| <\/td>\n | <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Source: canada.com<\/p>\n Ottawa\u2019s Muslim call to prayer: There\u2019s an app for that<\/p>\n If you live near one of Ottawa\u2019s many churches, the sound of bells tolling is probably nothing unusual. Residing in the shadow of any of Ottawa\u2019s eight mosques, however, is a curiously silent affair.<\/p>\n In predominantly Muslim nations, the call to prayer is broadcast loudly from the mosque\u2019s minaret five times a day, summoning worshipers to dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset and evening prayers.<\/p>\n The timing of these prayers follow the natural cycle of the day. Since the rising and setting of the sun change constantly, so do the times of prayer.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ottawa\u2019s Muslim community, which comprised 3.9 per cent of the city\u2019s population in the 2006 census, is out of luck if they\u2019re listening for a public daily reminder.<\/p>\n There is only one mosque in Ottawa with a minaret capable of performing the call, though it has never been used to do so, says Mohamed Ghadban<\/em>, the president of the Ottawa Muslim Association.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom my past knowledge, no, it hasn\u2019t been used. The time in the morning, for example, is early morning and to wake up the neighbourhood is not a good idea \u2026 You won\u2019t hear it, not in the Western world as much as you would in the Middle East.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Omar Mahfoudhi,<\/em> executive director of the Islam Care Centre in Ottawa, knows of no public calls to prayer in most Canadian cities – But that\u2019s not a significant problem, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to acknowledge that we\u2019re in a predominantly Christian land \u2026 It ends up being really just a matter of identity, I think. …The reason to call to prayer is to call people to come and pray. If we can accomplish that better by having loudspeakers then yes, that would be great,<\/em>\u201c he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the way our communities are, we\u2019re very dispersed, people will come to the mosque \u2026 I don\u2019t live anywhere that\u2019s near a mosque and even most of the people that come to prayer here at the centre, they live very far away.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Amira Elmi,<\/em> a practicing Muslim and a policy analyst at Environment Canada, said she\u2019s never heard a desire from the Ottawa community for a public call to prayer, and can understand why.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, I only hear [the call to prayer] when I go to a mosque, within the confines of the mosque. Personally, I feel like the purpose is kind of served by virtue of having Internet and having so many ways to know what time it is to pray,<\/em>\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re so dispersed nowadays that it\u2019s not like everybody is in one area and they\u2019ll all hear it and go. I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s necessary in that sense.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n The daily calls to prayer would also be a violation of Ottawa\u2019s noise bylaw. Church bells, on the other hand, have been granted an exemption.<\/p>\n The bylaw reads: \u201cNo person shall ring any bell, sound any horn, or shout in a manner likely to disturb the inhabitants of the City provided that nothing herein contained shall prevent the ringing of bells in connection with any church, chapel, meeting house or religious service…<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n While the by-law does not strictly prohibit the Islamic call to prayer, it provides no exemption.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s bylaw and regulatory services branch has not received any complaints or requests to amend the bylaw.<\/p>\n Officials at the city\u2019s by-law office said the department has not received any complaints nor have there been requests for exemptions to the Noise By-law.<\/p>\n Without a public call to prayer, many Muslims rely on technology to keep track of changing prayer times.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen there weren\u2019t digital watches, no atomic clocks, and all these ways to tell time, people needed to hear something, or people needed to tell each other what time to pray,<\/em>\u201d said Amira Elmi<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cI usually just Google the time.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Mahfoudhi<\/em> said he uses his smart phone for accurate prayer times. In fact, he says, there\u2019s an app for that.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten around the restriction of not being allowed to do it publicly, and we actually have a little app,<\/em>\u201d said Mahfoudhi<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have software, we have apps\u2014it\u2019s all around us. In fact, sometimes I\u2019ll be with my wife and we\u2019re at home and my phone will go off and her phone will go off and her computer will go off, all of them with the call to prayer. So you almost end up feeling like you\u2019re in some Muslim land where the mosques are calling off.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Mahfoudhi<\/em> said there are watches and clocks that will do the same thing, but that the technology isn\u2019t necessary.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, nobody really doesn\u2019t know when prayer time is. There will obviously be people who don\u2019t have a computer or are not savvy enough to know that there are apps or software that they could use, so they tend to have a little print-out schedule of the times and they just have that pinned on their fridge.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Amanda Shendruk Source: canada.com Ottawa\u2019s Muslim call to prayer: There\u2019s an app for that If you live near one of Ottawa\u2019s many churches, the sound of bells tolling is probably nothing unusual. 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