"For me, it's not an issue.”
Andrea Unger, who has lived for 40 years in the city of Dearborn, Michigan told Fox News Digital recently that the loudspeakers at a mosque about a quarter-mile from her home broadcast the Islamic call to prayer multiple times a day, sometimes as early as 5:30 a.m. and often for as long as five minutes. It can be heard clearly inside her home.
Ms. Unger recorded the call to prayer for 30 consecutive days and found that it consistently exceeded 70 decibels. The city ordinance states that noise in residential areas is not to exceed 55 decibels at night (after 10 p.m.) or 60 decibels during the day (from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.). Loudspeakers are prohibited between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
She has raised concerns about this with the police department and city council over the past two years, to no avail. “There is no atheist, Christian, Jewish, Catholic, or other group that is allowed to use loudspeaker to blast a five-minute prayer into the homes of people in the East Dearborn community,” she told Fox.
Some of her neighbors have been reluctant to join her in speaking out.
“I have heard a lot of people say, ‘I’m glad you said something,’ because people are afraid they’ll get called names like ‘Islamophobic,’ like our mayor [Abdullah H. Hammoud] called [Dearborn resident and Christian minister] Ted Barham, because you disagree,” she said, referring to an incident I’ll get to in a moment. “We’re not Islamophobic, we’re not anti-Muslim, we are not anti-Jewish. We just want to live in the community that it’s always been [before]. Something changed two years ago to allow this.”
Dearborn Mayor Hammoud (pictured), who has been in office since January 1, 2022, dismissed these concerns on a recent episode of the Not From Here podcast, claiming “we’ve done decibel readings at these mosques, all within threshold, all within legal limit. And so for me, it’s not an issue.”
It’s not an issue for him because he’s Muslim. He added,
We also have to uphold our constitutional rights to freedom of religion. And I would say this, you know, that’s the thing. I’m saying this as a Muslim. People, of course, are going to say this is a call to prayer, but like, you know, why are these complaints just coming forward now?… Call to prayer has been happening since the 1970s in Dearborn.
The complaint about the call to prayer is not an issue of religious freedom – it’s an issue of the mosque consistently breaking the sound ordinance. Nevertheless, Hammoud went on to compare the sound of the call to prayer to that of church bells – as if the melodic tones of church bells are being blasted into Dearborn residents’ homes five times daily beginning at 5:30 a.m. for up to five minutes or longer. It’s also worth pointing out that the majority of Muslim-majority countries around the world prohibit church bells from being broadcast from loudspeakers at all – if churches are even allowed. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Dearborn City Council via YouTube Screenshot |
Mayor Abdullah Hammoud said its noise levels were 'not an issue' despite residents' complaints at city council meetings
Dearborn, Michigan, Mayor Abdullah Hammoud responded to noise complaints about a mosque's call to prayer, saying it's "not an issue."
Hammoud discussed the concern on the Nov. 3 episode of the "Not From Here" podcast. Local Dearborn citizens have complained in recent months that a nearby mosque has been broadcasting the call to prayer on loudspeakers multiple times a day, beginning as early as 5:30 a.m.
Though residents raised concerns during a September city council meeting, Hammoud insisted that the call to prayer under a certain decibel level is allowed under city ordinances and has been part of Dearborn life for decades.
"I would tell you is, you know, those complaining about the call to prayer, I mean it's a very, very few, you still want to respect the wishes and, if you have a serious concern, I have to uphold the law across all boards," Hammoud said. "But we've done decibel readings at these mosques, all within threshold, all within legal limit. And so for me, it's not an issue."
He continued, "We also have to uphold our constitutional rights to freedom of religion. And I would say this, you know, that's the thing. I'm saying this as a Muslim. People, of course, are going to say this is a call to prayer, but like, you know, why are these complaints just coming forward now?"
"Yeah, elections are coming up," host Jaafar Issa remarked.
Hammoud didn't directly respond to that comment but shrugged and repeated, "Call to prayer has been happening since the 1970s in Dearborn."
The city ordinance states that noise in residential areas cannot exceed 55 decibels at night (after 10 p.m.) or 60 decibels during the day (7 a.m. to 10 p.m.). Loudspeakers are prohibited between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. --->READ MORE HERE
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