Duke Reverses: No Muslim Prayer Broadcast from Chapel Tower
For now, Duke’s chapel bell tower won’t be working double duty as Muslim minaret.
Two days ago, Duke made headlines when it was revealed that the Muslim call to prayer would be played from the campus chapel bell tower on a weekly basis.
Fox News reported:
Amidst mounting pressure Duke has decided not proceed with playing the call to prayer on campus.
According to WRAL:
Two days after announcing that Islamic students would be broadcasting a weekly call to prayer from the Duke Chapel bell tower, Duke University officials abandoned that plan Thursday, citing the furor the move had created.
Members of the Duke Muslim Students Association were supposed to start the three-minute weekly call or chant, known as adhan or azan, on Friday afternoon. Now, the call to prayer will take place in a quad outside the chapel.
“Duke remains committed to fostering an inclusive, tolerant and welcoming campus for all of its students,” Michael Schoenfeld, Duke’s vice president for public affairs and government relations, said in a statement. “However, it was clear that what was conceived as an effort to unify was not having the intended effect.”
Khalilah Sabra, executive director of the Muslim American Society in Raleigh, called Duke’s reversal “a terrible shame,” saying it’s unfair for Graham and others to blame all Muslims for the violent acts of a few.
“Duke took a coward’s way out and cannot pretend to be advocates of diversity. This was primarily because it caved into the fallout nourished by racism,” Sabra said in an email to WRAL News. “A huge gap could have been bridged; now it may remain broken.”
For now, Duke’s bell tower won’t be working double duty as Muslim minaret.
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Comments
Good. It is ridiculous to subject surrounding citizens to the same “allahu akbar” wailing terrorists shout before committing mass murder. Muslims who demand the call are being deliberately antagonistic toward non-muslims.
That same wailing is part of the process to make food halal. I don’t eat halal food…and you do have to check labels.
Alumni donor funds musta been threatened.
Yes, it has been reported that Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) was urging Duke donors to stop making contributions to the school in protest of its decision.
Something tells me that Graham, unlike Duke’s administrators, has read and understood the Quran.
Exactly. Islam is the only religion founded by a pedophile.
Donor funds?
The alumni would have burned the school down. And the neighbors would have paid for the gas.
The ONLY way to affect higher educational institutions’ behavior is striking at the donor base.
Common sense, obviously, is not a requirement for University administrators. Don’t they have someone on the janitorial staff or grounds maintenance that they could run some of these ideas by and see if they sound reasonable before they make fools of themselves?
I would suggest that the janitor has more common sense
That was my point. However, after careful evaluation I have discovered my cat has more sense.
The default position of modern college administrators is to cave immediately to all demands from minority groups. The more it inconveniences the white and privileged, the better.
Using another faith’s facilities is a show of dominance and that faith is showing submission. Islam has a history of converting conquered peoples churches, cathedrals, temples, and synagogs into mosques. If it is an ancient monument and not currently usable they destroy it. Turks used the Parthenon as a mosque then munition dump, took over St Sophia, defaced ancient Egyptian religious ruins, etc. This needs to be understood and stopped.
The left, and certain gullible dupes on the right, have no interest in understanding Islam. If they did, they’d stop referring to it as a “religion of peace” when it is no such thing. There are more than 100 verses in the Quran which instruct Muslims that it is their duty to fight, maim, and kill non-believers, and to subjugate and/or kill “People of the Book” (i.e., Christians and Jews). The literal meaning of Islam is not “peace,” but “submission.” They seek to dominate us, by any means necessary, and the sooner we recognize that fact and respond accordingly, the better.
If Sabra is so incensed re: the about face, perhaps she should enroll in a Middle East university.
It’s just amazing how the progressive fascists can attempt to remove every aspect of Christianity from the public square but try to force the evil Muslim religion down our throats. It must be that the Muslim religion demands control over every aspect of society just like their trying to do to our country.
The progressive fascists and the evil Muslim religion have the same leader. Some call him Satan. That’s why the Feminist branch of Progressives is silent about Islams treatment of women.
If you want to be sickened, read the article in the News Observer written by Lohr Sapp, the Duke Associate Dean for Religious Life that supported the broadcasting of the Muslim call prayer before it was reversed.
http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/01/14/4476409_at-duke-chapel-welcoming-muslims.html?sp=/99/108/&rh=1
This was done will full knowledge of what took place in Paris a few days ago. Rather than give them pause, they enthusiastically went ahead with this misguided policy.
“With the recent attacks in Paris and Pakistan and renewed conflict in Nigeria, there is much negative press focused on parts of the Muslim world. From ISIS to Boko Haram to al-Qaida, Muslims in the media are portrayed as angry aggressors driven by values that are anti-education and anti-Western.”
Portrayed?! What would she call slaughtering thousands of people – a misunderstanding?
“The chanting of the adhan communicates to the Muslim community that it is welcome here, that its worship matters, that these prayers enhance the community and that all are invited to stop on a Friday afternoon and pray.”
Is she trying to say that Duke is actively proselytizing for the Muslim religion?
“The chanting of the adhan might barely make a ripple in the lives of many at Duke. Students passing by the Chapel Quad at 12:45 p.m. on a Friday afternoon might catch sight of the student muezzin facing Mecca in the Chapel tower. If those same students do not have earbuds in, they might catch a strain of the Arabic proclamation, “Allahu Akbar!” which means “God is great!” And, if they are so inclined, they might say a quick prayer under the breath or even pause for a moment’s reflection.”
