Something I’ve come to love over many years living near mosques is the “adzhan,” or call to prayer.  It’s an omnipresent sound and inimitable piece of the landscape in many countries with large Muslim populations, and serves to help Muslims pray at the proper times of day.  Let’s dive in a bit to learn more about this beautiful tradition.

Here’s a particularly beautiful adzhan you can listen to to get a feel for it.

Prayer is one of the “Five Pillars of Islam,” the key obligations that Muslims are supposed to do as a part of their religion.  Prayer five times a day is observed to different degrees by different people.  Some people pray only on Fridays at noon.  Some pray on holidays.  Some never pray.  And some pray five times a day at the mosque.  It’s an individual decision, and just as many Christians are “Christmas and Easter Christians,” there are varying levels of observance here.

The adzhan is given at the times specified for this prayer (this prayer is specifically called salat, a term which refers to the formal prayer said five times a day.  There is a different word, dua, that refers to other prayers, like omeen at dinner): the very first light of dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and before bed.  The call is given on a bit more precise of a timeline than that – right now in the middle of summer, it’s at about 3:30, 12:30, 17:00, 20:45, and 22:00, not unlike the ringing of church bells to signal that mass will begin soon.  The exact times change with the daylight, but the adzhan actually serves as a pretty good clock.  When I was in Turkey, I found myself not referring to my watch, but instead measuring the passing of my day by the call to prayer and the position of the sun.  It was really relaxing, actually!

The adzhan is given in Arabic, and is roughly translated so:

God is the greatest

I acknowledge that there is no god but God

I acknowledge that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah

Come to pray

Come to success

Prayer is better than sleep (only for morning prayers)

God is the greatest

There is no god but God

Here is another video of a man actually making the call to prayer.

In Osh, we do hear it five times a day, while in Dushanbe, I would only hear it to announce Friday noon prayers at the main mosque in central Dushanbe.  In Qatar, I heard it frequently because my room opened onto a mosque, while in Iran I only actually remember hearing it once.  I have never heard it in the US.

And in Istanbul, the art of giving an adzhan is so big that neighboring mosques seemed to get into friendly competition with their adzhans five times a day.  One of my favorite memories (and a testament to some of the juxtapositions of Istanbul) is of walking home from a night out in Beyoglu with some friends.  Just as I got back to my hotel, the mosques began to call the morning adzhans.  It was funny and yet beautiful, to be walking through the deserted streets of Sultanahmet with the dulcet tones of the adzhan peacefully floating between the streets.

I may not be Muslim, but I know that I’ll miss hearing the adzhan each day when I leave.  It reminds me to take a moment and breathe, and be grateful for the incredible opportunity I have here to learn about this place and help people.  And that’s a value that is shared by all religions.

This blog is part of the BloggingAbroad.org blog challenge, responding to the prompt “Details.”  Learn more at BloggingAbroad.org.