Calling to Prayer in ‘Pandemic Times’: Muslim Women’s Practices and Contested (Public) Spaces in Germany

Abstract

This article explores how the regulations imposed during Germany’s first COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 impacted on gendered mosque spaces and the digital spheres relating to those spaces. Examining the call to prayer as a sensory form that establishes “aesthetic formations” (Meyer 2009), the article unpacks gender-specific Muslim perspectives on space within mosques and the contested position mosques occupy in German public space. Paying particular attention to the temporalities of the pandemic restrictions, the article reflects on women’s (digital) practices and relates them to ongoing debates about the contested presence of sonic markers of Muslim religiosity in public space in Germany. It argues that the heterogeneous digital practices and discourses that emerged in ‘pandemic times’ should not only be viewed as extraordinary responses to an exceptional situation, but as exemplary of ongoing debates over gendered Muslim spaces and publicness in Germany.