Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, a renowned Muslim cleric and former Indonesian president, cracked a joke one day. "To certain Muslims," he said, "God is so distant that they need to use minarets and loudspeakers to call and communicate with Him."
Of course the use of loudspeakers and minarets was initially to inform and call Muslims to prayers, and not a call to God. But as we can see during the main Islamic holidays of Idul Fitri and Idul Adha, the use of loudspeakers at mosques has become more frequent or even massive. And to certain Muslims, the use of loudspeakers or minarets for these things becomes religious, and they are convinced the act is a "good deed" and therefore is rewarded by God.
Gus Dur surely made the above joke in the context of tolerance that Muslims should be considerate when living in a heterogenic society. If it was like in his village, for instance, where 100 percent of the population is Muslim, there is absolutely no problem.
There, it has become a convention for minarets and loudspeakers to become features of mosques, which are useful in informing people about the time and what has to be done or scheduled in their daily lives. (By Khairil Azhar, Jakarta)
Your comments:
The Kaaba which the author prays to everyday is located in the most religiously intolerant city on earth. Non-Muslims are forbidden from entering. Churches are illegal. Synagogues are illegal. Buddhist temples are illegal. Bibles are illegal. Crosses are illegal. Stars of David are illegal.
Stamps showing Christmas scenes are ripped off and destroyed. Muslims are very vocal about intolerance in Switzerland, and utterly silent about the hellhole of intolerance they pray to five times a day. Apparently they only care about freedom and tolerance when they are the recipients. The hypocrisy is revolting.
Robert Stansfield
London
Khairil Azhar, while I am a supporter of liberal Islam, it does not translate easily for me to accept your opinion on Switzerland's case. If you follow the anti-minaret initiative, it is not the minaret that is the target, but the spread of Islam, or more politically correct: the imminent presence of Islam among Swiss society.
You said the minaret is merely a cultural symbol; well it was not said like that by the proponents of the anti-minaret initiative, which played it up as a symbol of power. Do you agree with this?
Moreover, the initiator is an ultra-nationalist party. As an intellectual, you know more than me about the background behind the initiative. Or do you? Please ask Indonesian Muslims (or any Indonesian) living in Switzerland before writing your opinion. My opinion is that the word "ignorance" used by our FM is quite right.
Djaka
Yogyakarta
The ban is now included in our constitution. I am not happy about it, of course. But we should not forget that Muslims in Switzerland enjoy freedom of religion in a way most religious minorities in almost all Islamic countries only can dream about. And they know it. What did the voters really express?
A deeply felt displeasure with the news coming from the Muslim world every day: terrorist attacks (Muslims killing Muslims), forced marriages, churches and temples burned down in Muslim countries, of course the installation of the inhuman sharia law. True, this has nothing to do with Swiss Muslims and minarets, but in a democracy it reflects the feeling of the people.
Edi Rey
Switzerland
I'm an expatriate living in Indonesia. I'm not Muslim, and I travel a lot to remote areas of Indonesia. I really don't mind the sound of the call to prayer from mosques when it's not so loud the sound is distorted.
In fact, it can be quite relaxing and peaceful. The problem I have is with those that blast the sound with bad speakers, distorting it, and competing against other mosques in the neighborhood. In this case, it's just a lot of noise. Wouldn't it be nice and peaceful if all mosques could coordinate the call to prayer with nice speakers and let everyone reflect during the call to prayer?
Jim S.
Jakarta
I still think it's ignorance on the part of the people that voted for the ban. There's a lot of ignorance here too from the majority of people, maybe even worse than what they have there in Swiss.
Philry
Jakarta
