The Adhan: Religious Expression or Imposed Presence?
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance.” — Karl Popper
The adhan الآذان (the Islamic call to prayer), from a jurisprudential perspective, is an announcement marking the beginning of the prayer time and a call to it. It is not a condition for the validity of prayer, nor one of its pillars. Prayer is entirely valid whether it is performed with or without the adhan, individually or collectively.
This is a well-established juristic fact with no substantive dispute. With the development of modern societies, the practical function of the adhan as a means of notification has effectively disappeared, as clocks, applications, smartphones, and silent alerts now fulfil the same purpose with greater accuracy, without disturbance or the imposition of sound on others. Despite this, many Muslims insist on broadcasting the adhan through loudspeakers, at high volume, five times a day, even in neighbourhoods containing more than one mosque, where the call is repeated simultaneously from several nearby minarets, without any religious or practical justification.
This insistence can no longer be understood as a religious necessity, but rather as a symbolic and identity-driven practice. The adhan, which historically emerged in religiously homogeneous societies, has in the modern era — particularly in multi-faith or non-religious societies — been transformed into a compulsory assertion of presence in the public sphere. There is nothing in Islamic jurisprudence that requires every mosque to issue its own adhan, nor anything that suggests that repetition from multiple locations increases religious merit or fulfils an additional legitimate objective. Yet today, the adhan is treated not as a means, but as a sovereign symbol, as though limiting or regulating it were a concession of identity or an act of disobedience. This perception is rooted in historical contexts of religiously homogeneous states, not in the realities of contemporary societies.
Historically, the adhan did not exist during the Meccan phase of Islam, but emerged in Medina roughly a decade after the beginning of the message, following the formation of a distinct and organised religious-political community. Its concept arose within a religious environment already familiar with public calls to worship, whether through the bell in Christianity or the horn/shofar in Judaism. Islamic sources themselves indicate that Muslims initially considered using these instruments before opting for a distinct vocal call. The adhan, therefore, was not created in a cultural vacuum, but developed within a pre-existing religious soundscape. Some scholars regard it as functional imitation with formal differentiation, and even as emulation combined with symbolic rivalry. The vocal and rhythmic similarity between the Islamic adhan and certain Jewish religious calls is sufficiently apparent that an untrained Western listener may struggle to distinguish between them, as both belong to the same Semitic auditory tradition.
In the contemporary Western context, the adhan is not received as a spiritual invitation, but as a foreign call, in an unfamiliar language, broadcast at high volume and repeated five times daily, within societies that long ago determined that religion is a personal and spiritual matter, not a performative or auditory one. Churches themselves have reduced or abandoned the ringing of bells out of respect for shared public space, and modern Judaism does not impose daily public sound calls in residential areas. Consequently, the insistence on broadcasting the adhan in public space is widely perceived as a regression to religious practices that modern societies have consciously moved beyond, rather than as a legitimate expression of religious freedom.
From a human rights perspective, such regular public broadcasting raises the issue of collective attribution, whereby the consequences of a single religious practice are imposed upon an entire community. This directly conflicts with the principle of individual responsibility, which is a cornerstone of modern legal systems. This forced attribution produces compulsory representation of individuals who did not choose this practice, including secular, non-practising, or openly critical Muslims, thereby undermining their right to freedom of conscience and personal choice, a right protected under the general principles of civil and political rights.
Moreover, the imposition of religious sound in public space touches upon the right to psychological well-being and human dignity, particularly for refugees and asylum seekers who fled religiously oppressive regimes in which religion was forcibly imposed on public life. Re-exposing such individuals to compulsory religious sound in their countries of refuge can revive experiences of domination and coercion, transforming what should be a place of safety into a daily reminder of what they sought to escape. This stands in clear contradiction to the state’s obligation to provide a neutral environment that respects individual experience and protects vulnerable groups.
From the standpoint of administrative law, permitting the public broadcasting of the adhan constitutes a regulatory decision with general effect, subject to the principles of necessity and proportionality. Where no practical necessity exists, given the availability of non-harmful alternatives to fulfil the religious purpose, such a decision becomes open to criticism and legal challenge as disproportionate in light of the harm inflicted on the rights of others, particularly the right to quiet enjoyment of public and residential space.
This problem is further compounded when the adhan is exempted from generally applicable noise regulations. Such exemptions create de facto discrimination between religious practices and undermine the principle of state religious neutrality, which requires public authorities not to privilege one form of religious expression over others in shared space. Even where such preference is not explicitly stated, it erodes public trust in the neutrality of the law and fuels perceptions of double standards, striking at the heart of legal legitimacy in democratic societies.
