Mayor Jacob Frey announced Tuesday that he will allow a mosque in Minneapolis to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer over loudspeakers during the month of Ramadan.
The call to prayer, known as the adhan, will be played over a loudspeaker in Minneapolis’s Cedar-Riverside neighborhood and is “expected to reach thousands of residents,” Frey’s office said in a statement.
The call to prayer will be broadcast five times a day from a speaker located outside the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque at South Fifth Street and Cedar Avenue.
“At a time when physical distancing requires we pray apart, it’s incumbent on leaders to create a sense of togetherness where we can,” Frey said in a press release. “Adhan provides solidarity and comfort – both of which are essential during a time of crisis. As our Muslim community prepares for Ramadan, we hope the broadcast will offer a measure of stability and reassure our entire city that we are all very much in this together.”
Frey said he “facilitated” the noise permit for the request and noted that the call to prayer will begin on Thursday evening, the start of Ramadan, which lasts for roughly a month.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of Minnesota reportedly paid for the audio equipment that will be used for the broadcast.
“This historic effort to promote religious inclusion – offering the call to prayer in the Cedar-Riverside community – will be welcomed by the Muslim community and all those who value diversity and mutual understanding,” said CAIR-Minnesota Executive Director Jaylani Hussein.
“The call to prayer will be especially meaningful to the many senior citizens in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood who have been isolated due to the pandemic. It will help them feel more connected to their community and mosque in this sacred month,” he added.
Imam Sharif Mohamed of the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque said Muslims all over the world “understand and feel great comfort in the public call to prayer.”
“In this time of fear and isolation, the Muslim communities of Minnesota benefit from a city that honors and loves all of its diversity,” he said.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun and The Ohio Star. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
There were no loud speakers or amplifiers in 800 AD and the call to prayers were not done through sound amplfication. Why treat the call for prayers special?. Play some songs while the speakers blare the monotonous call for prayers.
[…] public presence of the call to prayer in Minneapolis grew in 2020, when Mayor Jacob Frey announced that he would allow a mosque to play the prayer over loudspeakers during the month of […]
Absolutely disturbance of the peace!!!! Everyone should call and report it as such every time it blasts out.
That is absolutely ridiculous!! Say NO to the ideology of islam
This should never be allowed! What a slap in the face to all church goes in our nation. Shame on Mayor Jacob Frey and all of the city counsel that support this atrocity.
Amen! So agree. Christians must fight back against this false religion.
Election has consequences. They are winning their Jihad against the West. Lily white liberals are bringing this country down. Mohammad once said,” if you can’t defeat your enemies, infiltrate them and defeat them from within.”
1st Amendment states no religion shall be favored! I ask and demand that five times a day for 30 days over a loud speaker one chapter from the Holy Bible be read.
OK then.. Bring on ALL the church bells and synagogues at the same time AND ON LOUD SPEAKER! 5 times per day..EVERY DAY, and not just Fridays, Saturdays, or .Sundays… ..in fact, how about all night?
How about a vehicle or two with LOUD Speakers, parading up and down the Cedar-Riverside area, blasting the music score from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’? …Or, the score from the film, ‘Exodus”.. OR ‘The Ten Commandments’.. OR, ‘Gladiator’?
Jacob Frey is an idiot transplant from the Washington DC-Virginia chasm of depravity, and a dangerous one at that.. ..Pandering turncoat and race baiting jackass.. If the fools in Minneapolis were smart – and they are not – they would send this moron packing..
It is about ‘equal treatment under the law’.. U.S. Constitutional LAW, not sharia law my friend..
I don’t care how anyone practices their ‘faith’.. I also do not wish to have anyone shove my face into their ‘faith’, and demand that I must like it, OR, that I MUST appreciate and or embrace it.
This isn’t about hatred of anyone at all. It’s about certain people getting special treatment, and ‘the government’ crazies picking winners and losers…again….and again…and again..
It is about ‘equal treatment under the law’.. U.S. Constitutional LAW, not sharia law my friend..
I will bet you that the mosques around Minnesota will not be held to the same standards, and ‘the law’ by heir Walz, as is true now for the rest of us.. ..churches and synagogues, and temples, etc..
Everyone buy a boat air horn and blow it 5 times a day during their broadcast.
The Muslim call to prayer allowed to be broadcast throughout an area where “thousands” will be forced to listen? Non Muslims are going to be required to listen to this nonsense. Force fed. Sanctioned by the local government????? I hope somebody steps in to STOP this madness!
Talk about your suck up to a bunch of people who don’t like it here. Guess I know who is pulling this Cowards strings. He has no business being the govenor he is a weak man weak leader. People should turn up their radios so no to hear that horrible noise
This isn’t religious inclusion, Its disturbance of the Peace. First it’s Ramadan and then it’s 7 days a week.
Everyone is feeling isolated during this lockdown, why should they be given religious preference.