(AP) The Islamic call to prayer was sounded in public for the first time from one of Germany’s biggest mosques on Friday, but at limited volume, as part of a project agreed with authorities in Cologne, which has one of the country’s largest Muslim communities.
Authorities in Germany’s fourth-biggest city last year cleared the way for mosques to apply for permission for the muezzin to call for a maximum five minutes between noon and 3 p.m. on Fridays, with a noise limit being set for each mosque according to its location.
The call to prayer wasn’t a first for Germany but did bring it to a particularly prominent mosque. The Central Mosque, a modern building with two tall minarets, is located on a busy road just west of downtown Cologne. Run by the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs, or DITIB, it was inaugurated by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018.
