The music of Islam
Get the News by email
Image via Wikipedia
“God is great. I testify there is no god but God. . . . Make haste toward prayers.”
The prayer caller’s chant is heard five times a day; from birth to death it is the music of Islam, lingering in the air, reminding the faithful to prostrate themselves before God.
Morsi Abdel Fattah has sung these words for 20 years in a poor neighborhood of Cairo. He is easily spotted among other men; white beard and gray eyes, a pressed tunic, and a prayer cap as snowy as a swan. When he’s not at the mosque, he’s two doors down selling rice and macaroni from tin pots at the shop he and his brother run.
His is the voice the young here have grown up with, like a coaxing uncle in a large family, a voice that soothes the devout and reminds those who have fallen that they need to return.
“I am seeking divine reward,” he said. “Since I was young, I’ve heard the prophetic saying that the muezzin [prayer caller] would have his head above the others on Judgment Day.”
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9b641451-2755-417c-a508-6861223398d3)
Related posts:
