No one has filed a Minneapolis call to prayer lawsuit. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent the city a formal demand letter in April 2023 arguing that the amended noise ordinance violates the Establishment Clause, but that letter has not escalated into filed litigation, and no other party has brought a court challenge. The ordinance remains in effect, and the constitutional questions around it stay unresolved.1FFRF. Rescind Religiously Slanted Noise Ordinance, FFRF Insists to Minneapolis
What the Ordinance Does
On April 13, 2023, the Minneapolis City Council voted 12-0 to amend the city’s noise ordinance so that mosques could broadcast the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, at any hour of the day or night. Mayor Jacob Frey signed it on April 17 at Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque, and it took effect April 21.2Star Tribune. Mayor Jacob Frey Signs Change Allowing Muslim Call to Prayer at Any Time in Minneapolis
Two changes mattered. The ordinance added “amplifying equipment” to the list of permitted religious sound sources, which previously covered only bells, chimes, and carillons. And it eliminated the 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. window that had restricted when religious sound could be made outdoors. The per-hour cap was tightened from ten minutes to six, and the sixty-minute daily cap remained.3Star Tribune. Counterpoint: Recent Religion Rulings Clear Legal Path for Call to Prayer The practical effect: the adhan can be broadcast as early as roughly 3:30 a.m. and as late as 11:00 p.m. during the long summer days, when Islamic prayer times stretch with the daylight.4CBS News Minnesota. Minneapolis Mayor Signs Change to Noise Ordinance Allowing Amplified Islamic Prayer
The city still enforces decibel caps by zoning district. In residential areas, the ordinance sets 65 dBA for daytime and 60 dBA at night; higher thresholds apply in commercial and industrial zones.5City of Minneapolis. Ordinance Amending Chapter 389, Noise What the amendment removed was the time-of-day limit on religious sound, not the volume ceiling.
The FFRF Demand Letter
The day after Frey signed the ordinance, FFRF staff attorney Christopher Line wrote to the mayor and full City Council calling on them to rescind it. The letter argued that the amendment creates a “special carve out” privileging religious speech over nonreligious speech and favoring specific religious groups over others.6FFRF. Minneapolis MN Call to Prayer Letter
Line cited McCreary County v. ACLU of Kentucky (2005), Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), and Everson v. Board of Education (1947) for the principle that government must remain neutral between religion and nonreligion. The letter characterized the ordinance as one enacted specifically to benefit the Muslim community, and pointed to the signing ceremony held inside a mosque. It also objected to the operational asymmetry: amplified broadcasts are permitted during hours when secular sound sources are still restricted.1FFRF. Rescind Religiously Slanted Noise Ordinance, FFRF Insists to Minneapolis
FFRF had raised the same objection on a smaller scale in 2020, when the city first issued Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque a temporary Ramadan permit to broadcast the adhan.1FFRF. Rescind Religiously Slanted Noise Ordinance, FFRF Insists to Minneapolis Neither the 2020 nor the 2023 action became a filed case.
The Establishment Clause Argument
If a lawsuit is filed, the central question will likely be whether Minneapolis has accommodated a religious practice or endorsed one. Attorneys Marshall Tanick and David Robbins, writing in the Star Tribune and the Minnesota Reformer, argued the ordinance could fail the three-part test from Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971), under which a government action must have a secular purpose, must not primarily advance or inhibit religion, and must not create excessive entanglement between government and religion. The critics’ view: the ordinance lacks a secular purpose, its primary effect is to advance one faith’s practice, and defending it would force a court to examine Islamic prayer requirements, which is itself the kind of entanglement the test disfavors.7Minnesota Reformer. Call to Prayer Ordinance Raises First Amendment Questions
The same commentators flagged a practical asymmetry in the mayor’s rhetoric. Frey compared the adhan to church bells and the shofar. But church bells are not typically rung at 3:30 a.m., and the shofar is generally sounded inside synagogues rather than broadcast through outdoor loudspeakers. The benefit the ordinance creates, in that reading, functionally reaches mosques and no other houses of worship.7Minnesota Reformer. Call to Prayer Ordinance Raises First Amendment Questions
The Free Exercise Argument
The city’s defense would start from the other side of the First Amendment. Supporters framed the amendment as removing a municipal barrier that had prevented Muslims from fully observing their faith. Council Member Aisha Chughtai, one of three Muslim council members who authored the measure, said the goal was to let Minneapolis residents “experience and practice religious freedom to the fullest extent that our state, local, and federal laws allow.”8Star Tribune. Minneapolis City Council Poised to Vote on Allowing Full Daily Set of Muslim Prayer Calls Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR Minnesota, put it more directly: “The Constitution doesn’t sleep at night.”9PBS NewsHour. Minneapolis Becomes First Major U.S. City to Broadcast Islamic Call to Prayer Five Times Per Day
The pre-existing noise ordinance already contained strong Free Exercise language. It stated that no noise could be restricted if doing so would “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion,” unless the city could show a compelling governmental interest pursued through the least restrictive means. That is the strict scrutiny standard courts generally apply to burdens on religious practice.10NoNoise.org. Minneapolis Code of Ordinances, Chapter 389 Supporters argue the 2023 amendment made explicit what that provision already implied.
A Second Possible Angle: The Minnesota Environmental Rights Act
A separate theory of challenge, outside the First Amendment entirely, involves the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act (MERA), enacted in 1971. MERA recognizes “quietude” as a protected natural resource and lets private citizens sue over conduct that materially degrades the environment, including through noise.7Minnesota Reformer. Call to Prayer Ordinance Raises First Amendment Questions In MPIRG v. White Bear Rod & Gun Club (1977), the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld a permanent injunction against a shooting range whose noise destroyed the quietude of a nearby residential and wetland area.11Environmental Law Reporter. MPIRG v. White Bear Rod and Gun Club Commentators have suggested the Minneapolis ordinance could be vulnerable under the same theory given its overnight reach, but no one has filed a MERA challenge, and the statute has not been used against religious noise in any reported case.12Star Tribune. Counterpoint: Call to Prayer Decision May Be Inclusive, but Is It Legal?
State decibel standards add a related wrinkle. Under Minnesota Rules Chapter 7030, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency sets receiver-based noise standards and bars local governments from adopting standards “more stringent” than the state’s. For residential areas, the state limits are 65 dBA during the day and 55 dBA at night.13Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Guide to Noise Control and Regulation in Minnesota The Minneapolis ordinance does not override those state limits. Whether an amplified adhan that stays within the six-minute-per-hour cap might still exceed the 55 dBA nighttime threshold at a given receiving property has not been tested.
Where Things Stand
The ordinance is in force, the adhan is being broadcast five times daily at participating mosques including Dar Al-Hijrah and Masjid An-Nur, and no court has ruled on any of the arguments above.14Sahan Journal. Minneapolis City Council Votes on Adhan Expansion The FFRF letter is the only formal legal action on record, and it demands rescission rather than invoking a court’s authority. Unless FFRF or another party files suit, the constitutional debate stays on the page rather than in the record.