Blogging is writing-lite. It can be an easy and lazy way to feel like you've done an article or something more. So when I recently did a pithy entry about a 3:18 a.m. Call to Prayer and my friend Julie, an excellent reporter, responded with a bunch of questions , I felt guilty. She wondered about why the times for the call changed during the year and place to place and what were they really saying and.... well, anyway, she spurred me to go and find the full story.
It turns out to be fascinating.
In the beginning:
When the prophet Mohammad told his followers that they must pray five times a day, they had to figure out some way to let people know when to pull out their prayer rugs. But of all the ways they might have notified people, with horns, by drums or through the ringing of bells that Christians have always favored, the prophet told them, he preferred the human voice.
In the first prayer caller -- or muezzin -- Muslims chose not just a voice, but the best voice among them. It belonged to an Ethiopian slave named Bilal ibn Ribah, who walked up and down the streets of Mecca like a town crier five times a day.
The imams had to work out other details to make the command to think about God throughout the day work. They set up exact prayer times according to the movement of the earth around the sun, so that while prayer times change a little every day and by season and by location can vary widely.
Instead of walking the streets minarets were built alongside mosques. Singers ascended these high towers so that their voices rang out over the community.
In Ottoman times, to insure that all muezzins in the city called their people to prayer at the same time, religious authorities installed a system familiar to car-racing fans. The muezzin of the biggest mosque put out a green flag atop the minaret. And that flag was the signal for the adhan -- which is the call to prayer -- to begin.
The message of the muezzins
At Fajr (pre-dawn), Dhuhr (noon), 'Asr (afternoon), Maghrib (sunset) and 'Isha (evening), the muezzins sing out:
Allah u Akbar, Allah u Akbar
Allah is Great, Allah is Great.
Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah - Ash-hadu al-la Ilaha ill Allah
I bear witness that there is no divinity but Allah
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah.
I bear witness that Muhammad is Allah's Messenger
Ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulullaah
I bear witness that Muhammad is Allah's Messenger
Hayya la-s-saleah - Hayya la-s-saleah
Hasten to the prayer, Hasten to the prayer
Hayya la-l-faleah - Hayya la-l-faleah
Hasten to real success, Hasten to real success,
Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar
Allah is Great, Allah is Great
La Ilaha ill Allah
There is no divinity but Allah
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