Will Muslim call to prayer ring out over Oxford?

By Georgina Cooper

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - A battle of faiths is being waged in the ancient English city of Oxford, where some people are bitterly opposed to Muslim plans to broadcast the call to prayer over the fabled dreaming spires.

Local residents, clergy and now the head of the Church of England have been drawn into a debate over a proposal from the Central Oxford Mosque to broadcast a recording of the call to prayer, or Adhan, from its minaret over loud speakers.

Residents who live near the mosque claim the call will annoy their mainly non-Muslim community and won't even be heard by the majority of Oxford Muslims, who live more than half a mile away.

"We are very angry that they are presuming to inflict this on a non-Muslim community," Allan Chapman, a historian at the university and a local resident who described himself as a practising Christian told Reuters.

"We see this as an attempt to impose Islam on a Christian-culture community," he said.

The rector of one of Oxford's largest Anglican churches, Charlie Cleverly of St. Aldate's, has also attacked the plans.

He told the Oxford Mail that it was "un-English" and could create a Muslim ghetto in the neighbourhood around the mosque.

"When such an area is subject to such a call to prayer, it may force people to move out and encourage Muslim families to move in," he told the newspaper.