MUMBAI: Sitting in an workplace lined with books overlooking a large prayer corridor, Mohammed Ashfaq Kazi, the primary preacher on the largest mosque in Mumbai, checked a decibel meter hooked up to the loudspeakers earlier than he gave the decision to worship.
“The quantity of our Azaan (name to prayer) has turn out to be a political situation, however I don’t need it to take a communal flip,” mentioned Kazi, one of the crucial influential Islamic students within the sprawling metropolis on India’s western coast.
As he spoke he pointed to loudspeakers hooked up to the minarets of the ornate, sand-coloured Juma Masjid in Mumbai’s outdated buying and selling quarters.
Kazi and three different senior clerics from Maharashtra the place Mumbai is situated mentioned greater than 900 mosques within the west of the state had agreed to show the quantity down on calls to prayer following complaints from a neighborhood Hindu politician.
Raj Thackeray, chief of a regional Hindu get together, demanded in April that mosques and others locations of worship stored inside allowed noise limits. If they didn’t, he mentioned his followers would chant Hindu prayers exterior mosques in protest.
Thackeray, whose get together has only one seat within the state’s 288-member meeting, mentioned he was merely insisting that court docket rulings on noise ranges be enforced.
“If faith is a non-public matter then why are Muslims allowed to make use of loudspeakers all 12 months (of the yr)?” Thackeray advised reporters in Mumbai, India’s monetary hub and capital of Maharashtra.
“My pricey Hindu brothers, sisters and moms come collectively; be one in bringing down these loudspeakers,” he mentioned.
Leaders of India’s 200 million Muslims see the transfer, which coincided with the holy pageant of Eid, as one other try by hardline Hindus to undermine their rights to free worship and spiritual expression, with the tacit settlement of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP).
In latest weeks, a senior BJP chief started pushing for swapping marriage and inheritance legal guidelines primarily based on faith with a uniform civil code, taking intention at guidelines that permit Muslim males, for instance, to have 4 wives.
The BJP didn’t reply to a request for touch upon Thackeray’s initiative. It denies concentrating on minorities, and says it needs progressive change that advantages all Indians.
On the Juma Masjid, Kazi mentioned he complied with Thackeray’s calls for in an effort to scale back the danger of violence between Muslims and Hindus.
Bloody clashes have erupted sporadically throughout India since independence, most lately in 2020 when dozens of individuals, largely Muslims, had been killed in Delhi following protests towards a citizenship legislation that Muslims mentioned discriminated towards them.
Whereas hardline Hindu leaders had been in search of to undermine Islam, Kazi mentioned, “we (Muslims) have to keep up calm and serenity.”
The state took Thackeray’s initiative critically.
Senior police officers met spiritual leaders together with Kazi earlier this month to make sure microphones had been turned down, as they feared clashes in Maharashtra, dwelling to greater than 10 million Muslims and 70 million Hindus.
On Saturday, police filed a legal case towards two males in Mumbai for utilizing loudspeakers to recite the early morning azaan and warned staff of Thackeray’s get together from gathering round mosques.
“By no means will we permit anybody to create communal stress within the state and the court docket’s order have to be revered,” mentioned VN Patil, a senior Mumbai police official.
A senior official for Thackeray’s get together mentioned the initiative was not designed to single out Muslims however aimed to scale back “noise air pollution” created by all locations of worship.
“Our get together doesn’t appease the minority group,” mentioned Kirtikumar Shinde, including that police had issued warnings to twenty,000 get together staff this month.
The problem of calls to prayer extends past Maharashtra. BJP politicians in three states requested native police to take away or restrict using loudspeakers in locations of worship.
The deputy chief minister of nation’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, mentioned over 60,000 unauthorised loudspeakers had been faraway from mosques and temples.
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