By Giovanna Dell'orto
Thursday June 2, 2022
Dalha Abdi, 15, calls the adhan, or Islamic call to prayer, on May 12, 2022, at the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in south Minneapolis. The call exhorts men to go to the closest mosque five times a day for prayer, which is one of the Five Pillars of Islam.Jessie Wardarski | AP
The chant in Arabic blasted from rooftop loudspeakers,
drowning out both the growl of traffic from nearby interstates and the chatter
and clinking glasses on the patio of the dive bar that shares a wall with
Minneapolis’ oldest Somali mosque.
Dozens of men in fashionably ripped jeans or impeccably
ironed kameez tunics rushed toward the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque. Teens clutched
smartphones, and some of the older devout shuffled in with the aid of walkers
from the high-rise complex across the street where thousands of Somalis live.
This spring Minneapolis became the first large city in the
United States to allow the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan, to be broadcast
publicly by its two dozen mosques.
As more of them get ready to join Dar Al-Hijrah in doing so,
the transforming soundscape is testament to the large and increasingly visible
Muslim community, which is greeting the change with both celebration and
caution, lest it cause backlash.
“It’s a sign that we are here,” said Yusuf Abdulle, who directs
the Islamic Association of North America, a network of three dozen mostly East
African mosques. Half of them are in Minnesota, home to rapidly growing numbers
of refugees from war-torn Somalia since the late 1990s.
Abdulle said that when he arrived in the United States two
decades ago, “the first thing I missed was the adhan. We drop everything and
answer the call of God.”
The adhan declares that God is great and proclaims the
Prophet Muhammad as his messenger. It exhorts men — women are not required — to
go to the closest mosque five times a day for prayer, which is one of the Five
Pillars of Islam.
Its cadences are woven into the rhythm of daily life in
Muslim-majority countries, but it’s a newcomer to the streets of Minneapolis,
which resonate with city traffic, the rumble of snowplows in winter and tornado
siren drills in summer.
Americans have long debated the place of religious sound in
public, especially when communities are transformed by migration, said Isaac
Weiner, a scholar of religious studies at Ohio State University.
“What we take for granted and what stands out is informed by
who we think of ourselves as a community,” he said. “We respond to sounds based
on who’s making them.”
That’s especially true when the sound is not a bell or a horn,
but spoken words, as in the adhan.
“Hearing that voice, it’s a connection to God even if at
work or in the fields or a classroom,” said Abdisalam Adam, who often prays at
Dar Al-Hijrah. “It’s a balance of this world and the hereafter.”
Dar Al-Hijrah got a special permit to broadcast for the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan in spring 2020, when Minnesota was under a
pandemic lockdown, so the faithful could hear the adhan from home, mosque
director Wali Dirie said.
Soon it was resounding from speakers set up with the help of
First Avenue, a nightclub made famous by Prince.
People thought they were dreaming and wept at their windows.
That community need led to the recent resolution authorizing
the broadcasts more broadly. It establishes decibel levels and hourly limits in
line with the city’s noise ordinance, meaning that the early-morning and
late-night calls to prayer are only aired indoors.
At Dar Al-Hijrah now, elders call the prayer three times a
day, drawing youth like Mohamad Mooh, 17, who arrived just five months ago. He
said he wishes the broadcasts were even louder like back in Somalia, where the
early morning calls woke him up.
“I know it’s a little bit complicated because of the
society,” Mooh added after a recent packed prayer service.
Just like some Americans opposed church bells in the 19th
century, the call to prayer has led to disputes over the years, from Duke
University to Culver City, California. In Hamtramck, a small city surrounded by
Detroit, councilors exempted religious sounds from the noise ordinance at a
mosque’s request. Coming in the aftermath of 9/11, the amendment got embroiled
in national controversy, but a referendum to revoke it failed.
In the predominantly Somali neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside,
tucked between downtown and two college campuses, Dar Al-Hijrah mosque’s adhan
has met no backlash.
Hoping to also prevent it, the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic
Center in south Minneapolis, which hosts some 1,000 men for Friday midday
prayers, plans to hold meetings with neighbors before broadcasting publicly
this summer.
“We care about the neighbors,” said Abdullahi Farah, the
center’s director. “We have to talk to them, explain to them and at least share
our views on this.”
Abdullahi Mohammed stopped at Abubakar on a recent afternoon
when he was driving by and was alerted by a call-to-prayer app, which he and
many others use in the absence of a public broadcast. He said he would love to
hear the adhan ringing out everywhere because it would teach Muslim children to
pray “automatically” — but also acknowledged non-Muslim neighbors “might feel
different.”
Between hesitancy to provoke tensions, technical
complexities and the challenges of arranging for someone with Arabic and vocal
skills to chant the call live, several mosques may decide not to broadcast,
said Jaylani Hussein, director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on
American-Islamic Relations.
But other mosques are already eager to push for permission
to broadcast all five prayers and hope to see Minneapolis set an example for
cities across the country.
“We want Muslims to fully exist here in America,” Hussein
said, adding that the adhan is the “last piece to make this home. It’s
incredibly important for Muslims to know their religious rights are never
infringed upon.”
Several neighborhood groups consulted by The Associated
Press said that while no formal discussions have been held yet, they expect
most residents will be accepting.
“People will ask, What’s that? and then say, That’s cool,”
predicted Tabitha Montgomery, director of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood
Association.
At two churches, founded more than a century ago by
Scandinavian immigrants and now within earshot of the adhan, leaders also had
no objections.
Trinity Lutheran Congregation collaborates with Dar
Al-Hijrah on charity and outreach events. Pastor Jane Buckley-Farlee said she
likes hearing the adhan from her office.
“It reminds me that God is bigger than we know,” she said.
Hierald Osorto, pastor of the predominantly Spanish-speaking
St. Paul Lutheran Church near Abubakar and another mosque, also anticipates no
pushback from his flock.
In fact, he’s been thinking of bringing back the long-broken
church bell as a way to gather the congregation and make it more visible in the
neighborhood.
“It allows us to be known,” Osorto said.
Mowlid Ali, the imam at Abubakar, said part of the aim in
broadcasting the adhan is precisely that mix of claiming belonging and
outreach.
“We hope that through calling the adhan in public, it would
actually bring more interest from the neighbors in knowing about the religion
of Islam,” Ali said.