UPDATE: Duke University announced Thursday that the adhan will not come from the bell tower on Friday as announced earlier. The call-to-prayer chant will take place instead on the quadrangle outside the Chapel. For more, click here.

Members of the Duke Muslim Students Association will chant a weekly call-to-prayer from the Duke Chapel bell tower beginning Friday, Jan. 16.

The chant, called the “adhan,” announces the start of the group’s jummah prayer service, which takes place in the chapel basement each Friday at 1 p.m. The service is open to the public.

The chant lasts about three minutes and will be moderately amplified. {More information about the adhan can be found here.)

"The adhan is the call to prayer that brings Muslims back to their purpose in life, which is to worship God and serves as a reminder to serve our brothers and sisters in humanity," said Imam Adeel Zeb, Muslim chaplain at Duke. “The collective Muslim community is truly grateful and excited about Duke’s intentionality toward religious and cultural diversity.”

“This opportunity represents a larger commitment to religious pluralism that is at the heart of Duke’s mission,” added Christy Lohr Sapp, the chapel’s associate dean for religious life. “It connects the university to national trends in religious accommodation.”

Muslim students at Duke are supported by the university through the Office of Student Affairs’ Muslim Life department, which hosts religious services, community service projects and interfaith events. The Center for Muslim Life provides on-campus social and spiritual meeting spaces for students as well as opportunities for counseling and advising.