Amsterdam mayor rejects broadcasting mosque’s call to prayer

The city of Amsterdam rejected a request by the Wester Mosque in Amsterdam-West to amplify the Muslim call to prayer from its 42-meter-high (138-foot) minaret.

When the mosque was initially constructed, its leaders agreed that the call to prayer would not be amplified from its minaret, according to local media reports. But when Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan visited the mosque last week, congregants requested that the call be projected from loudspeakers. The mayor rejected the request immediately.

“In 2005, when the city council approved the construction of the mosque, it was agreed that there would be no amplified call to prayer,” Marja Ruigrok, leader of the center-right VVD, or People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, told the Amsterdam daily Het Parool.

“Previous agreements will be complied with and the Wester Mosque, like so many other mosques in Amsterdam, will remain silent.”

The Wester mosque is the largest mosque in the Netherlands, with a floor space of 800 square meters (8,600 square feet) and the capacity to hold up to 1,700 people.