Posted on 06/03/2004 3:25:50 PM PDT by missyme
HAMTRAMCK, Michigan -- Hamtramck, Michigan is a blue-collar town surrounded by the city of Detroit. Its downtown storefronts reflect the diversity of immigrants who settled here. But an influx of immigrants from the Middle East has transformed Hamtramck from a melting pot into a political powder keg. New Muslim residents are adopting American habits, driving SUVs and talking on cell phones. But many still cling to old customs, wearing traditional dress, and shopping at markets that sell "halal," or meat slaughtered according to Islamic law. Now one Bangladeshi mosque wants to revive a controversial ritual.
The Islamic call to prayer is a 1,400-year-old tradition, sung in most U.S. mosques within the walls. But the Al Islah Islamic Center says they should be able to broadcast over public loudspeakers in Arabic, five times a day, from 6am to 10pm.
The call to prayer states, "Allah is great…Mohammed is Allah's prophet…come to prayer. There is no god but Allah."
Mosque president Ahmed Motlib asked the city's permission to broadcast from rooftop loudspeakers. Motlib says, "Some people, they don't know what time is our congregation, only for congregation coming and participating. That's why we want to call prayer outside."
But the request has split the community. Hundreds signed a petition to block the broadcasts as a public annoyance.
Hamtramck resident Jerry Radziszewski says, "To me, this is disturbing the peace. They understand what it is. We don't. To us it's just a bunch of noise."
Mosque supporters say the Azan can already be heard from mosques in nearby Detroit No different, they say, from Christian church bells.
Motlib comments, "Azan is only two minutes, less than two minutes is noise. Every hour church bell, more than five minutes their bell make belling. So we don't feel anything bad."
Bob Zwollack is a former city clerk who led the petition drive. He says it is an issue of noise.
"Even if they got up on their towers and did it like they did 1,400 years ago," says Zwollack, "where you just had a call to prayer like before, there's not a problem. Who's going to object to that? Yes, they have a right to free speech, but the overall objection was an amplified sound, amplified religious statement."
But the dispute has escalated into a national controversy over religious freedom. The press converged on heated city council meetings, which exploded with calls for tolerance and charges of discrimination.
Hafiz Mohammed of the Islamic Association of Michigan, says, "Those people who are opposing Azan, our position is not a new phenomenon. They are racist! "
Council member Scott Klein says, "The folks I've seen leading this have nothing on the boys from Montgomery, the boys from Birmingham, the boys from Mississippi."
Hamtramck resident Bob Golen protests, "I am not a racist! My wife is not a racist."
Joanna and Bob Golen are life-long residents of this neighborhood, now largely owned by Bangladeshi newcomers. The Golens say they have been demonized for signing the petition.
Bob Golen says, "I don't tell them to believe in Jesus, I don't want them to tell me to believe in Mohommed. The call to prayer is fine, but don't evangelize me where I can't turn you off five times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They're going to tell me their god is the only true god? I don't have to listen to that."
The Golens say the mosque is forcing a foreign religion right onto their front porch, proselytizing on public airwaves.
Joanne Golen says, "Why is it wrong for them to practice their religion the way they want to? They can do it any way they want in their mosque, like we do in our churches, in their homes, like we do. I can even sit on my porch and pray silently. I'm all for them practicing their religion, but I do not want to hear over loudspeakers their god being praised in my ears five times a day."
5 times a day? My bible says to pray at all times...
Petra? You are showing your age...Superchic[k] would be my kids choice. Newsboys/Delirious/Hillsong would work for me. Far too many options to mention.
You are absolutely right! 1 Thess. 5:17 Pray continually
I vote for the loudspeakers, too. That will make them crazy.
Would you also be in support of public address systems broadcasting the Christian daily prayer over the same medium? >>
Absolutely and without reservation.
"It's called a CLOCK!"
Maybe they just aren't familiar with this modern technology.
Then, when the municipality sees fit to allow the broadcasting of Christian prayer, I will still be against braying anachronistic Muslim propagandistic garbage within the hearing of American children. The 1st amendment, and the entire Constitution, is for free people, not insurgents trying to stealthily impose their medieval insanity on an enlightened society.
