 Lots of residents of Cairo are getting tired of the noise...Just before dawn, Cairo resident Muhammad Ahmad is jolted out of his peaceful sleep by a thunderous azan, or call to prayer, roaring out from huge speakers attached to a very modest mosque two streets away. A few moments later a second, even louder muezzin's voice joins in - not in time or in tune with the first call to prayer - summoning him to do his duty, this time at the local prayer hall just around the corner. Over the next few minutes, at least half a dozen other voices of varying tunefulness join in - distorting the sound of the azans and making them sound like a military order. | Interesting choice of words, Beeb. |
Last September, the Ministry of Religious Endowments decided to bring Cairo's 4,000-odd mosques and prayer halls into line by broadcasting a live, centralised call to prayer to replace the current ear-splitting cacophony. But since Religious Endowment Minister Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq made the announcement, there has been a huge outcry of public anger at his proposed reforms. Although crackling sound systems, mediocre muezzins and staggered prayer calls have long been the butt of jokes among local people, the official plan to tamper even in a minor way with the running of individual mosques unleashed deep disquiet at what might really lie behind these new moves. The conspiracy theorists prophesied that the centralised sound system was just a test case for the real goal: to disseminate a single Friday prayer sermon, approved beforehand by the government.
Opponents have expressed deep outrage at the very idea of someone tampering with the tradition of each mosque having its own muezzin, of different voices echoing across the city in a continuous round. They claim their religion is being muzzled. In response, Cairo's government has produced senior religious leaders to reassure people that the plan is not in contravention of Islamic law. But many Egyptians continue to suspect a sinister conspiracy, backed by Washington, to stifle the voices of more conservative religious leaders. There have also been dire predictions that the change would throw at least 100,000 muezzins out of work in a country already suffering severe unemployment. | It's in this month's Lancet. You could look it up. |
But the official line remains that there is no nudging from Washington behind this effort. Furthermore, so as to avoid further charges of bias, the centralised radio broadcasts will feature a revolving group of religious leaders, who will offer a range of religious viewpoints. But at least one conservative imam has argued that "technologising" the call to prayer will start the nation down an ungodly path that will one day terminate with people bowing down before TV sets tuned to pictures of Mecca.
The comments at the link are worth reading too. |