One of the first things you’ll notice in Abu Dhabi, aside from the sun, is the daily ritual — five times daily, actually — of the adhan (pronounced azan), or call to prayer. Because prayer — or salat — in Islam is spread throughout the day according to the position of the sun, the timing of the prayer call varies slightly each day, though you can count on the first around 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning (before sunrise) and the last in the late evening. If you’re a really eager planner or living outside the Muslim world, you’ll find apps or websites to remind you when it’s time to pray.
Even though I’m not religious, I quite like the call to prayer. It’s one of my favorite things about living here so far. I take it as a reminder that the day is passing, that I have things to do, people to care for, mindfulness to practice. I try to pause whatever I’m doing and take it in, focus on my breathing. I don’t worry too much about literal translations or religious meanings, though I get a kick out of the fact that the early morning call includes lines to the effect that “prayer is better than sleep.” I take the call as a reminder that I’m a guest here and that I should actively follow up on my desire to learn more about the history and culture of my gracious hosts.
In Abu Dhabi, the call to prayer is centralized — delivered by a single muezzin at the magnificent Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (above) and broadcast by satellite to 250 or so mosques throughout the emirate. It’s rather an honor to be selected as a muezzin anywhere, but especially so where the call goes out to the entire capital and the emirate at large. (I love this feature from The National on one such muezzin.) Each local mosque — and they liberally dot the city — comes equipped with loudspeakers, and so in a densely populated neighborhood like ours you might hear the call coming simultaneously from several directions and echoing off the surrounding highrises. My daughter’s AD video, in my last post, ended with a call broadcast 17 floors below the apartment we were staying in, and we can still hear it in our current place, 35 floors up, especially when the house is quiet. Traditionally, though, there were no loudspeakers on the mosques. Each had its own muezzin, which is why mosques are outfitted with minarets, and even today in Dubai, where the prayer call isn’t centralized, you’ll hear competing calls from neighboring mosques:
A few weeks ago a minor kerfuffle arose here when one of the local dailies, which seems to be the equivalent of AM New York and looks like it targets an ex-pat readership, ran a column advising residents whose houses abut mosques on how to request a lower volume if their sleep’s being disturbed. Apparently this is a recurring thorn in local/ex-pat relations, at least in letter columns and comment sections, though it seems to be public knowledge that Muslim and non-Muslim residents alike from time to time ask for sound testing to assure volume levels are appropriate. The most recent volley involved competing Twitter hashtags, one calling for UAE unity and the other calling for the government to ban the newspaper. The vitriol was unusually high on both sides as these hashtags competed to be the top trending topic.
I was equally taken off guard that some of the ex-pats in this debate were downright spiteful and some of the locals hadn’t bothered to read the article they were angry about and simply assumed that the paper advocated banning the adhan broadcasts, which simply wasn’t the case. There was lots of unfortunate “if you don’t like it, get back on the plane” language in response to the stupidest of the ex-pat commentary. But it was heartening, too, to read ex-pats tweeting about what the call to prayer meant to them (most viewed it respectfully and even affectionately) and the liberal Emiratis who were behind the #ONEUAE hashtag rejoiced when their position trended higher, suggesting that more UAE tweeters were for tolerance, conversation, and understanding than were for shutting down newspapers.
I’ve only been here a month. I still have a lot to figure out about ex-pat culture, let alone local history and tradition, though my bedside table will testify that I’m trying. I’m eager for conversation across cultural lines and for avenues outside the bubble, though it remains to be seen how frequently such occasions will present themselves. (I’m going to a talk this afternoon about art collecting in the Arab world — maybe I’ll meet some neat folks there.) In the meantime I’m happy to keep reading about my new locale, and relying throughout the day on words whose literal meaning I don’t fully understand to remind me that I’m not quite at home — yet — which is fine for now: it keeps me on my toes, open, willing to learn.
A postscript: This just popped up in my Twitter timeline and offers a nice supplement to the above. What happens once the call is broadcast.
Hey! what a delight!… I’ve fallen out the TGW for a while. But for some reason I checked in today. I really loved hearing about all this Bryan, Thanks!… U are such a scholar.
I enjoyed seeing a photo on FB that SSW mom put up. It was the sunrise from your home. It was really striking. Well… now that I”ve gotten my enthusiasm out, I’ll scroll up and watch the vids!
Stay Cool Bry!
cool vids!
Wow, I think I’d move first before ever asking the mosque to turn the volume down. Better yet, don’t take an apartment next to a mosque to begin with.
Whenever I’ve traveled in Muslim countries, I’ve always enjoyed hearing the calls to prayer. But admittedly, it’s easier to enjoy when you know it’s only going to be waking you up at 4 a.m. for two weeks or however long you’re in the country. If it were longer than that, I might invest in some earplugs.
More! More! So enjoying these glimpses into your new life.
Thanks for this glimpse into your new life! It’s fascinating and educational stuff.
I agree with Lisa. How presumptuous is it to move to a foreign country and then start making demands about changing local expressions of the culture? “I know they’re Muslims and everything, but do they have to be so in-your-face and noisy about it?” Imagine if some Emirati Muslims moved to a bible-belt city in the US and started complaining about the brightness of the lights on a church’s cross next to their property. Wow.
I thought the same thing you guys bring up: why move into a villa that abuts a mosque if you don’t like the call to prayer? Granted, the ubiquity of mosques makes it hard not to live around a few. But it is a distinctive feature of a state that has a state religion.
Most of the ex-pats whose comments I read said much the same thing I did above: they like it, they leave their windows open to hear it, they miss it when they’re back in their home countries, etc.
I haven’t been to old Dubai yet & that second video really makes me want to go. AD doesn’t really have old neighborhoods like that. The oldest stuff here is from the 70s and a lot of it’s being torn down.
I also want to pay closer attn to the prayer call in other locations, esp where they have competing callers from all the neighborhood mosques. While I was digging for links for this message I saw some funny blogposts from other parts of the world in which people complain that a substitute muezzin just isn’t up to snuff and can the regular guy hurry up and get back from vacation.