Two minutes 36 seconds and just 60 decibels loud: Last Friday the muezzin called for the first time in Cologne. That caused sharp criticism at the weekend. The muezzin call stands for the foreign, is a demonstration of the power of political Islam and therefore extremely dangerous, one could read in this country. When religious practices become visible and audible in public space, it can irritate people. It can.
But maybe you should be aware of certain facts beforehand: There are around 2,800 mosques in Germany, the majority of which are housed either in backyards, near the train station, industrial areas or sometimes next to sewage treatment plants. The sermons are rarely in German, the imams either work on a voluntary basis or come from abroad. As long as Muslim life in Germany remains almost invisible, it will be largely tolerated.
It’s similar to wearing a headscarf, beware of the cliché, but there’s some truth to it: when women clean empty office buildings or offices in the evening, the headscarf isn’t a problem. But when they want to become teachers or judges, the outcry is great. But it’s like this: Visibility means transparency, visibility means having arrived. And in Germany there is freedom of religion – and the adhan, the call to prayer, is part of the practice of faith. But since you are in Europe, this should take place at a certain volume and not at any time, for example at morning prayers.
And if the outrage is only due to the fact that (as in Cologne) it is a Ditib mosque financed by the Turkish government, one should first take a close look at the various organizational structures of Muslim communities: For decades, mosques have been financed by donations, they receive no government grants. Funding from abroad is a necessary evil for many to survive.
And even if the Ditib is responsible for the mosque, it is visited by Muslims of all stripes. Mosques are places of worship supported by a few but used by a growing number of believers. It is therefore high time that the knee-jerk defensiveness was overcome, since it contradicts the Basic Law, which applies equally to everyone.