ALBAWABA - An Egyptian-American woman won a U.S. city approval for the Muslim call to prayer be made through mosque loudspeakers in her neighborhood during the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the Arabic-language media reported.
Rana Abdel Hamid posted on several media platforms that she received the approval Monday from Astoria neighborhood, known as "Little Egypt.
The neighborhood is situated west of Queens in New York City in the United States.
Abdel Hamid and her mother, Mona El-Baghdadi, have tirelessly campaigned for the call to prayer, widely known in Arabic as Athan, to be made through loudspeakers atop mosques in the streets of Astoria.
Following the approval, the call for prayer echoed through a main street of the New York neighborhood five times a day, media outlets in the Middle East reported.
El-Baghdadi, expressing joy over the win, posted a picture of herself and her daughter on her Facebook page. She carried a paper they said was the approval, captioning the picture: "Praise be to God, O God, cherish Islam and Muslims....After 31 years in America, I can finally hear the Athan in the street."
There are several mosques across the United States, where there is an estimated 3.45 million Muslims who make up roughly 1.1 percent of the population.
Islam is the third largest religion in the United States after Christianity, which makes up about 63 percent of the U.S. population, and Judaism, which commands 2.1 percent, according to Wikipedia.
Written by Albawaba trainee Mayar al-Khatieb
