Per this article. I’m not particuarly religious, but to me the church bells ringing on Sunday morning is just part of the background. Muslim calls to prayer being broadcast 5 times a day might edge into the category of “annoying”.
Should church bells and Muslim calls to prayer have equivalent “rights to be broadcast” status?
I think the old biddy has missed the point. If I lived there, would I get to complain that I think both faiths are stupid so I shouldn’t have to hear either? 
Personally, I feel like the actual amount of noise is the big issue, and I’m not sure how loud either one is.
The article doesn’t say anything about the duration of the calls to prayer or exactly how large an area would hear them, but so long as they aren’t any more disruptive than church bells, I think they should be allowed.
When reading articles, I always bear in mind that the reporter has shaped the story by selecting quotes and including them. It’s possible some people do have ordinary noise objections to the calls to prayer, but the residents quoted seem more bothered by the idea of Muslim calls than the idea of the noise itself. If non-Christians can listen to church bells without their heads exploding, these people can do the same.
You know I sort of like the Call, just like I enjoy church bells.
I would propose no electronic amplification.
I’ve only spent a couple weeks, all told, in Muslim countries, but I think the call to prayer is a nice thing to listen to. On the other hand, one can hardly get less musically pleasing than a large percussion instrument being struck incessantly for a period of minutes (even if it is only once a week).
So long as the noise level for the mosque is not disruptive for neighbors, there should be no restriction on the content of the noise – that is, it should not matter one whit whether its a call to praise Allah or a call to pray to Jebus.
I’ll have to strongly disagree with Paul in Saudi, having lived in Saudi for 11 years I found that the call to prayer in Other Muslim countries is calming as apposed to Saudi Arabia, where they seemed to scream where I lived.
That being said…If I lived in the community in the States I would strongly appose the calling of prayer as it is a noise pollution Church bells, unless there is a special occasion do not go on for over 5 minutes.
I’m with you on that- the call to prayer is oddly calming, even as a non-speaker of Arabic. And yes, the calls to prayer in Saudi Arabia do seem more strident.
I actually like church bells too; bells and calls to prayer are perhaps the only outward affectations of religion that I don’t object to.
Re: the article linked to, whoever called the call to prayer prosetylizing is off his head. I sincerly doubt that there’s a single non-Muslim in the city who speaks Arabic…
Before I bought a house in the UK, I did all the usual checks for noisy neighbours and traffic noise. Having decided that it was indeed a quiet street, I took the plunge. I moved in on a Saturday. On Sunday morning at 9:35 I was propelled out of bed by someone clanging a large bell in my ear. Or so it seemed. The church at the end of the street was about 200 yards away, but the bells were loud enough to be very annoying. I moved to the back bedroom and although the bells were still audible, it wasn’t quite as bad.
The front bedroom became the guest room. Sometimes I’d warn my guests about the unsolicited wake-up call. Other times I would forget. The result? A muffled bump - as guest leaps out of bed - accompanied by - WTF?! - or some similar exclamation.
I’ve also had the pleasure to live near mosques, and the sound of the call to prayer wafting over the Jerusalem hills is certainly hypnotic and not in the least annoying. However, when you are right across the street from a mosque, as I was, staying in a cheap hotel in Istanbul’s Sultanahmet district, the 5am call to prayer is not an attractive prospect, in all its amplified and distorted glory.
Once a week, at 9:35 a.m. may be irritating to you.But most people are already awake then.And most people think bells chiming is esthetically pleasing and musical.
Now, 5 times a day, including pre-dawn hours–that could get irritating if it’s loud.
And shouting “allah is great and Muhammed is his prophet” is a declaration that isn’t open to musical interpretation.I wouldnt want to hear that every day at 5 a.m.
When I was briefly stationed in Dubai, I was only about a few blocks away from a mosque (it’d be hard not to). By the third day, i was already sleeping through the call.
My point was that neither were palatable at close range. On Sundays, most people I know are still asleep at 9:35. The childless ones, anyway. 
Hm.
First of all, I would determine exactly when church bells are rung, then limit Muslim prayer calls to those times, give or take a little. Certainly no earlier, and no later.
Then I would determine the noise level of the bells, in decibels, in a variety of locations. I would then state that Muslim prayer calls could be no louder than this.
And then everyone can freakin’ just deal with it. Freedom of religion was one of the cornerstones of this society. If the Muslim’s can’t call, then the Christians can’t ring their friggin’ bells. Pick one.
Personally, I think they’re both kind of pretty. And I’m an Atheist.
I’m not sure what the call to prayer sounds like; isn’t it a person yelling words? That sounds a good deal more annoying to me that bells. Of course, if the bells are loud that would annoy me too.
But I’d say words would be more annoying to me for some reason.
I’m an atheist, FWIW.
I stayed in Moshi, Tanzania for a bit last summer.
The blaring of the voices at who knows how late/early drove me absolutly insane.
It’s actually more sung than yelled. I wish I had a sound bite to link to, but I’m working off of the clips they showed on the evening news when they covered this story and some of the videos I watched and CDs I listened to of modern calls to prayer in college world religion courses.
I found this:
I’ve heard worse things, but I’d rather hear soft bells. And I’d rather hear nothing than either singing or bells.
Honestly, it depends on how close you are to the sound. When I was in Venice, I stayed in a hostel approximately three inches from a church and the near-constant ringing of the bells really set my teeth on edge. I tend to enjoy the sound of the call to prayer, but I’ve never tried sleeping a couple feet away from a muezzin, you know? When I lived in Jerusalem, I was in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in the middle of Arab East Jerusalem, so the call to prayer was often audible, but from a distance. I always liked it, although a few times I was in the Old City when the call “went off” and the noise of a hundred muezzenin yelling through bullhorns bouncing off the walls was really something else. I still thought it was pretty cool, but if I’d lived closer and heard it all the time, I can see where it would be very irritating.
Actually, when I first came back to the United States, I really missed hearing the call to prayer. It’s not chanting, it’s sort of sung, and lasts for…oh, a couple minutes. My Islam professor told us that part of the 5 am call says “prayer is better than sleep.”
There are some churches in the Old City of Jerusalem that have large wooden boards hanging from the edge of the overhang of the roof. During Persian rule of the city, church bells were forbidden to be rung, so people would bang these wooden planks to call people to services. Maybe they should all switch to this method.
Now that people have things like clocks and watches, perhaps it’s time to move away from both the bells and the calls to prayer.
Of course, that’s asking a religious culture to modernize, which hasn’t been the most successful thing to try in the past.
Why should the bells be the reference rather than the contrary? If it happens that the call to prayer is less noisy, then I suppose that following this logic, the bells shouldn’t be rung until they’re replaced by similarily less noisy ones…