Call to prayer possible with text message – Cleric backs Minister

An Islamic cleric Sheikh Bagaya has welcomed the suggestion by the Science and Environment minister that Muslim leaders in the country should consider using text messages to call Muslims to prayer instead of the usual loudspeakers.

In the view of the renowned heart surgeon Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, such an action will help reduce the noise pollution in Ghana.

“In the house of worship, why is it that the noise will (not) be limited to the house of worship…and again maybe from the mosque, why is it that time for prayer would not be transmitted with a text message or WhatsApp so the Imam will send WhatsApp message to everybody that the time for prayer up so appears,” the minister stated when he took his turn at the Meet the Press series in Accra on Tuesday.

Although the suggestion has been criticized by some Muslims, Sheikh Bagaya told Starr News the call is not out of place considering advancement in society.

“It is possible for us to adapt to text messages to call Muslims to prayer. But if we really want to do so, how are we then supposed to go about it. For some of us as Muslims, we use the traditional ways of doing things, what will this mean to us? Is it new, are we then saying we are introducing something new? As Muslims, we always want to listen to the teachings of the Quran and the Prophet.

“If we are doing so, how many of us will welcome the change. Some of us are not too comfortable with new things, we are used to maintaining the old traditions and order as it is in the past. The call to prayer in itself is not a basic necessity, it is not an obligation. We have evolved over the years and we have come to understand that with the call to prayer or otherwise, we would pray anyway, so altering it, how much of that affects this religion,” he explained.