Residents’ complaints were dismissed and downplayed by Dearborn, Michigan’s mayor, as he turned to the law in defense of the Muslim call to prayer.
Days after an FBI operation in the city had reportedly thwarted a planned terror attack for Halloween, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud (D) is holding fast to his stance on so-called Islamophobia. This includes defending the call to prayer heard throughout the city, suggesting there was an ulterior motive in the timing of noise complaints.
Appearing alongside host Jaafar Issa on the “Not From Here” podcast, Hizzoner began by arguing the complaints were isolated, “I would tell you is those complaining about the call to prayer, I mean it’s a very, very few, you still want to respect the wishes and, if you have a serious concern, I have to uphold the law across all boards.”
“But we’ve done decibel readings at these mosques, all within threshold, all within legal limit. And so for me, it’s not an issue,” he went on. “We also have to uphold our constitutional rights to freedom of religion. And I would say this, you know, that’s the thing. I’m saying this as a Muslim. People, of course, are going to say this is a call to prayer, but like, you know, why are these complaints just coming forward now?”
“Yeah, elections are coming up,” interjected Issa as Hammoud argued, “Call to prayer has been happening since the 1970s in Dearborn.”
As communities across America have become increasingly concerned about the prospect of Sharia law and no-go zones impacting their small towns, particularly in light of the recent victory of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D) — who received praise from both participants on the podcast — a woman who claimed to be in Dearborn shared a recording of the call to prayer and reminded that locals “don’t have a choice” as to whether or not they hear it.
While many had made the case for countering with clamor of their own, such as ringing church bells at the same time and then more times throughout the day, Andrea Unger, a Dearborn resident of 40 years, told Fox News Digital in October that she had found the call to prayer consistently exceeded 70 decibels as she had recorded it over 30 consecutive days. City ordinance prohibits noise exceeding 60 decibels between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. and noise exceeding 55 decibels the rest of the time.
“I have heard a lot of people say, ‘I’m glad you said something,’ because people are afraid they’ll get called names like ‘Islamophobic,’ like our mayor … called Ted Barham, because you disagree,” she expressed. “We’re not Islamophobic, we’re not anti-Muslim, we are not anti-Jewish. We just want to live in the community that it’s always been [before] something changed two years ago to allow this.”
Barham has notably been told he was “not welcome” in Dearborn by Hammoud during a September city council meeting, as the concerned Christian was also labeled a “bigot,” “racist,” and “an Islamophobe” by the mayor for objecting to a street sign honoring a Hamas sympathizer.
On the podcast, the mayor argued that opposition like Barham’s was from “fear, the idea that coexistence is working and it’s successful, where our mosques neighbor our churches.”
He also appeared to downplay concerns about the “Islamification” of America.
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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