Fact check: Saudi Arabia Banned Adhan On Loudspeakers?

The Ministry of Islamic Affairs reduced the number of loudspeakers to four for every mosque in the kingdom.

A claim has been circulating across social media platforms: ‘Considering the holy month of Ramadan, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia has officially banned adhan recitation on loudspeakers in the mosques.’

See the viral posts Here- Facebook, Facebook & Tiktok. 

See screenshots here-

Newschecker-Bangladesh has determined this claim as false.

Fact check/ Verification

While tracing the claim, we searched some reliable middle east based international media houses and found several reports on this banning issue. 

BBC and Al-Jazeera were the first to report this issue, dated June 1, 2021. Al-Jazeera and BBC, in their reports, said, ‘The country’s Islamic Affairs Ministry announced last week that all loudspeakers should be set at only a third of their maximum volume.’ The report further said that the banning was a response to people’s complaints against the loudspeakers in the mosques. Dr Sheikh Abdul Latif Bin Abdul Aziz, Minister of Islamic Affairs, KSA, faced backlash from conservative citizens in the kingdom, per reports.

Recently, this issue resurfaced as the sacred month of Ramadan started. Besides these two media houses, many middle eastern and Indian media houses published reports on this issue.

See the reports here- The Gulf News, ZAWYA, SaudiGazette.

Reports on these sites say the minister of Islamic Affairs, Guidance and Dawah, KSA, has announced that the number of loudspeakers in the mosques should not exceed four, along with a few more instructions which are supposed to be followed from March 23, 2023. While investigating, we found a notice posted on the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, KSA’s official Twitter account.

See the notice here-

Although the advertisement orders compliance with several regulations, it does not mention anything about the ban on giving Adhan in any place.

 Conclusions

The claim that Saudi Arabia has banned loudspeakers for Adhan is false. Instead, an order has been issued to limit the number of loudspeakers for this purpose.

Result: False

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