MALAPPURAM: Various muslim organisations in the state have come forward with a call to regulate use of loudspeakers in mosques, be it for namaz calls or other religious programmes, including speeches and meetings. To take a final call on the matter, the Muslim Service Society (MSS) will hold a meeting of various Muslim organisations in Kozhikode next week.
T K Abdul Kareem, Muslim Service Society state general secretary, told TNIE that the representatives of various religious groups, including EK Sunnis, AP Sunnis, Mujahid and Jamaat-e-Islami, will take part in the meeting. According to MSS, the firm stand earlier taken on the matter by Panakkad Syed Hyder Ali Shihab Thangal, state president of Indian Union Muslim League and vice-president of Samastha Kerala Jamiyyathul Ulama, and C Muhammed Faizy, state Haj committee chairman, had inspired it to organise the meeting.
Thangal had in an earlier statement said when prayers and other religious ceremonies are being held in mosques, the sound from loudspeakers should not cause disturbances to those who are not part of the function. Muhammed Faizy had also said some mosques in the state use loudspeakers that are set at a volume much higher than actually required. “Loudspeakers with a capacity to call up to 1,000 people are being used in certain areas, when they actually need to call just about 100 people,” Faizy had said.
Explaining the agenda of the meeting, Abdul Kareem said it is aimed at taking a decision to bring in regulation on the use of loudspeakers in mosques.
Meet to take the final call
“At present, five or six mosques within a small area give prayer calls with just a few minutes’ gap. So we plan to introduce a rotation system. If there are many mosques in an area, we will grant permission to one to give the prayer call for a certain term. The call from that particular mosque -- which may be Sunni, Mujahid or Jamaat-e-Islami -- should be considered the call for all groups in the area. This way, we can reduce the number of prayer calls through loudspeakers at a time,” Kareem said.
Kareem also said they would urge mosques to conclude religious speeches and other functions, especially the ones that use loudspeakers before 10.00 pm. “This is to avoid causing inconvenience to other people,” he said. He added that these were just preliminary plans, and that the final decision would be taken during the meeting to be held next week.