Indonesian mosques to curb noise during Ramadan

Jakarta

Indonesia has set up a new team to reduce noise from mosques, an official said today, as places of worship go into overdrive during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

There are approximately 800,000 mosques in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation but residents living nearby have long complained that their speakers are too loud. 

Places of worship become particularly active during Ramadan, which this year runs from mid-June to mid-July, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and mosques blare out religious sermons even earlier than usual.

In a new attempt to tackle the issue, Vice President Jusuf Kalla, who is also head of a body grouping many of the country's mosques, has formed a team to take samples of noise from mosque speakers across the country, his spokesman Husain Abdullah told AFP.

"The idea is for mosques to turn down the volume a little so that the sound can be heard only by residents in the immediate area," he said, adding that the aim was to have a "more harmonious, melodious sound coming from mosques".

He said that mosques also had to ensure that the sounds they produced did not overlap with noises from others nearby, saying there was often a "war of the loudspeakers" between places of worship in the same area which try to outdo each other by playing sermons loudly.