This “connects the university to national trends in religious accommodation.” Indeed it does, but those trends all go in one direction only: when will we hear church bells ringing from Muslim universities, as a gesture of religious pluralism? And how appropriate is it to broadcast “Allahu akbar” over loudspeakers on the Duke campus, when on numerous occasions jihad terrorists have screamed exactly that while committing mass murder? And then there is the involvement of the Muslim Students Association. Discover The Networks reports (thanks to Pamela Geller) that “the Muslim Students Association of the United States and Canada, or MSA (also known as MSA National), was established mainly by members of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) in January 1963 at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Nyack College theologian Larry A. Poston writes that ‘many of the founding members of this agency [MSA] were members of, or had connections to,’ the Muslim Brotherhood or Jamaat-i-Islami….MSA speakers routinely spew anti-Semitic libels and justify the genocide against the Jews which is promoted by Islamic terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah and by the government of Iran….” The Muslim Brotherhood, according to a captured internal document that names the MSA as one of its arms in the U.S., is dedicated in its own words to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house.” Would any other organization that is dedicated to “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within, and sabotaging its miserable house” get this much respect from Duke University?
“Muslim call to prayer to sound at Duke University,” WRAL, January 13, 2015:
Durham, N.C. — A weekly call to prayer for Muslims will be heard at Duke University starting Friday, school officials said.
Members of the Duke Muslim Students Association will chant the call, known as adhan or azan, from the Duke Chapel bell tower each Friday at 1 p.m. The call to prayer will last about three minutes and be “moderately amplified,” officials said in a statement Tuesday.
“The adhan is the call to prayer that brings Muslims back to their purpose in life, which is to worship God, and serves as a reminder to serve our brothers and sisters in humanity,” said Imam Adeel Zeb, Muslim chaplain at Duke. “The collective Muslim community is truly grateful and excited about Duke’s intentionality toward religious and cultural diversity.”
In majority Muslim countries across the globe, the adhan is broadcast from mosques and on television and radio stations five times a day to correspond with prayer times. On Fridays, the day of worship in Islam, sermons are also broadcast.
In the United States, amplified adhan exists in a handful of communities.
“This opportunity represents a larger commitment to religious pluralism that is at the heart of Duke’s mission,” said Christy Lohr Sapp, the chapel’s associate dean for religious life. “It connects the university to national trends in religious accommodation.”
The announcement by Duke drew criticism from Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. He took to social media on Wednesday to express his views and urge Duke donors to suspend support.
“Duke is promoting this in the name of religious pluralism. I call on the donors and alumni to withhold their support from Duke until this policy is reversed,” he said on his Facebook page.