After years of advocating, NY Muslims get permitless adhan

Mosques across New York City can now broadcast their major calls to prayer without a permit, following new rules announced this week.

On Tuesday, 29 August, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said that mosques will no longer need permits for Friday Adhan and sunset prayers during the holy month of Ramadan. This follows years of advocacy by members of New York's Muslim community.

Adams said that the city government will work with local mosques to ensure that the calls to prayer are within the city's noise restriction levels.

"For too long, there has been a feeling that our communities were not allowed to amplify their calls to prayer," the mayor said, according to a report in the Associated Press. "Today, we are cutting red tape and saying clearly that mosques and houses of worship are free to amplify their call to prayer on Fridays and during Ramadan without a permit necessary."

He said that Muslims in New York "will not live in the shadows of the American dream while I am the mayor of the city of New York."

This week's news comes after years of New York Muslims facing discrimination and surveillance at their mosques, particularly after 9/11. Moreover, past attempts by mosques to broadcast the adhan have been met with requirements for permits, without the same requirements for churches.

"The announcement this week means that every mosque in New York City gets to do the call to prayer without going through permits. Many people are very excited," Rana Abdelhamid, a community organiser who has advocated for the new rules, told The New Arab. "This is further affirmation that New York City is for everyone."

Mazeda Uddin, founder of the South Asian Fund for Education Scholarship and Training, who has been advocating for the recognition of Muslim traditions in New York ever since she arrived from Bangladesh as a teenager in the 1980s, is thrilled by the new rules.

"I've been working for Muslim recognition ever since I came to New York. It's very exciting. We never thought it would happen," she told TNA. "When they did the adhan, I was crying."