Azan

Five times a day, every day, the muezzin calls all the faithful to come to the mosque and pray. The call is called the azan in Turkish, but the azan itself must be called in the original Arabic: Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, a'shaddu Allah and so on. Usually the muezzin tries his best to make this call as flowery as possible, singing it like a song and hitting a wide range of notes.

In the days of old, the muezzin would climb up to the top of the minaret, the mosque's accompanying tower, and cup his hands and call out the azan to call the faithful to prayer; this was the original purpose of the minaret. Over time, the number of minarets a mosque had came to symbolize the wealth and power of the sultan that built it - the more minarets, the richer and powerful the regime. Nowadays, however, because there are so many buildings and such to block the acoustics, large speakers are affixed to the top of the minaret and the muezzin simply has to turn the volume up and call the azan into a microphone. This occurs roughly at 6 am, 10.30, 12.30 pm, 3.30, and 7. Tourists and newcomers are enchanted by the beauty and haunting melody of the azan when they first hear it - indeed, it is quite lovely.

In many places in İstanbul, there is a mosque roughly on every block. So, in places like this when the azan is called, it transforms from a thing of charm and beauty into a hideous jarring cacophony: imagine 4 or 5 muezzins calling the azan at the exact same time with their speakers at top volume. Naturally, it is difficult for those who are trying to sleep in or have a telephone conversation at that particular moment. You'd think they would coordinate with each other: ''Hey brother, you want to call your azan at 12.15 and I'll do mine at 12.20, and we'll see if we can get Ali to do his at 12.25...what do you think?'' But this usually isn't the case. Sometimes, the azan from the Blue Mosque coordinates with the small ancient one across the park and it sounds as if they are calling back and forth to one another, which is lovely, but this doesn't happen often.

Now Fridays to Islam are what Sundays are to Christians, because the prophet's birthday happened to fall on a Friday. Therefore, at 12.30 on Fridays, everything slows down and those who usually don't go pray during the week pour into the mosque to humble themselves before Allah and beg forgivness for their human qualities. As for myself, I can't be sure if this is because they don't have time during the week, they just go the one time a week make themselves feel good, they really are pious, or because they get a sweet treat as they leave the mosque after the Friday 12.30 prayer.

Because I hang a lot on the streets during the daytime chatting and drinking tea, I often watch the faithful assemble before this prayer time. Usually on Fridays there are more people that come to pray than usual, so the mosque has to roll out carpets and prayer rugs on the sidewalk to accomodate the extra believers. It's quite a sight - tourists strolling by snapping photos while policemen and shopkeepers prostrate themselves. However, the amount of people varies from week to week. My friend Kürşad says that the amount of people praying is relevant to the amount of business during the previous week; the more people praying means that business has been bad, and the less means that business has been good. It sounds silly, but if you go around and talk to people, you will discover that this theory indeed holds water. Of course, because I am a cynic, I have cynical friends, but at any rate I can't bag on the pious too much; the people here are the most hospitible I've ever met and most of them are honest and kind. And since the first thing the Qur'an says is ''Be clean,'' and the pious wash themselves before every prayer, they are some of the cleanest people I have ever seen. They share everything with you should they become friendly with you, and ask nothing in return. But sometimes, I wish they wouldn't share some things. Like the azan at 6 am. So it goes, though.