I cannot imagine an İstanbul without this daily wave of sound. The ezan (adhan in Arabic) is the call to prayer, while the person who does the call is the müezzin. Prayer times differ, determined to the minute by the position of the sun and the longitude and latitude of the mosque. The words of the ezan are: God is great, I testify that there is nothing but God, I testify that Muhammad is the prophet of God, come to prayer, come to salvation, God is great, there is nothing but God. The morning ezan has an extra line added: Prayer is better than sleep. Five times a day, at dawn, mid-day, mid-afternoon, sunset and night, the ezan rings out, reminding everyone that they should take time out of their day to remember God and give thanks. To me, these lines are an integral part of the feeling of İstanbul.During the years of the Ottoman Empire, the ezan recitation was regulated by an administrative body that was in charge of training and selecting müezzins. Since Arabic is the language of the Quran, the ezan was recited in Arabic rather than in Ottoman Turkish. However, after the establishment of the Turkish Republic and the language reforms that converted Ottoman Turkish to the Latin alphabet, the ezan began to be recited in Turkish. This reform lasted for almost 20 years before reverting back to the traditional Arabic recitation, as is heard around the world. Today, müezzins are trained and assigned to their positions by the Turk-ish Directorate of Religious Affa-irs (DİB). There have been some com
plaints in recent years about the noise levels from the mosques, mostly concerned with speakers that are turned up to deafening levels. I have a friend who lives near a mosque that routinely has the speakers in the minarets turned up higher than seems necessary. We have discovered that conversations at her house, or on the phone, must come to a halt when the ezan begins because it is impossible to hear anything over the call to prayer. However, most mosques try to keep the sound of the ezan at a more acceptable level; loud enough so that the neighborhood can hear the call to prayer even if they are inside with the windows closed, but not loud enough to deafen passersby.
We used to live in an apartment next to a mosque that did not have the most melodic, or even on key, müezzin. In the mornings, it often sounded as if he had just crawled out of bed and was not quite awake yet. Every morning, we would hear the metallic sound of the speakers as they were clicked on, followed by the müezzin clearing his voice in front of the microphone that was turned on. This was not exactly the most pleasant way to start the day. However, to his credit, as the day progressed, his voice improved to the point that when the ezan rang out for the night prayers, his voice was much more relaxed, with a rather pleasant tone. Fortunately, in our new home, the müezzins within earshot of our apartment are well-trained vocally, and it is a pleasure to listen to them, even in the early hours of the morning.
For some müezzins, however, their vocal quality does not seem to improve as the day progresses. In many neighborhoods in İstanbul, the situation became so unbearable that neighbors resorted to filing complaints with the city about out of tune müezzins. This has led to special classes being set up by the city to better train the müezzins so that the call to prayer is more melodic and more pleasing to the ear. After all, the goal of the ezan is to encourage people to stop what they are doing and to pray, not reach for earplugs at the first note. Since the recitation lessons started, the complaints coming in about out of tune müezzins have dropped considerably.
I still remember my initial visit to İstanbul, almost 30 years ago, and the enchantment I felt when I heard the ezan for the very first time. As the sound spread across this city with its backdrop of minarets, in my mind I envisioned a carpet of sound being woven across the sky by the müezzins who were raising their voices to urge the faithful to come and pray together. That image has stayed with me since that time, and I still love to pause and listen to the ezan echoing across the city. When I am away from İstanbul for any length of time, it is the sound of the ezan that I find I miss the most about my adopted home.
