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ISLAM

Norway officials reject Muslim school in Oslo

A foundation that applied to establish a Muslim primary school in the Oslo district of Grønland was rejected by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (Utdanningsdirektoratet), Kommunal Rapport reported.

Norway officials reject Muslim school in Oslo
The minaret of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Oslo's Grønland district. Photo: Tore Meek / NTB scanpix
The Muslim organization behind the denied request is now considering an appeal to the Education Ministry 
 
“We have three weeks to decide what to do. We think it is about time that there is a Muslim school in Oslo but the formalities must of course be in place,” Siri Helene Derouiche, the leader of the group behind the application, said. 
 
The Oslo City Council also rejected the school’s application last autumn. 
 
The foundation Den Muslimske Grunnskole wants to establish and operate a private Muslim primary school in Oslo. Its plan calls for some 200 students between first and tenth grades. 
 
The group wants to establish the school in Oslo's immigrant-heavy Grønland district and said that all teaching would be in Norwegian. 
 
The application was considered under a new law approved by parliament last summer that gives the Directorate for Education and the Education Ministry discretion when deciding which schools to approve. 
 
In 2014, the ministry rejected a Muslim school in Oslo that the Directorate had previously approved. The ministry ruled that the applicant ‘Mødre for muslimsk grunnskole’ (Mothers for a Muslim primary school) had clear connections to a Muslim primary school in Urtehagen that was shut down because of too much turmoil and conflict. 

ISLAM

Mosques in Cologne to start broadcasting the call to prayer every Friday

The mayor of Cologne has announced a two-year pilot project that will allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer on the Muslim day of rest each week.

Mosques in Cologne to start broadcasting the call to prayer every Friday
The DITIP mosque in Cologne. Photo: dpa | Henning Kaiser

Mosques in the city of the banks of the Rhine will be allowed to call worshippers to prayer on Fridays for five minutes between midday and 3pm.

“Many residents of Cologne are Muslims. In my view it is a mark of respect to allow the muezzin’s call,” city mayor Henriette Reker wrote on Twitter.

In Muslim-majority countries, a muezzin calls worshippers to prayer five times a day to remind people that one of the daily prayers is about to take place.

Traditionally the muezzins would call out from the minaret of the mosque but these days the call is generally broadcast over loudspeakers.

Cologne’s pilot project would permit such broadcasts to coincide with the main weekly prayer, which takes place on a Friday afternoon.

Reker pointed out that Christian calls to prayer were already a central feature of a city famous for its medieval cathedral.

“Whoever arrives at Cologne central station is welcomed by the cathedral and the sound of its church bells,” she said.

Reker said that the call of a muezzin filling the skies alongside church bells “shows that diversity is both appreciated and enacted in Cologne”.

Mosques that are interested in taking part will have to conform to guidelines on sound volume that are set depending on where the building is situated. Local residents will also be informed beforehand.

The pilot project has come in for criticism from some quarters.

Bild journalist Daniel Kremer said that several of the mosques in Cologne were financed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, “a man who opposes the liberal values of our democracy”, he said.

Kremer added that “it’s wrong to equate church bells with the call to prayer. The bells are a signal without words that also helps tell the time. But the muezzin calls out ‘Allah is great!’ and ‘I testify that there is no God but Allah.’ That is a big difference.”

Cologne is not the first city in North Rhine-Westphalia to allow mosques to broadcast the call to prayer.

In a region with a large Turkish immigrant community, mosques in Gelsenkirchen and Düren have been broadcasting the religious call since as long ago as the 1990s.

SEE ALSO: Imams ‘made in Germany’: country’s first Islamic training college opens its doors

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