Duke University is to begin sounding the Muslim call to prayer from its bell tower, a move showing solidarity with the religion as anti-Islamic sentiments increase around the world.
The Duke Muslim Students Association is to give the adhan - a melodious call for Muslims to gather and pray - from the North Carolina-based school's Duke Chapel bell tower, CNN reported. The three-minute chants are to begin Friday.
"The collective Muslim community is truly grateful and excited about Duke's intentionality toward religious and cultural diversity," said Imam Adeel Zeb, the university's Muslim chaplain, according to WRAL.
While the adhan is broadcasted five times a day in Muslim countries, at Duke the call will sound at 1 p.m. Fridays, the day of worship in the religion. Payers will then be held at the chapel, where Christians also hold Sunday services at the 177-year-old school.
"This opportunity represents a larger commitment to religious pluralism that is the heart of Duke's mission," Christy Lohr Sapp, Duke Chapel's associate dean for religious life, said according to WRAL. "It connects the university to national trends in religious accommodation."
The move comes during a time anti-Muslim sentiments have increased in Germany, France and other Western nations in the wake of terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist extremists, most notably last week's deadly raid on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris.
Not everyone showed approval of Duke's decision, including Franklin Graham, son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, CNN noted.
"As Christianity is being excluded from the public sphere and followers of Islam are raping, butchering, and beheading Christians, Jews, and anyone who doesn't submit to their Sharia Islamic law, Duke is prompting this in the name of religious pluralism," Franklin Graham wrote in a Facebook post that's been liked more than 65,900 times since it was posted Wednesday.
But not everyone shared the evangelist's sentiments towards Islam.
"I have the greatest respect for you, Mr. Graham," Glenda Manus commented. "However, you are profiling all Muslims as being in the same hate group and that is simply not the case.
"Have we gone so far with our hate, that we don't want others to worship God?"
