Duke cancels plan to use chapel tower for Muslim call to prayer

By Jonathan Drew, Associated Press

Published Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015 | 1:03 p.m.

Updated Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015 | 3:20 p.m.

DURHAM, N.C. — Duke University canceled its plan to use a chapel tower for a weekly call to prayer for Muslims after getting bombarded with calls and emails from alumni and others, officials said Thursday.

Instead, Muslims will gather for their call to prayer in a grassy area in front of the chapel before heading into a room in the chapel for their weekly prayer service. The university had initially said a moderately amplified call to prayer would be read by members of the Muslim Students Association from the tower for about three minutes each Friday.

Schoenfeld said it would up to the students if they want to use some sort of speaker or megaphone.

"There was considerable traffic and conversation and even a little bit of confusion, both within the campus and certainly outside, about what Duke was doing," said Michael Schoenfeld, vice president for public affairs and government relations. "The purposes and goals and even the facts had been so mischaracterized as to turn it into a divisive situation, not a unifying situation."

The plan drew the ire of evangelist Franklin Graham, the son of the Rev. Billy Graham, who urged Duke alumni to withhold support because of violence against Christians that he attributed to Muslims. He wrote on Facebook that the decision is playing out as "Christianity is being excluded from the public square."

He wrote later in the day that the university made the right decision to cancel. However, Schoenfeld said the reversal was not based solely on Graham's opposition.

Shalini Subbarao, 19, a sophomore from St. Louis, said as she walked in front of the chapel that she was disappointed with the school's reversal.

"I thought it was really progressive. It showed out openness to other religions," she said of the original plan.

The campus was mostly business as usual on Thursday afternoon, with students starting to head from class. Several said they were not familiar with the issue, while others' reactions were mixed.

The chapel is identified by the school as a Christian church but also hosts Hindu services and has been used for Buddhist meditations.

The chapel's associate dean for religious life, Christy Lohr Sapp, said before the plans were canceled that the move showed the school's commitment to religious pluralism. In a column written for the News and Observer in Raleigh, Lohr Sapp acknowledged the headlines generated by violence by extremists in ISIS, Boko Haram and al-Qaida, contrasting it to what's happening on campus.

"Yet, at Duke University, the Muslim community represents a strikingly different face of Islam than is seen on the nightly news: one that is peaceful and prayerful," she wrote.

The private university in Durham, northwest of Raleigh, was founded by Methodists and Quakers, and its divinity school has historically been connected to the United Methodist Church. It has nearly 15,000 students, including about 6,500 undergraduates. The school's insignia features the Christian cross and a Latin motto translated as "learning and faith."

The university says it has more than 700 students who identify themselves as Muslim. Schoenfeld said Duke was one of the first universities in the country to have a full-time Muslim imam when the first was named in 2008. Muslim students have been holding prayer services in the basement of the chapel for the past two years.

Associated Press reporter Emery P. Dalesio contributed to this report from Raleigh.