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. (All the 9/11-was-an-inside-job types can find bin Laden taking responsibility for the attacks here). New York Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday 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 call to prayer, and particularly one for Friday, is a mosque.
As given to shallow demagoguery as any other Democrat politician, Adams concluded grandly: “You are free to live your faith in New York City.” That’s swell, although the religious freedom of Muslims in New York City wasn’t really restricted before this. Adams appears to be completely indifferent to the fact that there are non-Muslims in New York City as well as Muslims, and there has been controversy over the broadcast of the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers for years.
Back in 2016, Gothamist itself reported that neighbors of one city mosque found the call to prayer “too noisy,” and noted that they had “filed 156 noise complaints against Masjid al-Aman.” It’s grand that Muslims are free to live their faith in New York City, Mayor Adams, but do the neighbors of mosques have any right to enjoy a non-intrusive, noise-free environment, at least insofar as such a thing is possible at all in New York City?
The answer is clear now, and it’s “No.” Concerns over the noise generated by mosque loudspeakers have been consigned to the dustbin of “Islamophobia,” and that’s that.
Nevertheless, there are still reasons for concern. The content of what is going to be broadcast is also relevant. The Islamic call to prayer, the adhan, says this in Arabic:
Allah is greater (Allahu akbar) (four times).
I testify that there is no God but Allah (twice).
I testify that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah (twice).
Come to prayer (twice).
Come to success (twice).
Allah is greater (Allahu akbar) (twice).
There is no God but Allah (once).
Or as Osama bin Laden put it, “the first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.”
Is New York City, the site of the largest-ever jihad terror attack on American soil, wise to broadcast the cry “Allahu akbar,” beloved of jihad terrorists the world over? Chief 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta wrote a letter to himself before carrying out his jihad mission, in which he included this reminder: “Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because this strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.”
In the same vein, is New York City really wise to broadcast repeatedly a declaration of the superiority of Islam, a faith that directs its adherents to make war against Christians and other non-Muslims and subjugate them as inferiors under the hegemony of believers (cf. Qur’an 9:29)?
Related: Minneapolis Neighborhood Begins Broadcasting Islamic Call to Prayer over Loudspeakers
Neither Eric Adams nor any other New York officials will answer such questions. They won’t even be asked them. In New York City and all over America today, any such concerns will be dismissed out of hand as “Islamophobic.” And so twenty-two years after 9/11, the call to Islam will resound all over the city that suffered so much on that day. On Sept. 11, 2001, New York City was attacked by people who believed so fervently in that call that they were willing to give their lives for it, in hopes of receiving the promise of paradise that the Qur’an makes to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111).
Osama bin Laden, had he lived to see this day, would be cheering.
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