they were going to be able to. Then it went sharp, and it took me after the Ornib border and had that cloud to ask the Italian government to donate them land.
And of course they were reluctant to do so. They said, if you're in Makkah, you don't allow a church, why would you allow a mosque in Rome? So, before the time it did from the 17th to the 17th or something, the mosque was finally up in 1994, the opening was in 1995. So it was one of the last mussies to be built in the big cities of Europe, Munich, London, Paris, Minneapolis, all of those. But it was also the largest because of that. The construction was done to keep in mind the Italian Roman style. So the brickwork was all that. Inside it was obviously pure. My father as a progo, no, was working there, and eventually after he retired, he was a coordinator. So he saw it at his end, and he's seen the integrity of it all. So that in a brief it is, at another time you could talk more on that. Sister Najiba, JazakAllah, and thank you so much for joining us this morning. And thank you so much for sharing with us your experience about this city in Italy.
And that's Rome. It's been a pleasure speaking to you.
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