Muslim Calls to Prayer in Oxford?

I might have left Oxford just in time. Not only has the weather gotten colder there, but a local mosque has asked the City Council permission to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan, three times a day.

The thought of that awful . . . sound being broadcast via loud speakers over Oxford sickens me. I would find walking through Oxford and hearing that genuinely disturbing. My prayers are with those non-Muslim Oxonians who would have to hear that awful whiney cacophony every day, three times a day.

As for me, if that’s what Oxford becomes, I might not ever go back. I’m serious. Part of what makes Oxford Oxford are wonderful sounds such as the choirs, the church bells that so brightened my moods, even some of the street performers. (Note I said some.) To allow such an obnoxious invasion of that cultural atmosphere would be a travesty.

But I suspect the City Council is daft enough to ruin their cultural inheritance and give permission.

Cranmer has dissected this matter very well, so I will defer further commentary to him for now.