printThe minaret is the quintessential symbol of Islam’s power. Not only is this structural spire an imposing eyesore, towering over 200 meters above, but it emits—by virtue of the muezzin’s ululations—noise pollution five times a day.
The Swiss have not rejected freedom of religion—Muslims can worship as they wish. What the Swiss have decided is to reject the architectural, auditory and cultural imposition that the minaret signifies and retain the western flare of their cities. Naturally, CNN has framed the plebiscite as the work of the far right:
Swiss voters on Sunday adopted a referendum banning the construction of minarets, seen by some on the far right as a sign of encroaching Islamism.
“The Federal Council respects this decision,” said a statement from Switzerland’s government. “Consequently the construction of new minarets in Switzerland is no longer permitted. The four existing minarets will remain.
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Update I (Nov. 30): On the meaning of the minaret, Islam scholar Andy Bostom quotes “the official Brill Encyclopedia of Islam”:
“It seems on the whole unrelated to its function of the adh?n [q.v.] calling the faithful to prayer, which can be made quite adequately from the roof of the mosque or even from the house-top. During the lifetime of the Prophet, his Abyssinian slave Bil?l [q.v.], was responsible for making the call to prayer in this way. The practice continued for another generation, a fact which demonstrates that the minaret is not an essential part of Islamic ritual. To this day, certain Islamic communities, especially the most orthodox ones like the Wahh?b?s in Arabia, avoid building minarets on the grounds that they are ostentatious and unnecessary. … It must be remembered, however, that throughout the mediaeval period, the role of the minaret oscillated between two polarities: as a sign of power and as an instrument for the adh?n.”
AND:
“The venerable Brill Encyclopedia of Islam (EOI) entry on minarets makes plain that minarets are a political statement of Islamic supremacism. Interestingly, given current Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s provocative statement while mayor of Istanbul (the full statement was quoted in a NY Times story http://www.kurdistan.org/Washington/nyt.html by Stephen Kinzer from 2/16/1998: ‘The mosques are our barracks, the domes are our helmets, the minarets are our swords, and the faithful are our army’), cited by opponents of minaret construction in Switzerland—the observations from the Brill EOI about the Ottoman perspective on minarets are of particular note.”
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Update II: Diana West has rounded up responses from across Europe to the Swiss’s anti-Islamization declaration.
God bless the Swiss. Let them be the light for a darkened Europe.
Hmmmm – don’t the Swiss carry guns? Perhaps we have a place to release Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan on bail to. Do you think he’d get to reload and shoot for 10 minutes in Zurich?
It would seem someone’s been putting nasty thoughts into the heads of the far right. Better the nabobs and apologists should seek out what’s behind it all. Here’s a hint:
The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets, and the believers our soldiers.
– Recep Tayyip Erdo?an (Turkey’s Prime Minister and EU membership enthusiast)
Immigration is a privilege. The national border is the common property of all its citizens.
As private citizens, we have the right to exclude for ANY REASON people from entering our homes. The same should apply to the nation as a whole based on a simple majority of the citizens of that nation.
Noise pollution might be a bit unfair.
In the Kingdom I sometimes found the prayer call eerily beautiful. There was however, amateur night at the microphone… (They don’t climb stairs up minaret anymore, they’ve got loudspeakers.)
And then there was the Iftar gun. A light field piece fired at the sunrise prayer call all through the month of Ramadan. That would have been around 5 a.m. or thereabouts.
Under my bedroom window, just across the street as a matter of fact…
I’ve always had a great deal of respect for the Swiss. They are truly a self-reliant society, and they understand that the foundation of self-reliance is self-defense.
Also, if they ever stop screaming and invoking images of the Third Reich, maybe liberals in Europe would realize that Islam is the polar opposite of everything they claim to believe in. What does Sharia law say about Women’s rights or gay rights or religious freedom? What happens to Muslims who renounce their faith? Everything liberals claim to hate about Christians is found in Islam a hundred times more extreme.
But they just bury their heads in the sand and chant “religion of peace!”
It was interesting to note the comments section provided by Diana West in regard to Mirarets. In one comment a Swiss official stated that the “Swiss Government has a different agenda than the Swiss people.” Two weeks before the Swiss vote, France had numerous examples of worship (Riots) in its streets over of all things a sporting event between Algeria and Egypt, French merchants paid for that. Paris merchants and its White citizens also received a taste of Black South African justice as well November 17, 2009. hhtp://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/4174. It is my understanding that there is a resurgence of the old religions of Europe among the young Europeans and they are anti-Christian, wait until they meet the European Taliban. Let’s just hope that common sense will spread.
Interesting “classical liberal” Moslem writer op-ed pointing out the one-way hypocrisy of various Moslem states on things like the minarets ban:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/…/AR2009113003729.html
Notice how the credulous idiots are, as usual, not bothering to say what’s happening to, say, the Sikh diaspora in Pakistan (which, incidentally, contains two of their holiest sites), or the Christian churches in Nigeria.
It’s reasons like this that Switzerland will remain long after the US has gone away and the EU broken up back into its historic ethnic boundaries. Or, if third world immigration continues, perhaps the EU will break up into brand new ethnic boundaries just as the US probably will.