Muslim Call to Prayer in Oxford
Charles Johnson
Mon Dec 24, 2007 at 9:35 am PST • Views: 418
Residents of central Oxford are unhappy with plans to allow the muezzin to blare out the adhan three times a day: Anger over plan to broadcast Muslim call to prayer on loudspeaker in Oxford.
Muslim plans to broadcast a loudspeaker call to prayer from a city centre mosque have been attacked by local residents who say it would turn the area into a “Muslim ghetto”.
Dozens of people packed out a council meeting to express their concerns over the plans for a two-minute long call to prayer to be issued three times a day, saying that it could drown out the traditional sound of church bells.
But a spokesman for the Central Mosque said that Muslims also have the right to summon worshippers.
Dr Mark Huckster, who lives in Stanton Road and works at East Oxford hospice Helen House, told the Oxford Mail: “The proposal to issue a prayer call is very un-neighbourly, especially in a crowded urban space such as Oxford. I have lived in the Middle East and a prayer call has a very different feel to church bells and I personally found the noise extremely unpleasant, rather disturbing and very alien to the western mindset.”
He added: “If an evangelical Christian preacher proposed issuing sermons three times a day at full volume there would be an outcry. There could be a sense of ghettoisation of East Oxford. Cowley Road would have a Muslim flavour and could become a Muslim ghetto which is contrary to what we want in a multicultural society.”
Frank says: