The Long Journey Toward a Unified Call to Prayer

Al-Ahram, Egypt, October 1

Over the decades, many complaints were filed over the noise caused by mosques located in residential neighborhoods. At first, the government attempted to deal with the issue by promising that the Adhan – the call to prayer usually played on loudspeakers – would be limited to one mosque per neighborhood. However, this solution was short-lived and was soon replaced with the idea of implementing a unified call to prayer, which would be sounded by all mosques simultaneously. But even this initiative hasn’t been met with success across the country. The demand to standardize the call to prayer has yet to be met. Recently, Minister of Endowments Dr. Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa explained that the delay in implementation has been caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. But the obvious fact is that the project is progressing very slowly. The excuses made by senior officials in the ministry have been prevalent since 2019. To date, very few of the mosques located in Greater Cairo have joined the initiative. It turns out that there are many mosques that fall outside the jurisdiction of the ministry, allowing them to sound whatever Adhan they want. Sadly, many mosques still believe that having the loudest call to prayer distinguishes them from other mosques, even if they disturb the peace of their neighbors and violate the public’s right to a basic quality of life. —Ahmed Abdel-Tawwab (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)