by Tim Dieppe, Christian Today
Shadow Justice Secretary, Nick Timothy, provoked an almighty fuss by tweeting about the mass ritual prayer in Trafalgar Square last week.
As I write, his tweet has had over 7 million views, and has generated a whole mass of responses. The Prime Minister called on Kemi Badenoch to sack Nick Timothy during Prime Minister’s Questions. Dozens of parliamentarians wrote to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards claiming that he had broken the House of Commons Code of Conduct, and that his comments be investigated or risk bringing the House into disrepute. On the other side, Nigel Farage called for mass Muslim prayer to be banned in public and Badenoch has refused to sack him.
[…] The Adhan, or call to prayer which Timothy mentions, is recited in Arabic – one could say that in itself is not very British. A translation of the phrases recited is:
“Allah is greater! I bear witness that there is no god but Allah.I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
In essence, this is a proclamation. These phrases are not prayer directed to Allah, but a public declaration that Allah is God and that Muhammad is his messenger. It is a missional declaration.
Not very long ago such a proclamation would never have been heard on the streets of London.
Call to prayer stopped in London
In 2020, permission was granted to some mosques in London to broadcast the Islamic call to prayer for the first time. One brave resident saw the problems with this and, with some others, chose to object. With the help of Christian Concern, a strongly-worded legal letter was drafted questioning the legality of granting this permission. The letter explained that there was no public consultation about allowing broadcasts of the call to prayer. There had been no Equalities Impact Assessment, and some refugees in the area were traumatised by hearing the call to prayer of their persecutors’ religion in their new-found ‘safe’ home in Britain.
At this the council backed down and agreed not to allow the call to prayer to be broadcast the following year. This was a significant win. Standing up against the gradual Islamisation of Britain is important.