Long known for pierogi and polka, this bustling city has now decided to add an amplified Arabic chant to the local sights and sounds.
In a sign of the deep changes in this once predominantly Polish town, the City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to allow a mosque to send out a call to prayer to Muslims on a loudspeaker.
But some longtime residents objected to what they consider an affront to non-Muslims.
Joanne Golen, 68, a lifelong Hamtramck resident, said: "It says Allah is the one and only God. I am Christian. My God is Jesus Christ. That is my only objection – that I have to listen to a God other than the one I believe in praised five times a day."
Hamtramck, a city of 23,000 surrounded by Detroit, has an old-fashioned, small-town feel, with mom-and-pop stores and American flags adorning many of the tightly packed houses.
But in recent years, the city has become much more diverse. Stores selling saris and halal meat have opened, and signs in Bengali, Arabic and Bosnian compete with signs in Polish and English. Only 23 percent of the city's residents specified Polish ancestry in the 2000 census.
The request by the Bangladeshi al-Islah mosque for permission to air the Arabic call to prayer by loudspeakers five times a day has revealed tensions despite a compromise not to air the call before 6 a.m. or after 10 p.m.
Many Hamtramck Muslims said the call to prayer is equivalent to church bells. And Hamtramck has several churches that ring their bells.
Opponents argued that church bells have no religious significance and that allowing the Arabic call, which lasts less than two minutes, unfairly elevates Islam above other religions.
But Masud Khan, secretary of the al-Islah mosque, said the purpose of the call is not to proselytize.
"We are not inviting" non-Muslims, he said. "We are calling our Muslim people, reminding them they are obligated to come to pray."
The Michigan chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee had urged tolerance over the issue, condemning the "resentment and negativity" expressed during the debate.