SENIOR officials at Oxford Central Mosque are going back to the drawing board over plans to broadcast a call to prayer from its minaret.

A new management committee has been elected at the mosque, in Manzil Way, off Cowley Road, and has moved to reassure worried neighbours.

Secretary general Altaf Hussain said: "This was a decision made on emotions, rather than facts and realities on the ground and without proper consultation with our neighbours and the whole of our neighbourhood. It has caused anxiety and misunderstandings.

"The issue of using loudspeakers is being reviewed and we would like to make it very clear a proper consultation will be held and only after that any final decision will be made."

The call to prayer is performed five times a day within the mosque.

The mosque already has a short-wave radio transmitter to send out the call to prayer direct into the homes of worshippers - about 100 members of the mosque have bought the receivers to hear the two-minute "adhan".

Mr Hussain said: "There is no limit to the amount of time the consultation may take, because there is no rush and at the moment there is no need also.

"But we will be getting in touch with our neighbourhood to give them a chance to air their views.

"Those who hold views against the matter will be respected."

The Rev Adam Romanis, vicar of SS Mary and John Church, in Cowley Road, the nearest church to the mosque, said he believed the issue had been blown out of proportion.

He said local people were not "getting excited about it" - those who had raised objections were mostly from outside East Oxford.

He described the mosque as the church's neighbour and said: "I rather like the idea of a dialogue across the Cowley Road, between our tower and the minaret, but I don't live in Divinity Road or Stanley Road.

"I like that idea of each of us, on either side of the Cowley Road, each standing for what we stand for, which in many ways is the same thing, and in others which is different and distinct.

"I have got a lot of sympathy with the idea, although I think there are questions that need to be thought about carefully before it went ahead."

RADIO LINK

MUSLIM worshippers at a number of mosques, including Oxford Central Mosque, can use the Azaan radio system, with a mosque-based transmitter and receivers which cost about £70.

The system is made by Reading company Nabishi UK. Mosques must apply for a licence to transmit a radio signal, which the Oxford mosque did in 2006. As well as the call to prayer, sermons and important announcements can be transmitted to the receivers using a short-wave radio signal.