Minneapolis Shatters Barriers, Becomes First Major U.S. City To Allow This...

The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved a change to the city's sound ordinance in April 2023, eliminating time constraints that previously prevented the broadcast of the pre-dawn and evening prayer calls.

For many Muslims across the United States, this represents a historic moment and a victory for religious freedom and the U.S. Constitution. Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, stated that the resolution demonstrates that Muslims are not only "welcome here, but they're also here – that they are part of the fabric of the diversity of this city and our state."

The adhan, which means "announcement" in Arabic, is the Islamic call to prayer five times a day. The five daily prayers signify one of the five pillars of Islam that are traditionally considered obligatory for every Muslim. The prayers are performed in the direction of Mecca throughout the day. The practice of calling the adhan dates back to the time of Prophet Muhammad when it became the standard way to mark the beginning of each prayer's time and to call Muslims to prayer.

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The adhan is recited in Arabic and translates as God is most great, God is most great; I testify that there is no god but God; I swear that Muhammad is the messenger of God; Come (alive) to the prayer; Come (active) to flourishing; God is most great, God is most great; There is no god but God.

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June 24, 2023

In Muslim-majority countries, the adhan is loudly called from every mosque's minaret and is one of the most unique sounds for visitors. The adhan's significance is that Islamic tradition recommends that it be one of the first sounds a newborn baby hears. Often, the father will gently recite the adhan in the baby's right ear. The words mark the beginning of a person's life on the "right path," with the remembrance of God.

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In America, where adhan is not commonly heard in public settings, many Muslims make do with a prayer app on their cellphones or other devices that lists the various prayer times and calls the adhan at the appropriate time. The earliest practice of the adhan on American soil dates back to the hundreds of thousands of enslaved African Muslims who, to varying extents, brought their Islamic practices with them.

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In the process, the adhan has profoundly influenced American music and culture. Historian Sylviane A. Diouf attributes the roots of blues music to West African Muslims who were enslaved and forcibly taken to the Americas between the 1600s and mid-1800s. Diouf explicitly compares the adhan and "Levee Camp Holler," a song written and sung by former slaves. Holler songs were precursors to the blues. "It features the same ornamented notes, elongated syllables sung with wavy intonations, melismas, and pauses. When both pieces are juxtaposed, it is hard to distinguish when the call to prayer ends and the holler starts," Diouf writes.

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Generally speaking, mosques in the U.S. make the call to prayer inside the prayer space, where it is audible only to those present. The earliest documented public broadcasting of the Muslim prayer call occurred during the World's Columbian Exposition, a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893. The fair featured "Cairo Street," a popular attraction that sought to recreate a small cross-section of Cairene's life.

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Among the 26 different structures built explicitly for this project was a mosque where tourists could hear the muezzin – one who calls prayer – call the adhan from the minaret and then watch Muslim worshippers perform their daily prayers. Later the same year, the prayer call was broadcast from a third-story window of the Union Square Bank building in New York City. After John Lant, a convert to Islam and co-founder of the First Society for the Study of Islam in America, made the adhan, a congregational prayer was held before the group proceeded with the society's first meeting.

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This moment was documented by The New York Times: "For the first time in New-York's history, cosmopolitan as the city is, the melodious call of the Muezzin, celebrated by every traveler in Mohammedan countries, was heard yesterday morning."

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Since the 1970s, the adhan has been broadcast from mosques in the U.S., such as the American Moslem Society, which was established in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1938 and is arguably the first U.S. mosque to be granted the legal right to transmit all five prayer calls through loudspeakers and in nearby Hamtramck, considered America's first majority-Muslim city, the adhan was legalized by the local government in 2004 when a noise ordinance change was put to a citywide vote. This stirred notable tensions between Hamtramck's different faith communities at the time.

In 2020, the city council of Paterson, New Jersey, also authorized the call to prayer between certain hours of the day. In 2023, several mosques in Astoria, New York, received permits to broadcast the five calls to pray specifically for the holy month of Ramadan. Similarly, the local mayor invited a small mosque in Occoquan, Virginia, to promote the adhan on two separate occasions to mark the month of Ramadan.

The public broadcasting of the adhan is part of a larger narrative of American plurality. It is a natural manifestation of Muslim American presence and communal expression. The fact that the adhan can be heard in the streets of Minneapolis, Hamtramck, and Astoria – alongside church bells and other sounds of worship – signifies that Muslim beliefs are not deemed less worthy, nor must they be confined to a private space. It is a sign that Muslims are at home and welcome here.