Exactly. It is a statement of "We own this space -- whereever our call can be heard, is ours"
The 1st amendment, and the entire Constitution, is for free people, not insurgents trying to stealthily impose their medieval insanity on an enlightened society.
>>>
Nor is it for smelly people with darker skin than you do who speak funny. Isn't that what you're REALLY saying?
You disgust me.
I always favored bagpipes.
I love 'em, neighbors learned mutual respect.
and silence.
Just try doing it on a 500 watt audio system. With all the Mosques caterwauling it sounds like an air raid around here. We cannot even have a silent stone monument to the ten commandments in a public place and the Islamic Jihadists who committed a far more heinous crime than Pearl Harbor has the right to scream Arabic prayers louder than a Jet engine over American Cities?
I would think they would need to win the War they started first.
No he said that someone who has declared war on us cannot claim power under the Constitution they have sworn to destroy.
You are the only one that think and said that Arabs are smelly and have darker skin. Your clear pandering for the enemy, and your Implied Bigotry is what is disgusting.
Take a look in the mirror and see what Stalin called "a useful idiot". The final result of the useful idiots of Stalins time put him in power and as a direct result 50,000,000 people were killed.
Liberals that think with their emotions instead of their brains fear getting the blood of our enemies on their hands when it is time to defend the Country.
Your pride in being "above" doing what has to be done is a thin veil of cowardice. The quick willingness to turn on your fellow countrymen that disagree with you, shows a willingness to destroy your fellows to save your own skin. I predict you will be the "informer" in your area, as your emotions of fear will override any moral compunction to act with honor. So in the end to save your skin you will only bathe in the blood of your Countrymen.
Those who will not stand up for what is right when it is easy cannot be expected to stand up when their life is in jeopardy. Hope you enjoy your Burka...
cc: William Terrell
How come I cannot get rid of those who would trade freedom for the fear of offence? Your position is one of the lowest common denominator.
No he said that someone who has declared war on us cannot claim power under the Constitution they have sworn to destroy.>>
Muslims in the United States have done nothing of the sort. To say that they have and that they are is racist, evil, and stupid, not necessarily in that order. To treat Muslims from Hamtramck (who, I might add, are Albanians, and thus are being smeared for reasons having nothing to do with 9/11 and everything to do with stone cold Slavic bigotry) as if they were Hamas operatives is naked, stone cold, Nazi bigotry, no different than if they wanted to prevent building a Temple.
The "they" who would prevent building a Temple to whom I refer in the last sentence above are not the Muslims, but our resident anti-Muslim bigots, of whom there are huge numbers on Free Republic.
Your pride in being "above" doing what has to be done is a thin veil of cowardice. The quick willingness to turn on your fellow countrymen that disagree with you, shows a willingness to destroy your fellows to save your own skin. I predict you will be the "informer" in your area, as your emotions of fear will override any moral compunction to act with honor. So in the end to save your skin you will only bathe in the blood of your Countrymen>>>
I f*rt in your general direction. I've risked more to oppose genocide than you ever will.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1148468/posts
Most recently, in response to a column I write for an Indian paper, in which I confessed to having met a few terrorists in my time and attempted to analyze their limited grasp of the world, I received a lot of hate mail. Some of the e-mailers clearly thought I was a Muslim apostate and reminded me that the penalty for that sin was death. One, who signed himself Zahir Pathan, was more strident. He graphically said I was a Muslim sin cojones, as Hemingway would have put it, because I failed to face up to what had to be done. He went on to say, presumably as part of what needed doing, that preparations were under way for the bombing and destruction of Bombay. His tone was swaggering, his e-mail rage directed against one who had, he thought, reneged on Islam.
This proves that in spite of your claim to be "in Israel" that you are indistinguishable from the Islamonazis. Or the German Nazis.
We don't kill people just because of their religion. The minute we start doing so, we aren't America any more, we're New Germany.
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