Places Of Worship
By Syed Akbar Ali
Many, many years ago circa 1997 when I wrote a column in The Sun newspaper, I wrote once about our temples, mosques and other places of worship getting too noisy. My article was reproduced by some nut from PAS in the Harakah or somewhere. He was asking people to get angry at me.
At that time we lived on a 17th floor condo in Pantai Hillpark. Nine years before in 1988 my wife and I (with our baby son) lived for a while in a rented flat in Subang Jaya.
In both places we lived close to mosques and suraus. In Subang Jaya there was a surau immediately behind our flat. Early each morning about 5 a.m. they would start blasting the chanting and recitations etc on their loudspeakers. Our baby son would start crying from his sleep.
(Most recently my good friend Jahamy keeps sending me smses at about 6:00 am in the morning. When I asked him why so early, he said there is a masjid nearby which wakes him up too!)
In Pantai Hillpark, the local mosque would have their ceramah – sometimes up to 9 pm and beyond. Even 17 floors up the condo and some distance away, we could hear their chatter.
I also worked at Maybank (Menara Maybank, Jalan Tun Perak). In the evenings after work, my colleagues and I would sometimes adjourn for tea at our foodcourt. Just nearby, as you come up the small road from Jalan Pudu, there is a Hindu temple at the corner. In the evenings this little Hindu temple would incessantly ring its very loud bell. It used to really rattle my ears. I would have to strain my ears to hear my friends talking.
In other countries you keep your noises inside your temples, churches and mosques. I think that is a very Islamic and civilized thing to do. In Germany church bells can only be heard inside their own walls and not beyond their compound. Neighbours have a right to complain about noise pollution from church bells. The same applies to the call for prayer or azan from mosques in Germany. All sounds must remain within the four walls of your place of worship.
I am sure if there are Hindu temples in Germany, their bells must also abide by the same rules. Its called curbing noise pollution.
Here I would like to point out that the loudness of the ceramah at the mosques or the loudness of the call to prayer has got absolutely nothing to do with their religious fervour.
Instead it has got everything to do with the inventive genius of “kafir” sound engineers in Sony of Japan or Samsung of Korea. As the “kafir” Japanese and Korean sound engineers become more inventive, so do the mosques around the world become louder. The religious fervour is not linked to the faith but to the power of the latest sound systems from Sony, Samsung and LG.
The relevant question to ask would be : what kind of religious fervour is that?
To be true to the faith, the call to prayer should be made using the human voice alone, unaided by 100MW or 250MW “Made In Japan” loudspeakers.
I really feel that all our places of worship inside Malaysia (of all religions) must be governed by zoning laws pertaining to noise pollution. Keep it down. Don’t make noise and disturb the neighbourhood.
My view is also that compared to our population now – there are far too many mosques and suraus, far too many temples and far too many churches in our country. There are thousands of Hindu temples, there are far too many suraus and mosques being built and there are also too many shophouses being converted into churches. The Calvary ChurchDo we really need so many places of worship? people are building a huge RM160.0 million worship centre close to my house in Bukit Jalil.
If you go to Kuala Kubu Bahru, they have built a huge mosque in the town. I think this mosque can accommodate all the inhabitants of Kuala Kubu Bahru town, including the non Muslims. It rarely has a full house in the congregation.
In Putrajaya the immensely beautiful Putrajaya Mosque also suffers emptiness most of the time. Only on Fridays and the Hari Raya there is a large congregation. On other days few people attend this mosque. Yet just about a kilometer away the latest testimony to religious hubris – a spanking new RM200 million stainless steel mosque also known as the “Masjid Besi” – with a capacity of 20,000 worshippers – has just been opened. This “masjid besi” is going to remain empty too.
