Swiss Ban on Building Minarets in Mosques

The Swiss Government has recently banned the building of Minarets in Mosques. The ban comes as a result of a recently held referendum in Switzerland. According to New York Times story:

The Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, in a referendum drawn up by the far right and opposed by the government. The referendum, which passed with a clear majority of 57.5 percent of the voters and in 22 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, was a victory for the right. The vote against was 42.5 percent. Because the ban gained a majority of votes and passed in a majority of the cantons, it will be added to the Constitution.

The Swiss Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but the rightist Swiss People’s Party, or S.V.P., and a small religious party had proposed inserting a single sentence banning the construction of minarets, leading to the referendum.

The ban has come as a surprise to the 400,000 Muslims living in Switzerland and billions of Muslims living around the world. I was particularly surprised at the campaign banner that showed minarets popping out of the Swiss flag and colored in black.  The number of minarets shown on the Swiss flag in the campaign banner is far greater then the actual number of minarets in Switzerland. According to same New York Times story:

Of 150 mosques or prayer rooms in Switzerland, only 4 have minarets, and only 2 more minarets are planned. None conduct the call to prayer. There are about 400,000 Muslims in a population of some 7.5 million people. Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, said Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Switzerland.

Minaret Ban Campaign Poster

While in fact the ban has a more symbolic effect and gives a clear message to the Muslims through out the world that Switzerland is no more accepting Muslims culture and heritage. It is also worth mentioning here that the Minarets have no Islamic value attached to them as they have no place in Islamic Shariah, which was made the sole target in the campaign by rightist Swiss Peoples Party. Therefore, i will not be wrong to conclude it as a move to isolate Muslims and to marginalize them through such laws. The law is a clear violation of fundamental rights of people to practice their own religion as the law solely targets this independence of Muslims in Switzerland.

Now i would like to draw the attention of our readers to the fact that the Minarets are not the copyrighted architectural style only followed by Muslims. Lets look at some of the Churches in Switzerland.

Fraumunster Church, Switzerland

St. Peter Church, Switzerland

Grossmunster Church, Switzerland

What really worries me is that the ban is only directed at the Muslims and no other religion has been covered in the law. The Churches shown in the pictures above are all based in the capital city of Switzerland whose tall minarets are visible to our readers. In the presence of these churches, i wonder how only the minarets of mosques have been targeted?

The ban can cause widespread hatred among Muslim world where thousands of Churches featuring tall minarets are present. Lets look at some of the Churches in Muslim countries where no such ban has ever been thought of and we do not advocate any such ban either as Islam  believes in protection of the places of worship of the minorities living in Islamic countries.

Baptistere Kelisa Esfahan, Iran

Cathedral Church of Resurrection, Pakistan

The list is long and other churches featuring tall minarets can be found here at a blog site titled Islam-West.

The purpose of showing the above churches with tall minarets or towers is to show to our readers that the structure has nothing to do with Islam as wrongly depicted by the Swiss Peoples Party. However, the real intentions of the party is the message that it wants to convey to the Muslim populace of Switzerland. If a retaliatory move takes place across the Muslim world, it will have devastating effect and will only benefit those who strive for widening the differences between Muslims and the people of other faiths.

I personally believe that Muslims should not show any angry reaction to this move by the Swiss Peoples Party. Every Muslim in itself is a minaret of Islam and his way of life should be the real reflection of Islamic teachings. Swiss Peoples Party can ban the construction of Minarets but it can not stop the 400,000 walking Minarets of Islam in the form of the Muslim populace of the Switzerland. Let’s use such incidents to further increase us in faith and to follow it with renewed vigor. All those forces and parties who dream of removing our culture and our heritage should realize that they can not remove Islam from the Earth as we have billions of Minarets roaming around the length and breadth of this world.

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