The Minneapolis City Council advanced a bill on Thursday that will permit Islamic prayers to be broadcasted across the city as many as five times per day.
Members of the City Council unanimously approved amendments to noise ordinances such that mosques can transmit calls to prayer with “amplifying equipment,” striking a provision that restricted the activity “between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.” Islamic worship centers will now be able to broadcast the calls to prayer as late as 11:00 p.m. and as early as 3:30 a.m., according to a report from CBS News Minnesota.
“This is a historic victory for religious freedom and pluralism for our entire nation,” Council on American-Islamic Relations Minnesota Executive Director Jaylani Hussein said in a statement. “We thank the members of the Minneapolis City Council for setting this great example, and we urge other cities to follow it.”
The new noise ordinance permits calls to prayer that last no more than six minutes in any one hour, which is the typical amount of time required for the Islamic practice, known as the adhan.
Several Middle Eastern nations famously include the calls to prayer as a facet of daily life. Muslims pray five times per day toward Mecca, the city in western Saudi Arabia from which Muhammad hailed, as one of the five central pillars of their religion.
Minneapolis Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey will sign the proposal, a spokesperson confirmed to Axios. The largest city in Minnesota has a significant population of Somali immigrants. Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar represents the city of Minneapolis and a handful of nearby suburbs as the first Somali-American and naturalized citizen of African birth to serve in Congress.
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Minneapolis previously allowed the calls to prayer last year during Ramadan, the ninth month in the Islamic calendar in which Muslims are expected to fast from dawn until sunset, according to a report from The Star Tribune.
“For the faith of Christians in Minneapolis, the tolling of church bells is an affirmation of their faith and the comfort that brings that’s exactly the same purpose of adhan service for Muslims,” Minneapolis Democrat Councilmember Jamal Osman said last year. “Thousands of Muslims in Minneapolis now have their faith acknowledged the same as everyone else.”
Minneapolis Democratic Councilmembers Aisha Chughtai and Jeremiah Ellison, both of whom are also Muslims, initiated the amendment to the noise ordinances alongside Osman, according to a report from The Sahan Journal. “It is really important for us at the city to approach all issues from a lens of ensuring equal access for all people, and that’s what we’ve really done here,” Chughtai remarked on Thursday. “This is an item that benefits people of all faiths.”
Muslims compose slightly more than 1% of the American population, according to data from Pew Research Center, and are expected to supplant Jews as the nation’s second-largest religious group after Christians within the next two decades. Nonreligion is the fastest-growing religious group in the United States, according to more recent data from Pew Research Center, with some 29% of the population self-identifying as atheistic, agnostic, or unaffiliated.