EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK
Not Just Noise
I
t's the message, not the medium.
In the dispute over whether
Hamtramck should let mosques broad-
cast the call to prayer over loudspeakers
five times a day, the central issue for me is what
is being amplified, not how. Decibel levels can
be changed; the content of a specific prayer
cannot.
When the ancient prayer was called to the
faithful from three silver loudspeakers on the
Al-Islah Islamic Center roof for the first time
last Friday, the ring of church bells didn't
come to mind.
The call espoused Allah as the God.
That's what gnaws at me. I know the Koran
has provocative passages, but I don't condemn
all who practice Islam. I know terrorists have
hijacked Islam to attack Israel and the West,
but very few Muslims are terrorists. And in
my dealings as a journalist, I have exchanged
ROBERT A. views with Muslims and have built friend-
SKLAR
ships.
Editor
So this isn't Islam bashing.
It's about the purposeful public projection
of Allah into the public streets.
If this were just about noise, it wouldn't have stirred the
emotion from all sides that it has. Though a public Call To
Prayer is common in much of the Arab world, in the United
States it generally is done inside mosques. Times of the call,
which lasts 1-2 minutes, vary by season.
The translation presented here is from a leader of Al-Islah,
whose historic broadcast came at 1:35 p.m. on May 28. It is
simplified from a more traditional version that deifies Allah.
The more literal translation of the last line is: "There is no
Divinity but Allah."
In the grand debate over the loudness of the call, seemingly
lost is the free-speech question, "When does the broadcast of a
distinct call so many times a day border on intrusion?"
Church bells, even when they play the melody of a hymn,
don't single out Jesus Christ. They don't carry the Lord's Prayer,
a basic Christian prayer. They don't come close to having the
same impact of a message extolling the virtue of Allah.
In Judaism, the blast of the shofar welcomes and ends the
High Holidays. But the curved horn of a ram is blown inside
the synagogue, not over an outside loudspeaker. Moreover, no
synagogue would amplify the Shema and its declaration of God
onto public streets. So it bothered me that a vanload of self-
proclaimed "David's Mighty Men" came to Hamtramck to
protest the Al-Islah Islamic Center's first amplification of the
call and chose to cap their Christian prayers with two shofar
blasts; the group of 10 represented New Covenant Worship
Center in Wellston, Ohio.
The Islamic Call to Prayer already emanates into
Hamtramck from four mosques just over the Detroit border.
The American Muslim Society is believed to be the only
mosque in Dearborn with a public call. Mosques in
Farmington Hills, Bloomfield Hills, Oak Park and Rochester
Hills also don't broadcast the call. There's international interest
in what's going on only in Hamtramck, an ethnic and religious
melting pot with a diminishing but unflappable Polish-
Catholic core. The dominant religion is Christianity Perhaps at
least a third of the 23,000 residents are Muslim, with most
arriving since 1990.
Putting the issue of the call to a public vote is the right thing
to do in Hamtramck. With residents, legal experts, city leaders
ll FradYber
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ear
grth
Alcsiha
teh:d
" (twice)
no other God ) ut
-testify
"1 testify Muhammad is the messenger of trod" (- twice]
Conte and pray" (twice)
Come and flourish" (twice)
-
-
-
God is great"' (twice)
There is
no God but God"
— Translated by Masud Khan,
secretary of Al-Islah Islamic Center, Hamtramck
and the ACLU weighing in without consensus, the vote is the
democratic way.
The mosque serves people mainly from Bangladesh who
were used to hearing the call there. The mosque sought city
council approval to amplify the call even though it apparently
didn't need to under existing ordinances. "We want to be good
neighbors," said Abdul Motlib, the mosque president.
The city council was ready to regulate the call through a
noise ordinance amendment. But when petitioners sought to
block the amendment, the council showed Solomon-like wis-
dom in putting the call to a vote.
There's something to be said about a community that lets
ethnicity flourish. For example, community eruvs in West
Bloomfield, Oak Park and Southfield mean Jews may carry
items acceptable for use on Shabbat.
But eruvs don't talk.
Neither do creches, chanukiyot or most other religious holi-
day decorations visible to the public.
None asserts God as overtly as the Islamic Call to Prayer.
About the only thing as overt is Christmas music played in
public places.
Points To Ponder
Ironically, it's because of America's freedoms that the call is even
an issue in Hamtramck. In contrast, Jews who dare to practice
Judaism in Arab lands and parts of Europe are harassed or per-
secuted.
In April, I visited Israel where the Islamic Call to Prayer is
common in areas with high numbers of Arabs. A potential
alternative emerged from that experience: . Let Hamtramck's
three mosques amplify the call on Friday — the holiest day of
the Muslim week.
What got me thinking about this controversy was a letter I
got from JN reader Mary Jane Larson, a longtime Livonia resi-
dent and a member of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield.
"I'm opposed to the call, in Hamtramck or in any other
city," she wrote. "None of my friends, family or neighbors
seems as concerned as I am. Perhaps this seeming lack of con-
cern and awareness has to do with where they live — so
removed from Hamtramck."
"This isn't my usual bent, to be so fearful about Islam,"
Larson told me. "With all that is going on with terrorists,
maybe I just need to be more educated and hear another side."
She added, "I don't think we as Jews would broadcast the
Ten Commandments into a neighborhood. That would be
equally intrusive."
But she respects the will of the voters, as do I.
"If the people of Hamtramck support the call, so be it," she
said.
I agree.
In that case, I would hope that the legacy of the call debate is
a deeper understanding toward one another among
Hamtramck's diverse cultures — and an example to follow for
other communities with a changing populace.
That would be the American way. LI
6/ 4
2004
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