Prayer call low-key and supported :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Prayer call low-key and supported

Posted by admin on Thursday, June 17, 2004 - 08:40 AM

The call to prayer from the Al-Islah Islamic Center in Hamtramck at 1:35 p.m. Friday could barely be heard across the street, but it echoed around the world.
Mosque leaders deliberately toned down their amplifier Friday in an effort to show how little the hotly contested broadcast will affect the neighborhood around Caniff and Jos. Campau. The low volume left radio and TV reporters straining to raise their microphones toward the speakers on the mosque's roof. Robert Zwolak, a major critic of broadcasting the call to prayer, listened on the sidewalk, then complained, "They were just being diplomatic today in toning it down. This is still going to be a noise problem." But Zwolak was the lone critic outside the mosque. Inside, joining in an hour-long celebration with nearly 400 Bangladeshi Muslims, was a broad array of Hamtramck's leadership, including all five members of the City Council and school board president Camille Colatosti as well as Catholic, Protestant and Muslim clergy from other neighboring houses of worship. "This issue, in some ways, has torn the city apart and, in some ways, it's bringing us together," said councilman Chuck Cirgenski. Michael Szymanski, editor of the Polish Weekly, an English-and-Polish newspaper, said the long-running dispute has led a lot of people to start learning about Islam. When they do, he said, many discover that Muslims share some of the same sacred stories and values as Christians. "Before this happened, all I knew about Islam was what I saw at the movies," he said. Interest in the issues of diversity and freedom of religious expression extend far beyond the boundaries of the 2.1-square-mile city. Also on hand Friday to support the mosque were representatives of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan and the National Conference for Community and Justice. Fritz Reimann, a reporter for SF DRS, the Swiss public television network, covered the event and said afterward, "This is absolutely an important story. People in Switzerland won't believe that this could take place in the United States, given the way the U.S. is in so much conflict with Islam in the Middle East." Reimann said he has covered many stories in the United States in recent years, "but many of them, I have to say, were negative stories about conflicts here. "It's so good to have a positive story to tell this time."

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