Free Republic

from Duke University’s chapel tower after all. The university announced that it has reconsidered its decision to allow the call for prayer from the iconic tower on Fridays. The reversal came a day after evangelist Franklin Graham posted a scathing criticism on Facebook asking donors not to give to Duke until the policy was changed.

s they have almost every Friday for two years, Muslim students gathered at Duke University’s chapel for weekly prayers at midday Friday.. But a university plan to sound the prayer call from the Duke University Chapel’s 210-foot bell tower for the first time was hastily called off Thursday in the face of anti-Islamic tirades on social media and what a school official described as credible concerns about security. Instead, the call to prayer, or adhan, was sounded in Arabic and English on Friday from a small portable speaker set up on the chapel steps. Many among the hundreds of students...

Duke's Downsized Call to Prayer Draws Hundreds in Support of School's Muslims BY ELISHA FIELDSTADT Hundreds of students of varying religions gathered outside of the chapel on Duke University's campus Friday to take part in a Islamic call to prayer — in support of the school's Muslim population, which had been offered then denied the opportunity to broadcast the call from the chapel's bell tower. "I was out here to show my support and solidarity for the diversity and the religious beliefs for all of Duke's students," said Steven Boyd after the call to prayer, or "adhan," was read in...