The Call to Prayer: ‘An Audible Pinprick to Your Conscience’

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  05.14.08 | 12:56 PM ET

imageI know it’s a cliché for visitors to the Middle East, but the call to prayer has totally seduced me during my two weeks in Jerusalem. At different spots across the city, I’ve been amazed at how the wailing notes can vary depending on the muezzin. At the mosque near my hotel, the muezzin strikes a somber tone, voice cracking on the high notes, while others I’ve heard in the West Bank sound more like trilling songbirds, drawing out “Allahhhh” for all it’s worth.

Regardless of style, I find it instantly calming. I’ve been stuck in my hotel room working long hours for much of my time here, so when the call comes, five times a day, I throw open my balcony door and remember for a few moments where I am. 

And I love the fact that the call at dawn beckons, “Prayer is better than sleep.”  You wake up and you’re not sure if you dreamed it.

This recent essay in the Turkish Daily describes the call as “an audible pinprick to your conscience, a reminder that there is something larger than all of us; that we need to be present in the moment.”

After two weeks of pinpricks, I’d agree.

YouTube has loads of videos with calls to prayer. Here’s one taken in near-darkness in a hotel room in Amman, Jordan:

Photo by anaulin via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

 


Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


4 Comments for The Call to Prayer: ‘An Audible Pinprick to Your Conscience’

Alexis Wolff 05.14.08 | 11:09 PM ET

The call to prayer is a distinct memory of my semester abroad in Niger during college. I often wondered whether it sounded as lyrical and magical to Arabic speakers as it did to me.

Eva Holland 05.14.08 | 11:54 PM ET

Thanks for this great post, Julia.

Waking up at 5am every morning in Malaysia (courtesy of jet lag), I always found the first call to prayer really soothing.

John M. Edwards 05.15.08 | 5:57 AM ET

Hi Julia:

I’ve always been surprised during my travels, as I’m chugging down local beers (say, Bir Bintangs or Efezes), when the converdsations of one-upmanship about adeventures abroad—“I climbed a volcano in Tongariro National Park in New Zealand with a Scottish mountain climber,” I’d beam with pride. “That’s nothing,” says the British wreck traveling on the “dole” throughout the EU, “I got kidnapped by my hosts in Iraq”—are punctuated by the sound of a microphone.

Apparently operated by Jim Jones with a turban.

Er, I’d cringe.

The Call to Prayer is indeed picturesque and personal. The sign of a True Believer.

As a Mayflower Christian I believe, too, even though my sense of humor, even according to my friends, can be a little demonic.

There is only one God (fair enough, of the universe).

But there are also gods (Christ, Odin, Zeus . . .)

And prophets (Mohammed)

And demigods (your average travel writer has superhuman powers which enable her or him to travel all over the world without getting offed, and coming back to either writeabout it or show off to their friends—one’s nuclear family is always the last to know).

“Dad, Mom, I met a guitarist for the Cranberries in Krabi, Thailand!”

“That’s nice, John. Now who are the Cranberries?”

General Depression.

Sincerely, John M. Edwards

craig of travelvice.com 05.15.08 | 11:16 AM ET

...But when your U.S. university forces you to listen to it for a week, there’s a problem. See: The Adhan at Harvard.

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