Mehmet Gormez head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate on Thursday evening criticized the Israeli Knesset’s initial approval of Adhan ban bill.
Gormez called the bill “unacceptable” during an opening ceremony of the Şeyh Şamil Mosque in Turkey’s southeastern Gaziantep province.
The Israeli Knesset’s first vote on a bill to ban the use of loudspeakers for the Muslim call to prayer (Adhan) is a denial of Islam and Muslims’ existence in the territory the Turkish top cleric said.
“If you ban the call of Adhan to be recited by muezzins [reciters of Adhan] the whole community of that city and country become muezzins recite the Adhan together and thereby express that they don’t accept the ban” he underlined. “No one can fetter or ban the hearts of people.”
The comments by Mehmet Gormez come a day after the Israeli Knesset approved a preliminary reading of the controversial bill which seeks to impose limits on the Muslim call to prayer within the Green Line and in occupied Jerusalem.
