Muezzin Mustn't

…5:30 AM (1. Fajir)…10 am…Noon (2. Duhir)…

If Christian churches across the US simultaneously broadcast beautifully-sung hymns (& sermons) five times a day from loud-speakers mounted on every steeple in town, I wonder if we would feel closer to God. Certainly I might pray more frequently for the separation of church & state. And maybe lobby for the enforcement of “quiet enjoyment” laws.

…1:15 pm…3:30 pm (3. Asr)…5:45 pm…6:15…6:30 (4. Maghrib)…

EGYPT
I’m not the only one. In Egypt (at least) there has been a public (if often anonymous) cry at least to unplug the god-damned loud-speakers for the pre-dawn (Fajir) call. Or, better yet, ban ALL loudspeakers & let’s hear the adhan as Muhammad did: simply called from the minarets. [from the Washington Post:] Even the Ministry of Religious Endowments agrees that in Cairo—which has about 4,000 mosques—the “different voices, starting at different times and volumes [have] an unattractive ‘randomness.’” So in May 2006, Egypt’s President Mubarak pushed “to centralize calls to prayer by transmitting the voice of a single muezzin to all city mosques.” Of alternating religious leaders, of course. Good luck with that.

Even with thousands complaining of cacophony, institutionalizing a single muezzin’s voice is a controversial move. Prayer (salat) is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, the 5 daily prayers a requirement of all Muslims. However far urban realities may have led them astray from the original intent, calls to prayer (adhan) are an ancient & revered custom. To mess with the muezzins borders, albeit in different ways, on blasphemy & tyranny. While many mosques around the world do already pipe in pre-recorded muezzin calls, to be a muezzin is a high honor. Some train for decades & all compete for the rare honor of being The Voice from a well-situated minaret. Mubarak’s plan would, if nothing else, put upwards of 100,000 muezzins out of work. [100,000 voices calling!] More, to legislate a single, state-regulated voice calling prayers within the city…well, to some that smacks of the government legislating religion. Which it is.
So far as I can tell, the jury’s still out on this plan.

…7:30 pm (5. Isha’a)…8:30 pm…9:45 pm…

SYRIA
Done well, the muezzin call is beautiful to the foreign ear. It lends a clockwork to the day &, to some, the spirit. In time, one probably doesn’t hear it at all. With the language barrier & specific intonation, it reminds me—distantly—of Latin Mass.

In Syria, the muezzin calls infuriated some of the secular literati we knew, who found them oppressive. The government’s rapid building of mosques, they told us, is often only a political move: across the world, religion is today’s language of power. Not here in Jakarta, not in the middle-east, not in the States will we elect a leader who does not openly submit to one God. A theatre director in Damascus, who’d spent time teaching in the States, found much to compare between the rise of the religious right in the US & the middle east. A Muslim herself, she stamped her foot on the sidewalk when I haplessly complimented the muezzin call & shook her fist at the minaret crying, I hate them, oh, how I hate them! All day, every day.
Who are they to enter my home?

…10 PM…11:30 PM…3:30 in the fraking morning!?!...

JAKARTA
Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim country, but it's not a Muslim state. The government is secular, though perhaps in the way that George Bush’s administration is technically secular. To read the headlines here, there is a keen awareness of the balances in play: a firm, national belief in one God; an awareness of religious diversity & commitment to secular rule; a varying enforcement of Sharia (Islamic) law; a wariness against fanaticism & vigilance against terrorism; family values…which, as in the US, is most clearly codified by religion.

I have only been in Jakarta a week: there’s everything for me to learn. The calls we hear from our balcony do sound different to me than those of Syria. For one thing, they are far more frequent than five times a day. And they seem competitive: different muezzins starting early or going late, as if to ensure their own voice is distinct from the cacophony. Sometimes, a person is just talking, as though musing aloud. Or practicing a few bars. One man delivered what sounded like an entire sermon over the loudspeakers yesterday, which in its conversational tones was intrusive & annoying, & in its fire-&-brimstone moments was a little scary…how very easily that flips.

There's a kind of aggression to this, though, as if the calls to prayer must occupy all notes of the scale, all frequencies, all public air space, all times of day. It's not hostility, but territoriality. Haranguing. Neither prayerful, nor distinct.

Imagine the parallel scenario again. You can already guess who would be joining an analogous set of Extra Very Faithful, God-fearing steeple-singers Stateside, together in a raucous round with your home-town chorus boys & true-hearted reverends: the Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, Pat Robertsons, Ann Coulters…strident, divisive, pushing for action, greater volume & bandwidths. Listen to me, to me, to me! The churches of man so rarely seem like houses of God. Muhammad never had a microphone.