I guess the answer is yes.
Allahu Akbar actually means “God is greater” meaning the muslim god is greater than all other gods. It is an expression of superiority.
Perhaps some earbudless students would reflect momentarily on how much slaughter has been accompanied by that refrain over the centuries, and on the angry mobs that pour out of mosques on Friday and straightaway find an infidel target to attack, and on the hordes of Muslims who ostentatiously do their ritual prostrations in the middle of Paris streets so that infidels will be aware that territory is being claimed for the ummah.
The Muslims are role models for progressive fascists just like the Communists and Nazis are. They show how to impose fascism on a society. The progressive fascist can learn from them.
Great point! I always wondered why the progressive infatuation with jihad
I was at Duke two weeks ago. My daughter goes to UNC just up the road (Tobacco Road). Believe it or not, Duke is Liberty University compared to UNC.
What would have happened is that in short order, demands would be made while the call to prayer was playing – they’d have started insisting that non-Muslim show respect, quit tossing frisbees, quit playing touch football and hacky sack, etc., until the call to prayer ended. They’d use the call as an umbrella, seeking to control more and more.
NC remains a deeply Christian state, as much or more than other southern states. I live here and I can’t imagine the howling the alumni must have put on. I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet the farm that Franklin and/or Billy Graham were on the phone toot sweet when they heard about this. Duke is a private school with a major hospital, relies heavily on alumni and NC businesses for donations.
However, the real reason for the kibosh on the call to prayer was that it might have hurt basketball recruiting.
Imam Obama said that the Muslim call to praying was the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard.
” Believe it or not, Duke is Liberty University compared to UNC. ”
Chapel Hill is the Berkeley of the east.
UNC is no Liberty U certainly. Duke is worse IMO.
They moved it over to Ed Mitchell’s Que. They will feel right at home.
This is the adhan:
Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest.
I bear witness that there is no God but Allah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
Hasten to worship.
Hasten to success.
Prayer is better than sleep.
Allah is greatest.
There is no God but Allah.
Wow, at a Quaker school. One foot in the door, they will not rest until the school is sharia compliant. Sabra calls it racism….seriously?
It’s the line “I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah” which makes the adhan explicitly anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. This anti-Christian declaration is blared at top volume from minarets all over the Muslim world five times a day. It has no place in the Duke bell tower unless Duke is wishing to declare that its chapel is no longer a Christian church — in which case, thoughtful Christians should shun services there.
Duke will allow Muslim students to intone the adhan in the quad before going to a meeting room to recite their prayers. As someone here has said, it is to be hoped that the Muslim group won’t begin to be aggressive towards frisbee players or sun-bathers in the quad at prayer times.
“Khalilah Sabra, executive director of the Muslim American Society in Raleigh, called Duke’s reversal “a terrible shame,” saying it’s unfair for Graham and others to blame all Muslims for the violent acts of a few.”
Of course!
Denying Muslims their religious entitlement shows Duke blames campus Muslims for “the violent acts of a few” non-campus Muslims.
What could be more clear?
I find the adhan both offensive and a threat to my life.
“citing the furor the move had created”
Translation: “We were getting our arse kicked in the public opinion arena and we were afraid it would cost us money.
The school administrators’ alleged “pluralist” motivation for allowing the Islamic call to prayer to issue forth from a church tower might be deemed credible if Islam’s tenets didn’t rather explicitly prevent reciprocity in this regard.
Muslims perpetually demand a religious accommodation that they do not extend in return to non-Muslims. There are no synagogues, churches, etc., in Saudi Arabia. Non-Muslims can’t even set foot in Mecca! That’s the equivalent of the Vatican stating that only Catholics may visit St. Peter’s Square! Or, Israel stating that only Jews may visit the Wailing Wall.
When mosques in the Middle East and in the U.S. willingly allow the transmission of Jewish, Christian, Buddhist or other prayers from their minarets, when those mosques host services from other faiths, then, I will say that there at least exists a theological quid pro quo for having a Christian University chapel issue the Muslim call to prayer. It’s the same principle undergirding my opposition to holding Muslim prayers in National Cathedral — when has a mosque in the U.S. ever allowed Christian prayers within its walls?
But, we already know why non-Islamic rituals never take place in mosques — because Muslims deem them to be acts of blasphemy that undermine Islam’s need to assert itself as the supreme theological “truth,” to which all other allegedly illegitimate faiths must be subjugated, or, destroyed. So, until Islam experiences a profound reformation that allows it to peacefully co-exist with other faiths and that excises all of the scriptural exhortations to violence against non-Muslims and vilification of non-Muslims that is contained in its scripture, we can dismiss this stunt for what it transparently is — one-sided capitulation to Muslim arrogance.
Islam is not a race, therefore it is not racist to be opposed to the Muslim call of prayer coming from a Christian cathedral. Also, if you want people to tolerate each other, the last thing you should do is blast music they find offensive right in their face.
The biggest growth on college campuses over the past two decades hasn’t been in students or faculty, but in administrators, whose growth rate dwarfs that of both, and who outnumber faculty at most major universities today.
Increasing the bureaucracy is always a sign of institutional sclerosis.