THE CALL TO PRAYER BEAUTIFUL, ENRICHING AND HAUNTING TO HEAR
Waiving noise bylaw fitting gesture to part of community which contributes so much
The sun set Thursday, and a deep, melodious voice began from a loudspeaker at Windsor Mosque.
“God is great,” Imam Mohamed Al-jammali sang in Arabic.
It was the athan, the Islamic call to prayer. The same words have summoned faithful Muslims around the world daily for centuries.
It was beautiful and haunting. It was over in less than three minutes. But it stays with you.
Ahmed Elka last heard it 25 years ago, when he was seven, before his family left Jordan. “I never forgot it,” he said. When the mosque began broadcasting it Tuesday, more than 70 people came to hear it. They parked their cars, rolled down their windows and listened.
A man with three young children stood outside and recorded it on his phone Thursday.
“They just want to hear it,”
Elka said. “They haven’t heard it in so long.”
It’s only symbolic. The mosque’s hundreds of members can’t gather there or anywhere because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it’s providing muchmissed connection during the holy month of Ramadan and comfort during the pandemic. In a time of anxiety and isolation, it’s a moving example of the power of community and belonging.
Waiving the noise bylaw for a few minutes a night for a few weeks until May 23 to allow the athan is a small act that means a great deal to Windsor’s 25,000 Muslims.
It’s a gift for the rest of us, too. Most of us have probably never heard it. We’ve been enriched.
Among the remarkable displays of thoughtfulness and kindness during the pandemic, this is one of the simplest and finest.
But all the affirming examples of support during a difficult time have been lost on some.
“WE DON’T WANT TO HEAR THIS NOT FOR ONE SECOND,” one reader wrote of the city’s decision to waive the noise bylaw to allow the athan.
“Practise all your goofy beliefs in private and spare us,” wrote another.
There’s even a petition calling it “noise pollution.”
“Though I am not against any religion,” it starts, disingenuously.
The backlash has been ugly and shameful.
That’s not the Windsor I know, the city that gives and gives. It’s not the incredibly diverse community I know, the fourth most diverse in Canada.
It’s a pocket of ignorance.
So let me tell you a bit about Windsor Mosque.
Among its members are 20 or 30 doctors and many more nurses who work at Windsor Regional Hospital, the designated COVID-19 hospital. Some used to rush to prayer still in their scrubs. They work alongside health care workers from all religions, risking their health and that of their families to care for all of us during the pandemic.
For a month now, the mosque has been delivering baskets of food and household supplies to seniors and others who can’t go out to shop. They have a dedicated phone line to call and request a basket. Anyone can call, regardless of faith.
The mosque has also donated food to front-line workers at both hospitals.
It donates tens of thousands of dollars a year in food to food banks and The Downtown Mission.
It collaborates with all faiths to do this, from Jewish synagogues to Catholic churches.
Catholic kids play basketball with Muslim kids in the mosque’s youth programs. The point is to get kids off the street.
“This is our duty as humans,” said member and spokesperson Si Yasalar. “We have to care for each other.”
Do we accept their largesse and then deny a small but meaningful request for a call to prayer for a few weeks during one of the holiest months of the year?
To the haters, what have you done for your community?
“It hurts,” said Yasalar.
He used to live near a church that rang its bells. He never complained. He respected what it meant to the parishioners.
It was disappointing to see councillors Jo-anne Gignac and Fred Francis vote against letting city staff deal with the request and waive it. Council should follow the normal procedure for requests to waive the noise bylaw, they said — get a report from staff, notify the public, give the public a chance to respond and finally vote on it.
But they knew all that couldn’t be done before the end of Ramadan.
This pandemic has taught us we must work together. It has shown us what we can achieve when we do. And sadly, too many people — in Italy, in Spain, in
New York — have learned that life is short, too short for hate and intolerance.