Denmark plans to ban public broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer as critics say its incessant transmission from mosques and/or minarets shows disrespect to the wider community and leaves parts of the country feeling like “a suburb of Islamabad.”
Immigration minister Morten Bødskov, from the centre-left Social Democrats, is leading the nationwide move.
He has confirmed his intentions to end the practice, evoking imagery of Muslim-majority Islamabad to describe certain areas being swamped on a daily basis.
“The call to prayer should not be heard over Danish rooftops. It has no place in Denmark, and you shouldn’t be in any doubt whether you’ve ended up in a suburb of Islamabad when you walk around Denmark,” he told various news outlets.
This is the third time a Social Democratic minister has pursued such a measure, following similar efforts in 2020 and 2025. The Adhan, performed five times daily, is already restricted in some cities like Copenhagen under noise bylaws.
According to the London Daily Telegraph, the attempt to ban the prayer might be easier said than done as Danish legal hurdles exist casting freedom of religion is a legal guarantee.
Exceptions are granted, like bans on anti-democratic preaching and funding from prohibited groups. Germany and Britain already limit the times when a mosque may broadcast a call to prayer, and enforce volume limits so as to not disturb other non-Muslim citizens.
France has also experienced public push-back against the practice.
The call to prayer known in Arabic as the adhan, has been translated by the BBC as “God is great, there is no God but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Come to prayer.”
However, many argue this is a deliberate mistranslation, as the phrase “Allahu akbar” would be more accurately rendered as “[our] God is greater” instead of “God is great.”
As Breitbart News has noted, charities like Christian Concern have therefore argued the Islamic call to prayer should not be compared to, for example, the ringing of church bells, because it is “not prayer directed to Allah, but a public declaration that Allah is God and that Muhammad is his messenger.”
In other words, it is an assertion of religious superiority.
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