A Cough from a Mosque

A lovely thing happened today. During prayer time, the muezzin, who broadcasts the prayers from the mosque minarets, coughed.

It was a quick thing, a barely-there stall, a word caught in his throat and a little rip in his breathing. The muezzin recovered quickly and, like any good orator, continued as if nothing had happened. The rest of the prayer sounded as it usually does – like a recording.

Hearing the muezzin cough is a rare occurrence but a heart-warming one. It is a reminder of humanity amidst a ritual that seems designed to suppress it. All foreigners in Arabic countries are surprised to learn that the ritualistic recitation of the Qur’an that bombards our eardrums several times a day is not a recording. The muezzin usually get it absolutely perfect. The broadcasts fill the neighborhood; it is as loud as the play-by-lay of a football game. They are sections of the Qur’an, but they are not read; they are recited from memory. Each individual muezzin has the same cadence, the same pauses for breath. They draw the long “Allahs” out for the same length. The muezzin recites in a throaty vibrato; the words are both fluid and rough, and the audio equivalent of curdling milk.

The first time I heard it was at 5 a.m. on my first morning in the U.A.E. It came from the mosque down the block, and I was jarred awake. My first illogical thought was that someone was broadcasting an ear-splitting, particularly tragic opera. I then wondered if there was some sort of emergency and this was an Arabic siren.

Like most foreigners, I have learned to tune out the prayers most of the time. Prayers happen five times a day, but the broadcasts happen far more often because each mosque prays at different times. Sometimes they overlap, sounding like a looped tape. The length of recitation depends on the day. On Eid, an especially holy day, the 5 a.m. call was an hour-long repetition of one line, “Allah al Akbar.” (Allah is great). The muezzin never paused, he never coughed or hiccupped, his rhythm never wavered. The calls to prayer, tragic and sour as they may be, are feats of vocal endurance that the most long-winded of us Westerners would find impossible.

A great many Muslim men act as muezzin. They are able to do it because they have been practicing their entire lives. Memorization and recitation are woven deeply into the history of Islamic culture. My three-year-old students already have large chunks of the Qur’an memorized. Each morning, a few children are called to the front of the auditorium to recite some verses into a microphone. This practice continues every day for the rest of their school-going life.
Similar things happen in most cultures, if not with religious texts then with pledges of national allegiance. What separates Islamic recitation from others is the emphasis on perfection and uniformity. In the U.S., we welcome a jazzy re-imagining of the Star Spangled Banner. In Christmas pageants throughout the world, performers read the gospel of Matthew aloud, but each is encouraged to put their own, dramatic spin on it. Pause for effect, the pageant director instructs. Read for emphasis. Make the words sound good, and interesting, and make them your own. Each person reciting the Lord’s Prayer will sound similar, but not identical. And chances are, if you listened to a priest recite it every day, five times a day, a cough or pause would not be uncommon.

The difference stems from opposing views of the individual. A classically western attitude celebrates the unique and special. The most fundamental of western Christians may believe that humans are all sinners, but they still adore personal stories of redemption, and encourage members to bear their testimonies in their own way. Muslims also believe that humans are all sinners, but they are not supposed to revere the individual. A good deal of Islamic culture – the rote approach to learning, the clothing, the arranged marriages – is designed to deemphasize human differences, which they perceive to be errors or shameful realities.

For foreigners, the revelation that the recitation is not a recording but a live man is met with uncomfortable feelings. Were it a recording, the uniformity would make sense. But the live perfection sounds strange to western ears. It seems inhuman and robotic. Thinking that a human sounds like a robot makes us feel insensitive. That is why even the slightest hiccup from the mosque is a lovely event. The muezzin are people too, susceptible to the polluted air or a scratch in the throat just like the rest of us.

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Tags: Culture Shock, mosques, prayers, religion