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ISLAM

Austria’s Islamic Faith Community will open mosque doors

Austria's Islamic Faith Community (IGGiÖ) has expressed its objective to show more transparency to the greater Austrian population. In an interview with Kurier, the organization's president, Ibrahim Olgun stated that a portion of the country's 350 prayer spaces will be open to the public during Friday prayers.

Austria's Islamic Faith Community will open mosque doors
IGGÖ Pres. Ibrahim Olgun with Minster for Foreign Affairs and Integration Sebastian Kurz - Photo: Bundesministerium für Europa, Integration und Äußeres/Wikimedia
This would normally only be on the agenda for the upcoming Day of Open Mosques, however now it will be made a more regular occurrence. IGGiÖ's 28-year old presiding representative also shared his goal to convince Austrian imams to deliver their sermons in German, or to at least have them simultaneously translated.
 
His aims also include strengthening their youth outreach and education programs. According the statements he made in his interview with Kurier, the organization is currently in the process of creating a rubric for Muslim enterprises, such as kindergartens, to follow. The set of guidelines is said to comply with Vienna's plan for education.  
 
All in all, the Austrian Islamic Faith Community is looking to quell those who have grown suspect or fearful of Islam in the face of Islam-associated terror attacks that have accumulated in recent years. It is his goal to build solidarity against terrorism.
 
“Terrorists are abusing the religion. We are certain amongst ourselves that there is no justification for such terror, [but] it is outwardly that we must more clearly communicate this. We also expect representatives of other religions to make more nuanced assessments and to avoid simply pigeon-holing Muslims as scapegoats. They shouldn't fall into the trap set by these terrorists, whose goal it is to divide society.”

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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