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Within this framework, the insistence on regular public broadcasting of the adhan is often interpreted in legal and media discourse as a test of societal tolerance rather than a practice of coexistence. It is read as a gradual attempt to redefine public space according to a particular religious rhythm, shifting the relationship between religious minorities and host societies from balanced coexistence to ongoing cultural tension, thereby weakening the foundations of social stability.
This trajectory stands in clear contradiction to the discourse of integration itself. It is legally incoherent to demand integration and respect for shared civic values while simultaneously imposing religious sound practices on society as a whole without its consent. Integration, in human rights terms, is not a one-sided concession by the majority, but a reciprocal process grounded in respect for the neutrality of public space and the avoidance of coercive religious expression.
At this point, the question no longer concerns the act of broadcasting alone, but the substantive content of what is being imposed on shared civic space.
“We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. — Karl Popper”
The adhan carries within its doctrinal content an explicit and exclusive declaration of religious truth. It does not merely announce the time of prayer, but affirms a specific creed: that there is no Allah except Allah as defined by Islam, and that Muhammad is the messenger of that Allah.
This affirmation stands in direct contradiction to the beliefs of followers of other religions.
Christianity, across its traditions, does not recognise any prophet after Christ and explicitly warns against those who claim prophethood after him, viewing them as false claimants. Judaism likewise rejects the prophethood of Muhammad altogether, while followers of other religions do not share this theological framework at all. When broadcast publicly in a shared civic space, the adhan therefore functions not as a neutral act of devotion, but as an exclusionary declaration that asserts the validity of one belief system while implicitly negating the legitimacy of others. Moreover, the characterisation of Islamic prayer as “the best of deeds” and “success” carries a value judgement that elevates one form of worship above all others, despite adherents of other faiths viewing their own religious practices as equally meaningful and salvific. In this context, it becomes difficult to describe the adhan as a purely peaceful or personal act of worship, as it extends beyond individual devotion into a public doctrinal proclamation that privileges one faith while marginalising others within a space that is meant to remain shared and neutral.
Furthermore, the repeated public invocation of “Allahu Akbar” raises a deeper historical and security-related dilemma that cannot be ignored. Beyond its theological usage, the phrase has long functioned as a martial slogan in the context of Islamic warfare, historically accompanying calls to jihad and military mobilisation. In the modern era, it has been repeatedly employed as a verbal marker in acts of extremist violence and terrorism, broadcast immediately before or during attacks carried out in the name of religion. As a result, the phrase has acquired a distinct and enduring association with violence in the public consciousness, particularly in Western societies that have directly experienced such attacks. This historical and contemporary usage has fundamentally altered how the phrase is received outside its internal religious context. When amplified publicly and repeatedly in shared civic space, without consent or contextual framing, it cannot reasonably be expected to function as a neutral or purely devotional expression. Instead, it operates as a symbol burdened with accumulated meanings of power, confrontation, and trauma, making any claim that the adhan represents an unproblematic or universally peaceful presence in public space increasingly untenable.
In addition to institutional broadcasting, adhan applications on smartphones have become a pervasive extension of the same imposed presence. Loud calls to prayer are routinely allowed to play in full in classrooms, government offices, private workplaces, public transport, and on the street, with little or no regard for those present.
This is not a matter of private devotion but a deliberate public display, transforming personal devices into mobile loudspeakers that assert religious dominance in spaces governed by secular norms.
In many Western contexts, this practice functions as an act of provocation and symbolic superiority, conveying a message of moral judgement toward surrounding society — implicitly framing it as impious, corrupt, or inferior. Given that the same phrases have been repeatedly and explicitly used by Islamist extremists in acts of violence and terrorism, often by the perpetrators’ own declaration, such audible intrusions can also generate fear, alarm, or distress. The persistence of this behaviour reflects not religious necessity, but an assertion of presence and defiance, reinforcing a pattern in which belief is no longer merely expressed, but imposed.
Compounding this issue is the absence of genuine consensus within Muslim communities themselves regarding this practice. A significant number of Muslims in Western societies oppose or feel uncomfortable with the public broadcasting of the adhan. Yet these voices are frequently marginalised, while the position of the most vocal minority is presented as representative of the entire community. This produces an unfair and distorted representation, contradicts principles of internal pluralism and freedom of dissent within religious groups, and places public authorities in a problematic position when making decisions with wide-ranging social impact.
In conclusion, the regular public broadcasting of the adhan cannot be justified on the basis of religious necessity, public interest, or the legal standards of proportionality, neutrality, and equality upon which modern law is founded. Any administrative decision permitting it without comprehensive impact assessment, broad consultation, and full consideration of the rights of all affected parties remains legally fragile, ethically questionable, and risks transforming a non-mandatory religious practice into a daily burden imposed upon others.
