God Has 4,000 Loudspeakers; the State Holds Its Ears!!

[Changed]

What do you guys think of this article http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/international/middleeast/12mosques.htmlgot Got me angry; nice way to secularize egypt eeh. apparently muadim is not allowed anymore.talk about Taking away people rights one by one :mad:

 

God Has 4,000 Loudspeakers; the State Holds Its Ears

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

 

Published: October 12, 2004

 

 

AIRO - Given the cacophony that afflicts any Cairo street - the braying donkeys, the caterwauling vegetable vendors, the constant honking of car horns - it might seem a particularly daunting task to single out just one noise to prosecute as the most offensive.

 

But the minister of religious endowments recently did that, more or less, making a somewhat unlikely decision in these times when many Muslim faithful believe that their religion is under assault.

 

The call to prayer, the minister declared, is out of control: too loud, too grating, utterly lacking in beauty or uniform timing, and hence in dire need of reform. The solution, the evidently fearless minister decided - harking back to an answer Egyptian bureaucrats have seized upon since long before Islam - is to centralize it.

 

The minister, Mahmoud Hamdi Zaqzouq, announced that one official call to prayer would be broadcast live from one central Cairo mosque five times a day, and that it would be carried simultaneously by the 4,000-plus mosques and prayer halls across the capital.

 

From the ensuing national brouhaha - the outraged headlines, the scathing editorials, the heated debates among worshipers - one might gain the impression that Mr. Zaqzouq was leading an assault against Islam itself. "Minarets Weep," intoned one banner headline, while another suggested sarcastically that the minister was less than a good Muslim. "The Call to Prayer Upsets Minister," it read.

 

Comedians and intellectuals had a field day. Ali Salem, one of Egypt's leading playwrights, envisioned a turbaned, high-tech SWAT team dispatched across Cairo whenever one mosque or another inevitably sabotaged the centralized prayer-call operation.

 

Not everyone ridiculed the idea, though.

 

Secular Cairenes endorsed it as a possible means toward greater government control over all of the tiny storefront mosques that have often proved a font of violent, extremist Islam. And Mr. Zaqzouq insisted that his proposal enjoyed wide grass-roots popularity.

 

In the surging religious environment of the last decade, the multiplication of mosques and prayer halls is such that any random Cairo street might house half a dozen, each competing with the others in volume and staggering the timing of their call slightly in an effort to stand out.

 

Particularly at dawn prayers, some mosques blast not just the roughly dozen sentences of the call itself, but all of the Koranic verses and actual prayers intoned by the local imam. When three different mosques do the same thing, what should be an announcement lasting at most two minutes can drag on for 45 minutes, keeping the entire neighborhood awake.

 

"There are loudspeakers that shake the world," the minister protested. "Everyone hears them. Every day I receive bitter complaints from people about the loudspeakers, but when I ask them to register official complaints, they say they fear others will accuse them of being infidels."

 

Opponents, meanwhile, express 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.

 

"During the time of the Prophet there used to be more than one mosque in each town, in each quarter, and he didn't unify the prayer, so why do it now?" asked Sheik Mustafa Ali Suliman, who works as a muezzin in a small mosque amid the twisting streets of Cairo's medieval quarter. "There is even a saying by the Prophet Muhammad that implies that in God's eyes muezzins will garner special honor and respect on judgment day."

 

Given the widespread sentiment that no decent Muslim could ever consider such a change, no small number of Cairo residents seized on the obvious alternative: it is a C.I.A. plot, they muttered, right up there with other American attacks on Islam, like demanding changes in the Muslim world's curriculums.

 

The conspiracy theorists further prophesied that the centralized system was just a test case for the real goal: to disseminate a single Friday Prayer sermon, written, naturally, in Langley, Va. The outcry reached such a level that the minister felt obliged to hold an hourlong news conference to quell the sense, as he put it, that doomsday was at hand.

[Saalixa]

AND THE FUNNY THING IS EGYPT IS A MUSLIM COUNTRY.

staghfurulah

[NGONGE]

What seems to be the problem here then?

He didn’t stop people from praying, didn’t stop the call for prayer from going out on time and does not seem to have banned it by the sound of things. All he did was trying to standardise it. Which can be open to argument or dispute but it does not impinge on people’s rights nor change Egypt’s statues as a Muslim country. Am I missing something here?

[Sincere]

The conspiracy theorists further prophesied that the centralized system was just a test case for the real goal: to disseminate a single Friday Prayer sermon, written, naturally, in Langley, Va.

 

Langley analysts writting Friday sermons!!

Intresting but way too far-fetched i think.

[-Serenity-]

Interesting article. From what I gather, there is to be a uniform call to prayer, all done at the same time, 5 times a day - to reduce noise levels in the city. I think its a practical idea. I used to live in Oman and had 2 mosques next to my house. Once you hear the prayer on one, 5 mins on, the other would call to prayer. Since I could hear one already, I didnt see the point of the repetition. Dont misunderstand me, qof muslim ah ma karaahiyeysankaro eedaanka, laakin loo ma baahna multiple calls to prayer at once. And this happening in a metropolitan city like Cairo, could be quite unneccessary.

 

Rayaana,

AND THE FUNNY THING IS EGYPT IS A MUSLIM COUNTRY.

This problem can only occur in a muslim country.

[Senora]

Originally posted by NGONGE:

What seems to be the problem here then?

He didn’t stop people from praying, didn’t stop the call for prayer from going out on time and does not seem to have banned it by the sound of things. All he did was trying to standardise it. Which can be open to argument or dispute but it does not impinge on people’s rights nor change Egypt’s statues as a Muslim country. Am I missing something here?

I agree, it does bring a sense of order....

 

i think the disputes pointed out are even more interesting,

 

-"There is even a saying by the Prophet Muhammad that implies that in God's eyes muezzins will garner special honor and respect on judgment day."

-to single out just one noise to prosecute as the most offensive.

 

But there are always going to be those that are more affected than others. However a goal of the government to restore order when necessary.

[Reality Check]

Originally posted by Politically-Inclined:

 

one official call to prayer would be broadcast live from one central Cairo mosque five times a day, and that it would be carried simultaneously by the

4,000-plus mosques and prayer halls

across the capital.

I think this is a good idea. The adan goes off once, and everyone in the city hears it once. Hence, the one "ummah" concept. Its syncronized and organized. Egypt is on the right track with this.

[Senora]

^^I even thought of a better idea...

 

-"There is even a saying by the Prophet Muhammad that implies that in God's eyes muezzins will garner special honor and respect on judgment day."

To solve this problem they should just have them take turns. Maybe every two weeks. It will still be "one call to prayer", and the none of their "rights" will be infriged upon...

[- Femme -]

^^^Thats a pretty good idea.