Would you object to an amplified Muslim Call to Prayer?

[tortoiseSHELL]

Story here - would you mind? Do you mind church bells ringing? What are your reasons?

Don't know what I think - would be interested to hear your thoughts!

I disagree with charlielola. It is not part of UK culture. There are lots of different nationalities and lots of different religions in the UK. But our national religion is christianity. Britian is a christian nation.
There are lots of French, Polish, Russian etc etc people living in the UK. But French, Polish or Russian is not our national language. English is.

Agnostics and jedi's still outnumber muslims, maybe we should play the theme tune to star wars 5 times a day.

This is a christian country and it will stay that way hopefully as islam is a culture which accepts no other and I have a daughter.

Princess, what do you think our national religion is, then ?
I think I know what it is in Egypt, Russia, Italy. I thought that the Uk was christian. Is it not ?

in the census.

74% of the UK is christian.

I didn't realise that it was census based. I thought it was history, or culture based.
If more people come to live in the Uk in the next few years, who are ......
Islamic, or any other religion, does that change our national religion ?

five times a day could take a bit of getting used to, but if it's a good muezzin and well amplified so not distorted I could probably take it.

There are several churches in London who use fairly poor (imo) amplified recordings of bells, and of course innumerable parish churches around the country whose bells are rung badly / have trebles that sound like dropped saucepans etc (yes St Helen's I mean you - dingdong dingdong clonkdong dingdong)

i have a mosque at the top of my road.
we know roughly when prayer times are due as you can't find anywhere to park.

i think i would find an alarm going off all day quite irritating actually.

pmsl, MrsB!

Yes. Enough noise pollution as it is.

If it pleases your heart and soul to pray, you don't need the intrusion/admonition to remind you.

Mrs B, no 'Ding Dong Merrily on high', then ?

OH FFS. A noise is a noise is a noise. If you have ickel sensitive lugholes, don't buy a house next to a railway line/recycling centre/late night disco/church with bells/fire station/mosque. Or buy some fucking earplugs.

If you live in an urban area, you're going to have car/burglar alarms, which are more annoying as they are unpredictable; if you live somewhere rural, you're going to have either cockerels or early-moring MOD overflights. Stories like this are really just witless muslim-bashing (and I have no time for Islam or any other superstition but believe profoundly in people's right to self-express no matter how tiresome).

Probably and we do all seem intent on commiting cultural suicide.

People would rather be politically correct than free these days.

found 71% lebelled themselves christian in 2001 census (I see you found it too phatmouse, sorry I got distracted by something here) and 38% believe in a god.

would be interesting if anyone comes along who would know more about whether there is a formal, official religion for the UK, apart from the fact that the queen is head of the CofE.

Would not object based n the fact it is a muslim call to prayer, the same as I don't object to church bells ringing from a Christian standpoint. And I don't personally care about the established religion of England and all the rest of it; imo if there are muslims living in the area and there is a well-used mosque, why shouldn't there be a call to prayer?

However, at the risk of sounding like a nimby it would drive me nuts if it was near me. I grew up next to a church and the sound of bells on Sunday morning (and the interminable bell practice on a Wednesday night) drove me crackers. Like Madamez says it's just noise - doesn't matter what it is. I don't think noise pollution needs to have religious discriminaion applied to it.

Where does it say England is a Christian country? The queen is C of E, she is the head of the church of England, and our monarch, and I've always thought the religion of this country was C of E, just as France, Germany, Italy etc. are Catholic.

I'm not C of E myself.

I wouldn't mind in the slightest. It wouldn't occur to me to object, any more than I would object to the milkman's van stopping outside next door every day, or down the road's birds of prey having a squark, or my dog barking at the postie. Just the sounds of living in a city with other people.

In case anyone is interested, the 'Life in the UK' handbook says that Britian is historically a Christian society, but people are tolerant of other faiths etc

It also talks about the monarch being required to swear to maintain the Protestant Religion in the UK, and heirs to the throne are not allowed to marry anyone who is not Protestant.

I can hear a call to prayer when I stay at my MIL's house in Kuala Lumpur, and it's bloody annoying at dawn. If it wakes me up then it's just getting bright enough outside to make it difficult to go back to sleep. If it wakes ds up (and it usually does) then nobody goes back to sleep.

It's even worse if the man doing the call is tone deaf.

Mind you, if I was within the sound of church bells and they had a dawn service I would object to bells being rung for that. I remember there was a woman proscecuted for cutting the ropes of her local church's bells. The church rented out it's bells to groups of campanologists so they could practice. Basically the bells would ring all weekend and the woman couldn't take it anymore.

I don't think I could really get all worked up about this. I do think the Church of England is the official religeon and that this is therefore a Christian country. However, a discrete call to prayer five times a day is hardly going to ruin my day. I'm assuming it really is discreet. I have no idea what the call to prayer sounds like.

Being Christian, I'd rather hear cathedral bells. But, if I lived in a muslim community next to a mosque, then I'd expect to hear the call to prayer. I suppose in the same way that I wouldn't complain about planes flying over my house if I moved next to an airport.

Yes I would. Absolute nightmare in Turkey. I remember saying at the time, 'nobody would put up with this in England.'
It was at all hours, a horrible noise and went on for ages.

Not just Protestant, but CofE, IIRC - I think when William becomes the heir if his fancy fell on a Methodist or Baptist she might have to convert. Or run away, sharpish, if she had any sense!

I'd object to having the call to prayer broadcast near my house on the grounds of noise pollution and that I am not a Muslim and this ain't a Muslim state. Very happy for those that are to do their thing as long as they aren't interfering with anyone else's right to do their thing.

Whitechapel mosque (finally remembered the name), has calls to prayer over microphones but only four times a day as the dawn prayer would as Bran said be intrusive and prolly jolly loud when the general hubub is absent. It's just off whitechapel market I think.

There are rules in place as to how loud the call can be, and as I said the dawn prayer is not amplified at all.
But apart form that one mosque (which was recently dowe up with worshippers monies (before anyone gets hysterical about tax payers money)) there are no others, and I dont think there are any are asking for permission to be allowed to say the call to prayer over a loud speaker..........

I wouldn't object but I am Muslim and as I know the meaning I find it incredibly moving to hear. I love hearing it in other countries.