A Sydney mosque has reapplied to install loudspeakers on its minaret so it can broadcast a Muslim call to prayer across the local area, after a previous application was knocked back.
The Lakemba Mosque, the largest in Australia, had its first bid to blast the Arabic prayer call from four loudspeakers for 15 minutes every Friday turned down by Canterbury-Bankstown Council’s local planning council in August last year.
All but one of 329 public submissions on the proposal were negative, with many raising concerns over noise, amenity impacts, and housing prices, but the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), which owns the mosque, responded by blaming the objections on “islamophobia”.
The LMA lodged a new application last month, which is now open for public submissions, and LMA general secretary Gamel Kheir again accused opponents of the plan of racism, calling their concerns a “blatantly racist, ‘islamophobic’ slur dressed up as concern for civil and community rights”.
Mr Kheir also denied the original application was “rejected”, telling The Daily Telegraph the LMA had only been asked to submit extra noise modelling reports, and claimed the community supported the proposal.
“We’ve submitted a revised acoustic report to the council. The community sentiment has been nothing but positive. Those who live in Lakemba have nothing but praise for it because the call to prayer will only be once a week on a Friday at midday,” he said.
“You’ll only hear it within a 20m radius of the mosque … if you’re not coming to pray, then you’re not going to hear it.
“Are we a multicultural society? Yes, we are … are we a secular country? Yes – it allows for freedom of religion and expression. If the church bells are allowed to ring and we are in favour of those bells ringing then why are we not allowed to do the call to prayer?”
Previous planning documents also compared the midday Friday “adhan” prayer call to Catholic church bells, and described the loudspeakers as “a simple addition to the existing Mosque that will meet the religious needs of the Muslim community in the Lakemba region”.
“The main objective of the proposal to provide a local call of prayer for Lakemba Mosque to create a cultural and Islamic sense of community within the context of the mosque and its surrounds,” the documents stated.
The plans also include a translation of the prayer call, which the mosque wants played for 15 minutes: “Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah. Ashhadu an la ilaha illa Allah. Ashadu anna Muhammadan Rasool Allah. Ashadu anna Muhammadan Rasool Allah. Hayya ‘ala-s-Salah. Hayya ‘ala-s-Salah. Hayya ‘ala-l-Falah. Hayya ‘ala-l-Falah. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar! La ilaha illa Allah.”
An environmental noise impact assessment prepared in February and submitted with the new application states the level of noise emitted by the four loudspeakers during the call to prayer “will meet the acceptable noise level requirements” of council and the NSW Environment Protection Authority.
The Sunni mosque, also known as the Masjid Ali Bin Abi Talib, was built in the 1970s with donations from the Middle East, including from the Saudi Royal Family, and is regularly visited by prime ministers, including earlier this year when Anthony Albanese was heckled and abused by angry worshippers.
After the Cronulla anti-immigration protest of 2005 hundreds of Muslim youths gathered at the mosque on successive nights before going on violent revenge rampages through Sydney’s eastern and southern suburbs.
Header image: Left, Muslims gathered at the mosque last month. Right, praying in the street outside the mosque last year (Lakemba Mosque).
The post Mosque relaunches bid to blast prayer calls across Sydney suburb first appeared on The Noticer.
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