ADHAN IS NOW PERMITTED IN SWEEDEN

Mina Breaking News        Stockholm, 20 Rabiul Akhir 1434 H/2 March 2013 (MINA) – In an unprecedented move in the Scandinavian country, Muslims in the Swedish capital have won the right to raise Adhan (call for prayers).
      “The authorities will measure the sound level,” Ismail Okur, chairman of the Islamic Cultural Center of Botkyrka told Anatolia news agency as quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), Saturday.
      Municipal authorities in the southern Stockholm suburb of Botkyrka have approved a request by Muslims to raise the Adhan from the Fittja mosque in the area.
    “We thank the members of the council for the approval,” Okur said.
    “We are all very happy.” The Adhan will be raised before the Friday prayers as of the end of March through speakers in the mosque minarets.
     “According to the rules, the sound of the adhan shall reach two kilometers at most from the mosque,” said Okur.
      The Fittja mosque is the only mosque in Sweden that has a minaret. “Now the matter will be technically investigated, and the mosque’s sound systems will be checked. This will probably take one month,” he said.
     “So, we can say that the religious official in our mosque can recite the first azan toward the end of March.”
     The Adhan is the call to announce that it is time for a particular obligatory Salah (ritual prayer).
      The Adhan is raised five times a day.
      But Muslims in the West were often unable to make Adhan for prayers as local authorities argue that the call would cause noise to residents.
      Muslims make up between 450,000 and 500,000 of Sweden’s nine million people, according to the US State Department report in 2011. (T/P05/E1)

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Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)