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Annette Laing's avatar

Friends in England lived in a village, next to a church where the bells chimed the time, even on the quarter hour. I quickly got used to it when I stayed in the 90s, and was sorry to hear that the rich newcomers of recent years had demanded it be curtailed. I also grew up under a flight path, have stayed with family who lived next to railway lines, and now live close to a freeway. I know which sound I prefer to be burdened with.

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Sadia Kalam's avatar

Learned something new about the stained glass windows in Turkey Brent! As a Muslim American, I hear you on the question of why the athdan needs to play for each prayer. I’ve been to Turkey and Malaysia too, and found the sounds beautiful but then I return to the suburbs here and there’s no sounds at all, even though there’s a mosque down the street. For Muslims, the call to prayer is like a reminder, a visceral reminder, “come to prayer, come to success.” The translation of the Arabic is interesting to me as a non-native speaker. I think it’s saying there’s something more than this world… but I can imagine how annoying the call could be if you just need to sleep. There’s actually noise pollution all around us, every time we go to a store, a cafe, anywhere, but the athan is also over in less than 5 minutes which I like too. I loved hearing church bells as a kid but I never hear them anymore.

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