An Arab lawmaker performed the Muslim call to prayer (azaan) in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in defiance of a bill which would limit the call to prayer.
While Ahmed al-Tibi, the Arab lawmaker who gave the azaan in the parliament, went about reciting the words of the Muslim call to prayer, Israeli lawmakers protested and tried to interrupt him by protesting loudly.
“This law reflects the fascism that grows inside the Israeli community,” Tibi said afterwards. He claimed that he had performed the azaan in protest against the bill.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thrown his full weight behind the bill, which would stop the use of public address systems for calls to prayer.
“I cannot count the times — they are simply too numerous — that citizens have turned to me from all parts of Israeli society, from all religions, with complaints about the noise and suffering caused to them by the excessive noise coming to them from the public address systems of houses of prayer,” Netanyahu had said during an Israeli cabinet meeting, a couple of days ago.
While the draft bill is to apply to all houses of worship including those belonging to the Christians and the Jews as well as Muslims, it is seen by Israel’s Muslims as an attempt to target mosques only.
Muslims respond to the call to prayer, which emanates from mosques five times a day, once each for the five obligatory prayers.