An Friday the muezzin calls for the first time in Cologne to prayer. At the central mosque of the Turkish-Islamic Union (Ditib) in the Ehrenfeld district, their religious officer Mustafa Kader will recite the call to prayer at 1:24 p.m. At the central mosque, the call should be heard for a maximum of five minutes a week.
The project was previously explained to local residents at an information event. Ditib assured on Thursday that they didn’t want to “scare” anyone. “It is certainly important to us not to disturb our neighbors in their everyday lives,” said Ditib representative Zekeriya Altuğ. A volume of around 60 decibels is planned, which is about as loud as a conversation. “It’s not about being audible 100, 200 meters away,” he said. It is about Muslims getting the feeling that they are allowed to practice their religion.
The mosque community in Ehrenfeld is the only one to date that has submitted an application to the city of Cologne as part of a model project limited to two years. About ten others have expressed interest. The Cologne muezzin call is not the first in Germany: it is already common in around 30 mosque communities.
Cologne emphasizes the free exercise of religion
The city’s announcement a year ago met with mixed public response. In a Civey survey commissioned by the “Bonner General-Anzeiger”, three out of four respondents rejected the idea that the call to prayer should be heard just as naturally as church bells in this country. Two in three respondents (64 percent) even said that the call to prayer should “definitely not” be heard in a manner similar to Christian church bells.
The city of Cologne justified its project with tolerance and the right to practice religion, Islam has been an integral part of German society for many years. Mayor Henriette Reker spoke of a sign of mutual acceptance of religion: “When we hear the call of the muezzin in addition to the church bell in our city, it shows that diversity is valued and lived in Cologne.”
“Demonstration of power of political Islam”
The Berlin Islamism expert Ahmad Mansour described the muezzin call as a “demonstration of power of political Islam”. He recalled that Ditib was the extended arm of the Turkish religious authority in Ankara and that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan personally opened the central mosque in Cologne-Ehrenfeld in 2018.
Zekeriya Altuğ from Ditib rejected this view on Thursday. 70 to 80 percent of its members are German citizens. “The interpretation of freedom is not a demonstration of power,” he said. Cologne is also not a “pioneer” in this area. There are already public calls to prayer in many communities. “Cologne is even more in the middle, at best, on this subject.” Certainly, the city is “symbolically” very important.
Connection to Ankara
As early as 1996, the Cologne City Council had campaigned for a representative mosque to be built and, from 1999 onwards, was looking for a suitable reason for a merger of ten local associations of Muslims, mainly from North African and Arab countries. But the project stalled. In 2001, the Ditib association applied to build a large mosque with its own money. She positioned herself with an integrative concept of a large mosque that should be open to all Muslims. The then Lord Mayor Fritz Schramma (CDU) became a central advocate of the construction, and in 2003 the city council gave the green light.
The architects Paul Böhm received the order for the church with a 34.5 meter high concrete dome and two 55 meter high minarets. The presentation of his draft in 2006 marked the beginning of massive criticism, demonstrations and counter-demonstrations followed.
A design with a reduced area was finally approved, the height of the minarets remained. Construction work began in 2009, and in 2017 the domed hall with space for 1,100 believers was used for the first time. The official opening followed in September 2018 with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by a large-scale police operation, demonstration and counter-demonstration.
No German politician took part in the ceremony. Supporters from politics and society felt snubbed by Erdogan’s invitation. In addition, Ditib was accused of spying on Turkish opposition figures in Germany on behalf of Ankara. The federal and state governments of North Rhine-Westphalia have since kept their distance. The federal government no longer supports Ditib projects. In North Rhine-Westphalia, however, Ditib, as the largest mosque association, is represented in an accompanying commission for the design of Islamic religious education in schools.