Azerbaijan: Baku Tells Mullahs to Lower the Volume on Call to Prayer

Officials in Azerbaijan's capital, Baku, have instructed some mosques in the city to turn down the sound of the Azan, or Muslim call to prayer, local news services report. The order has spurred a debate about where the right of religious worship ends and the right to quiet begins.

Following the order, several mosques stopped broadcasting the Azan through loudspeakers, a move that touched off fears that a ban on the amplification of the call to prayer was underway. The Association of Caucasus Muslims has tried to assuage believers' concerns.

"Imposing restrictions on a few mosques is not tantamount to banning Azan entirely," Rahima Dadashova, spokeswoman for the group, was quoted by the APA news agency as saying. "The government has not adopted some kind of general restrictions on Azan," she said, adding that a city-wide ban on the payer broadcast was highly unlikely.