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The Minneapolis City Council voted to allow broadcasts of the Muslim call to prayer at all times, becoming the first major American city to do so.
The Islamic call to prayer, or “adhan”, will soon echo through the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, as it becomes the first large US city to approve mosques to publicly broadcast the call to prayer five times each day.
On Thursday, the City Council approved amending the city’s noise ordinance in a unanimous vote.
“This is a historic victory for religious freedom and pluralism for our entire nation,” Jaylani Hussein, director of the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Minnesota branch, said in a statement on Thursday, after the vote. “We thank the members of the Minneapolis City Council for setting this great example, and we urge other cities to follow it.”
The vote took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and has been met with celebration from members of the city’s local Muslim community. The city’s mayor is expected to sign the resolution next Monday.
The Muslim call to prayer known as the adhan or azan, is recited five times a day from dawn to the night throughout the year.
While the prayers have been broadcast in Minneapolis before, the ordinance prevented some dawn and evening calls. Dawn can arrive shortly after 5 a.m. in the summer, and sunsets after 9 p.m.
The city allowed prayer broadcasts between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. last year, and first allowed adhan broadcasts five times a day during Ramadan in 2020.
Minneapolis’ East African population has boomed since the 1990s, making mosques more common in the City of Lakes.
Observers of the City Council meeting likened the call to prayer to Christian church bells.
Council Member Lisa Goodman noted that the Jewish call to prayer is allowed, though it is not often broadcast.
The amendment is expected to be signed into law by Mayor Jacob Frey next week.
The effort faced no mobilized public opposition, notable in a country where efforts to promote mosque activity have sometimes been subjected to Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric.
In 2010, an effort to build a mosque and community space near Ground Zero, the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, faced vicious pushback from anti-Muslim groups, eventually forcing planners to abandon the effort.
Former US President Donald Trump also leaned into anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies, such as a “Muslim ban” that restricted people from numerous Muslim-majority countries from coming to the United States.
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