Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2015 December 11

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December 11

Mosque-less muezzins

This afternoon, while driving through a residential neighborhood in the Detroit-area city of Highland Park, Michigan, I heard a man shouting: I quickly recognised the words as the adhan, which wasn't surprising because Highland Park (like adjacent Hamtramck) is home to a large Islamic population, and the time was 4PM. However, I'd always assumed that someone serving as a muezzin would be doing it from a mosque, rather than standing on his front porch. With that in mind, my question:

In American communities with large Islamic populations, is it common to hear muezzins in the streets at prayer times? Are there many other places where the call to prayer routinely be heard even when you're not near a mosque, or is this guy just unusual somehow? Adhan and muezzin both talk about muezzins typically being associated with mosques; aside from the pioneer, neither one mentions muezzins generally calling people to prayer without operating out of a specific mosque. Nyttend (talk) 03:07, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Jama'at Khana may be relevant reading here, and may lead you to answers for your question. --Jayron32 15:12, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

I think the "No Longer Weird" category includes incidents where Muslims make a call to prayer aboard an aircraft, resulting (in the U.S.) in much panic and confusion, and occasionally, it is reputed, in dispatches of jet fighters. [1] Though the case I give is (as often so) short on hard detail. Wnt (talk) 18:41, 13 December 2015 (UTC)