Blasting the Islamic call for prayer?

Submitted by Edward (South Africa), Jul 14, 2008 at 02:38

Kampala, the capital of Uganda in east africa is a relatively small city. Built on only about 30 hills now. In the central division though, the three tallest hills are Rubaga, Namirembe and old kampala. Coincidentally, the hill tops are capped with Rubaga cathedral, Namirembe cathedral and Gadaffi national mosque respectively which are the national headquarters for the roman catholics, anglicans and muslims respectively.

These headquarters are each not more that three kilometers apart. on sunday, you will feel it on your eardrums, the melodious bells coming from both rubaga and namirembe as the christians all gather to conduct their prayers. This all happens at or around 10:00 am. On fridays though, the entire city, owing to the positioning at the hill top and the magnificient height of the minaret at gadaffi national mosque is entertained to the sounding of the islamic call for prayer. This does not happed only on friday, but every day, five times.

There are about 1,400 born again churches, the biggest and most attended being the Miracle center cathedral, located about 500 meters from rubaga cathedral, a kilometer from Gadaffi national mosque and about the same distance from namirembe cathedral. The band, loud speakers and choir music blaring from this church is amazing. Those of you who know or have seen the style of prayer adopted by pentecostal churches understand what i am describing.

What i am talking about here is not a description of our city, i am talking about the unreasonable and irrational hatred that some people have developed against islam. What exactly is wrong with sounding the islamic call for prayer? Do other faiths also call out to their people for prayers? Has anyone raised alarm for this? Or even if they do not (like someone may argue), does it hold that what other faiths do not do, then a particular faith must not do? Of all the noise and more noise that emanates from cars, factories, trains, aeroplanes and all, is it only the islamic call for prayer that wrongs you folks? I think we are getting it wrong here. lets criticise islam where criticism is reasonably due but stop airing irrational arguments of hatred against a peaceful and true faith of a few billion muslims worldwide. I still wonder what happened to reason!

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