http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080211/lf_nm_life/religion_oxford_mosque_dc_1LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A battle of faiths is being waged in the ancient English city of Oxford, where some people are bitterly opposed to Muslim plans to broadcast the call to prayer over the fabled dreaming spires.
ADVERTISEMENT
Local residents, clergy and now the head of the Church of England have been drawn into a debate over a proposal from the Central Oxford Mosque to broadcast a recording of the call to prayer, or Adhan, from its minaret over loud speakers.
Residents who live near the mosque claim the call will annoy their mainly non-Muslim community and won't even be heard by the majority of Oxford Muslims, who live more than half a mile away.
"We are very angry that they are presuming to inflict this on a non-Muslim community," Allan Chapman, a historian at the university and a local resident who described himself as a practicing Christian told Reuters.
"We see this as an attempt to impose Islam on a Christian-culture community," he said.
The rector of one of Oxford's largest Anglican churches, Charlie Cleverly of St. Aldate's, has also attacked the plans.
He told the Oxford Mail that it was "un-English" and could create a Muslim ghetto in the neighborhood around the mosque.
"When such an area is subject to such a call to prayer, it may force people to move out and encourage Muslim families to move in," he told the newspaper.
Oxford's population is 150,000, the Central Oxford Mosque estimates that around 7,000 of these residents are Muslim, predominantly of south Asian origin.
Anxious to avoid a clash of cultures, Imam Munir Chisti said he is happy to compromise and has amended his proposal to broadcast the call to prayer once a week, instead of the five times a day heard in Islamic countries.
"I do not care what religion someone follows, I do care that a loud verbal praising of a god I don't believe in, is broadcast into my home," one reader wrote on the Oxford Times Web site.
For the mosque to go ahead with the broadcast of the call to prayer it must get permission from the city council. The imam said that given the level of controversy, he has not yet applied because he wants to canvas opinions from the faithful first.
Imam Chisti said heightened tensions have caused what he calls Islamophobia: "Its a lack of knowledge, they don't understand our intentions."
The call to prayer traditionally involves a muezzin singing from a minaret. It begins with "Allahu Akbar" or "God is the greatest" and ends with "There is no God but God."
The Muslim Council of Britain says increasingly Muslims are choosing more modern methods of receiving the call to prayer via a special FM frequency on their radios, or receiving a text message on their mobile phones informing them of the times of the day they should pray.
I know they tried the same thing in Hamtrack MI, and it didnt work out so well lol.....those loudspeakers make for great target practice
Who is this muzzie trying to fool, that call to prayer is horrible, my brother said the first night he spent in saudi he bolted upright in bed around 4am and thought someone was killing 1000 cats, who wants to hear that crap. This is yet one more thing, one more small step to forcing their ridiculous "religion" on all of us.
Topic: Shreiking over Loudspeakers- Call to prayer in Oxford? (Read 2371 times)