call to prayer – Faith Matters

German city allows mosques to broadcast call to Friday prayers

Faith Matters — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 23:45:26 +0000

The German city of Cologne will start permitting mosques to broadcast muezzin calls for prayer, the city said.

The calls can be broadcast for five minutes every week for the Friday prayer around noon and audible outside the Muslim houses of prayer, city spokeswoman Katja Reuter said.

Cologne mosques need to apply for a special permit in order to be able to broadcast the call.

The initiative will be limited to two years and then be re-evaluated.

The city’s mayor welcomed the decision, saying that “if in addition to the sounds of the church bells we also hear the call of the muezzin, it shows that in Cologne diversity is valued and lived”.

“Permitting the call of the muezzin is a sign of respect,” Mayor Henriette Reker tweeted last week.

Christian church bells ring out daily in many German cities and towns.

Cologne, a western city of one million, has one of Germany’s biggest Muslim communities and about 35 mosques.

Most Muslims initially came from Turkey as guest workers 60 years ago and then later brought their families.

Only few other Muslim houses of prayer across Germany, like in the western towns of Oer-Erkenschwick and Dueren, have been broadcasting the muezzin’s call for years, sometimes despite the protests of Christian neighbours.

Museum of London records call to prayer for Ramadan project

Faith Matters — Sun, 28 Jun 2020 23:14:06 +0000

The Museum of London is collecting objects to reflect how the Muslim community experienced Ramadan during lockdown.

It is part of a project to reflect Londoners’ lives during the pandemic to provide a record for future generations.

One strand will be Ramadan, from earlier this year, with the museum recording calls to prayer at the Musalla an Noor mosque in Hackney, east London, and documenting the experiences of young Muslims in west London.

“We are in the process of collecting a range of items ranging from photographs, film and audio recordings and physical objects to tell the stories of these families,” Aisling Serrant, who is leading the family strand of the project, said.

“Some of the key parts of Ramadan, such as spending time with family and friends and visiting the mosque, have not been able to take place this year or had to be adapted to virtual or socially distant means.

“It was important to capture the experiences of families at this time”.

It is hoped that all items will go in an online database but there are no plans for the overall project – to reflect the lives of Londoners during the pandemic – to go on display.

Indonesia: Buddhist woman imprisoned for blasphemy

Faith Matters — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 12:49:23 +0000

An Indonesian court sentenced a Buddhist woman to 18 months in prison for blasphemy on Tuesday, after she was accused of insulting Islam for complaining that neighbourhood mosque was too loud.

Meiliana, a 44-year old ethnic Chinese Buddhist had complained the Muslim call to prayer, repeated five times a day, was being played too loudly at the mosque near her house in North Sumatra.

Indonesia has the world’s largest population of Muslims and sizable Buddhist, Christian and other religious minorities. Recent years have seen a rise in conservative and hardline interpretations of Islam, prompting fears that the secular nation’s long-standing reputation for tolerance and diversity was being eroded.

“She had said something that insulted religion, in this case Islam,” said Jamaluddin, spokesman of the Medan district court, adding the defendant had “showed remorse and apologised”.

Political activists have said the country’s stringent blasphemy laws are being used to bully minorities and violate religious freedoms.

Last year, the former ethnic Chinese governor of Jakarta was tried and jailed for blasphemy after several Muslim groups accused him of insulting Islam when he said his political rivals were using the Koran to deceive voters.

The ruling was widely condemned and believed to be politically motivated. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama also lost his re-election bid because of the accusations.

There are hundreds of thousands of mosques across the vast archipelago and most use loudspeakers to play the ‘azan’ or call to prayer, which lasts a few minutes. But many also play lengthy versions of prayers or sermons lasting over 30 minutes, which has been deemed unnecessary by the Indonesian Mosque Council.

Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who is also a member of the Council, formed a team in 2015 to review mosques’ use of loudspeakers and regulate their use and volume. He has previously called on mosques to use their public address systems “wisely”.

Kalla’s spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on Meiliana’s conviction.

Meiliana’s lawyer, Ranto Sibarani, said they would appeal the verdict, according to The Jakarta Post.