Just In Time for 9/11 Anniversary, New York City Allows Islamic Call to Prayer Over Loudspeakers

September 2023

   Did the 9/11 hijackers and plotters succeed? Can it finally be said, nearly twenty-two years after they murdered nearly three thousand people in New York and Washington, that they have attained their objectives?

   Back in 2003, Osama bin Laden wrote a letter to the American people in which he explained, “The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.” Twenty years later, that very call will resound from loudspeakers all over the city that was his chief target on Sept. 11, 2001.

   New York Mayor Eric Adams on August 29 announced what Gothamist described as “new NYPD rules” that “will allow mosques in New York City to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer without a permit.”

   Adams couched this rule change in language designed to give the impression that he was doing something for people of all religious communities, but ended up making it clear that he was making a special concession to Muslims only: “For too long, there has been confusion about which communities are allowed to amplify their calls to prayer,” he said. “Today, we are cutting red tape and saying clearly, if you are a mosque or house of worship of any kind, you do not have to apply for a permit to amplify your call to Friday prayer.” Well, great, but the only “house of worship of any kind” that has a ca ...

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