Ministry of Endowment denies appointing mute muezzin

CAIRO – 8 March 2019: Egypt’s Ministry of Endowment denied media reports claiming that the ministry assigned a mute muezzin (the person appointed at a mosque to lead and recite the call for prayer).

Islamic clergyman Saeed Noaman told "Kol Youm" (Every Day) talk show that the ministry had appointed a mute muezzin, accusing the ministry of receiving a bribe for appointing the muezzin.

“The comments on the mute muezzin stated by Saeed Noaman, who some people say is a member of the Supreme Committee of Fatwa (Islamic laws) Issuance, is groundless,” the Ministry said, adding that the clergyman was never a member at any institution affiliated to Al-Azhar or the Endowment Ministry.

Noaman was criticizing the ministry’s newly-applied system of the unified Adhan (prayer call). In February, the government has applied an experimental airing of the unified Adhan (prayer call) in 113 mosques in Cairo, implementing a decision aiming to end distortion and noise caused by several loudspeakers calling for prayer at the same time.

The Adhan is the Islamic call for prayer, which occurs five times a day – often through the loudspeakers of a mosque – reminding Muslims that it is time to pray, in accordance with Islamic Sharia law.

A law to unify the Adhan was issued in 2010 to regulate the broadcasting of one version of Adhan in Cairo's 4,000 mosques, but the law was halted after the 2011 Revolution due to technical obstacles.