The Muslim call to prayer will ring out more freely in New York City under guidelines announced by Mayor Eric Adams.
The Muslim call to prayer will ring out more freely in New York City under guidelines announced Tuesday by Mayor Eric Adams, which he said should foster a spirit of inclusivity.
Under the new rules, Adams said, mosques will not need a special permit to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan, on Fridays and at sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. Friday is the traditional Islamic holy day, and Muslims break their fast at sunset during Ramadan.
The police department’s community affairs bureau will work with mosques to communicate the new guidelines and ensure that devices used to broadcast the adhan are set to appropriate decibel levels, Adams said. Houses of worship can broadcast up to 10 decibels over the ambient sound level, the mayor’s office said.
Having lived in Bedstuy where a loud Muslim prayer happens every Friday morning, it's annoying as fuck and should not be exempted from ordinary noise ordinances.
I lived right next to a Mosque in Kensington (that opened up without a proper permit in a residential zone a year after I purchased my property). They used to broadcast their prayers at ungodly volume. It was loud as hell, would cut through my headphones and ruin any ability I had to do anything, even think straight. I made numerous noise complaints but nothing was ever done by the NYPD. Got so bad that I finally sold the place and moved somewhere dominated by orthodox Jewry just because I knew they'd serve as a bulwark against me ever having to hear any prayers again.
I'm sure that the people who think this is a good idea view it as a simple matter of religious freedom. It is not. My experience was one of having someone else's religion thrust upon me. Church bells are annoying and loud, but they do not contain actual religiosity. I was always taught that my rights ended when I infringe upon someone else's rights. Broadcasting prayers so loud it can be heard above the ambient noise in NYC is trampling on my rights to exist free of religion.
Believe whatever you want, but keep it to yourself. I feel awful for everyone who lives near a mosque in NYC.
My experience was one of having someone else’s religion thrust upon me.
That's exactly what this is. If someone is part of the religion, they either already know what time it is or have set up their own alarm to notify them. The only reason to blast this across the neighbourhood is to force everyone to hear it.
Glad church bells were the top comment... I grew up across the street from a church and I cannot say this loud enough FUCK CHURCH BELLS!! Ban them both, if you need to be called to pray or told what time it is buy a smartphone and set a reminder.
That's the argument that all the "Muslims shouldn't have extra privileges" miss.
No one should have extra privileges, but we can't take away church bells because of all the Christians would cry foul, so we're stuck giving more religions the right to make excess noise everytime they ask because otherwise it's discrimination.
Caterwauling over a loudspeaker is much more disruptive and annoying than a bell and I don't care who is caterwauling or ringing the bell
But honestly, yeah, apply all noise limits to everyone in the same way. If a bell is being rung during quiet hours and it's too loud, then hit the church with a violation.
Church bells originally existed for a purpose though and that was to strike the hour and ring alarm. Iirc the call to prayer can be used to tell time but like once or twice a day at best.
You can't set a watch by prayer times unless you have a prayer time table for your locality. Since the start and end times for prayers are related to the solar diurnal motion, they vary throughout the year and depend on the local latitude and longitude when expressed in local time.
That doesn't put it in perspective at all. Both of those things are very loud. Ambient noise in NYC is kind of medium to low, depending on time of day and exact location. What does 10 dB above the ambient noise at 4:30 AM sound like? The double of breathing is leaves rustling.
The Islamic call to prayer happens before sunrise, just after noon, late afternoon, just after sunset, and night time.
I think you’re going to have a fuck load of complaining when that bad boy goes off at 4:30 am. I used to live in Mosul and you could hear the imams all across the city. It’s like a giant alarm clock.
This is some backward ass bullshit. Keep your religious garbage to yourself. Complain about Christians forcing school prayers then have this dumb shit.
I lived about 3 miles from a church in a mid-sized town in the midwest. On Sundays they'd play music on some gigantic jangly bell thing I could hear loudly at my house... again, 3 miles away. I can't imagine the noise complaints a regular person would get for playing something that loud, but they're a church so apparently it's fine.
On the one hand, I would be annoyed by more loud noise. On the other hand, it would show the other churches how obnoxious their 5 to 10 minute bell jingles are (hopefully).
This happens surprisingly often. There is a church on my block that I can't hear unless I go right up to the building on Sundays and I know that they do get into because during Covid they moved outside with the singing.
Their broadcasts are actually some really nice kind of singing, which is a lot less intrusive than the church bells I get across the village at 6 in the morning.
I'm not part of the religion, but I used to use the call to prayer to wake up during finals week during university. It was different than my other alarms, so my body had a 0% chance of sleeping through it.
Worked astounding well.
Listening to the same recording now gives me fear flashbacks to the dread of finals week, haha.
My GF lives by a mosque where they blast their off-tone, lazy chants at full blast. Its awful. Its so loud it rattles her windows. Apparently its to evangelize, but I can't imagine anyone getting swayed when their ear drums burst from poorly toned chants.
Why am I thinking about c90adventures when he was in like Mexico and the market across from his hotel was blaring something over what im convinced were some old ww2 air raid sirens.
So see if the city has like a max db for speakers, get a device to measure the decibels and complain on that front. Let them know you are not arguing about the prayer ( sucks but I think that battle is lost for now) but the noise level is disruptive