August 11, 2010
For a thousand years, the call to prayer has sounded out five times a day in this ancient city by muezzins. Each muezzin imparts his own style to the call to prayer, or adhan, and in this city of chaos, where time is a fluid thing, each goes by his own watch as well. At prayer time, the cries emanate from minaret after minaret like echoes playing tag among the sounds of densely populated Cairo.
But Cairo will soon lose some of its chaos. “The war of the microphones,” as the minister of religious endowments has put it, will end at the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The government has ordered all mosques to broadcast through their speakers a single call to prayer performed by one muezzin and transmitted to Cairo’s more than 4,000 mosques by radio. The call will begin in every mosque at the same moment, changing what has been a part of daily life for centuries.
Some Cairenes appreciate the effort to tame the noise in this extremely loud city. But others say Cairo will lose some of its character. “The adhan is a beautiful sound,” says Noha, who sells scarves in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood. “If they want to eliminate noise, they should go after the cars honking their horns.”
Many imams, who draw their salaries from the government, were reluctant to criticize the ruling. But some, like Mahmoud, imam of a downtown mosque, says he will miss chanting the adhan, a spiritual act Muslims believe brings blessings from God. “This is what I have always done,” he says sadly. “The government is taking away from us something that is a very special and important responsibility for us
*In Egypt, religious ringtones set off controversy : February 23, 2010
Religious ringtones featuring koranic verses irk Egypt's grand mufti, who says answering one is like interrupting God to talk on the mobile phone
Five times a day, the cacophony of Cairo traffic is overwhelmed by the sound of the adhan, or call to prayer. Projected by cackling loudspeakers, the call reverberates around the city. Taxis blast imams’ sermons through open windows, while shops play koranic recitations. In Egypt, religious expression is everywhere – even on mobile phones.
Ringtones with religious themes have steadily gained popularity over the past few years. That was until Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa of Al-Azhar mosque, the country’s highest religious authority, issued a fatwa condemning the popular ringtones that feature koranic verses and the call to prayer.
“Putting the Holy Koran or the call to prayer as a mobile phone ringtone trivializes the sanctity of the verses,” Mufti Gomaa told the state news agency. Interrupting a religious verse to pick up the phone or having a recitation play in an inappropriate place, such as the bathroom, were among his examples.
But while many Egyptians on the street accept the rationale behind Gomaa’s thinking, some think a ringtone fatwa is going a little too far. Fatwas are edicts issued by Islamic scholars to provide religious guidance. While they are nonbinding in Sunni Islam, many turn to fatwas to understand how to apply traditional teachings to modern life.
“In my opinion, if a koranic verse is playing and you pick up and you interrupt it, that’s haram [forbidden],” says Monier Sami, a bakery cashier. Mr. Sami knows a lot of people who have removed their koranic ringtones since hearing Gomaa’s opinion.
“You interrupt a hadith or the Koran, the word of God, just to talk?” scoffs Mustafa Mohammed Ali at the whole concept.
But others question the fatwa.
“If I want to have the Koran on my cellphone, I think that’s a personal freedom,” says Hanaa Ezeldeen, a veiled shop manager at a sock store. For her, issuing a ruling on ringtones is going a little too far. “It would be haram to play it in the bathroom, but in the end, that’s my right,” she says
For a thousand years, the call to prayer has sounded out five times a day in this ancient city by muezzins. Each muezzin imparts his own style to the call to prayer, or adhan, and in this city of chaos, where time is a fluid thing, each goes by his own watch as well. At prayer time, the cries emanate from minaret after minaret like echoes playing tag among the sounds of densely populated Cairo.
But Cairo will soon lose some of its chaos. “The war of the microphones,” as the minister of religious endowments has put it, will end at the start of the holy month of Ramadan. The government has ordered all mosques to broadcast through their speakers a single call to prayer performed by one muezzin and transmitted to Cairo’s more than 4,000 mosques by radio. The call will begin in every mosque at the same moment, changing what has been a part of daily life for centuries.
Some Cairenes appreciate the effort to tame the noise in this extremely loud city. But others say Cairo will lose some of its character. “The adhan is a beautiful sound,” says Noha, who sells scarves in the Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood. “If they want to eliminate noise, they should go after the cars honking their horns.”
Many imams, who draw their salaries from the government, were reluctant to criticize the ruling. But some, like Mahmoud, imam of a downtown mosque, says he will miss chanting the adhan, a spiritual act Muslims believe brings blessings from God. “This is what I have always done,” he says sadly. “The government is taking away from us something that is a very special and important responsibility for us
*In Egypt, religious ringtones set off controversy : February 23, 2010
Religious ringtones featuring koranic verses irk Egypt's grand mufti, who says answering one is like interrupting God to talk on the mobile phone
Five times a day, the cacophony of Cairo traffic is overwhelmed by the sound of the adhan, or call to prayer. Projected by cackling loudspeakers, the call reverberates around the city. Taxis blast imams’ sermons through open windows, while shops play koranic recitations. In Egypt, religious expression is everywhere – even on mobile phones.
Ringtones with religious themes have steadily gained popularity over the past few years. That was until Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa of Al-Azhar mosque, the country’s highest religious authority, issued a fatwa condemning the popular ringtones that feature koranic verses and the call to prayer.
“Putting the Holy Koran or the call to prayer as a mobile phone ringtone trivializes the sanctity of the verses,” Mufti Gomaa told the state news agency. Interrupting a religious verse to pick up the phone or having a recitation play in an inappropriate place, such as the bathroom, were among his examples.
But while many Egyptians on the street accept the rationale behind Gomaa’s thinking, some think a ringtone fatwa is going a little too far. Fatwas are edicts issued by Islamic scholars to provide religious guidance. While they are nonbinding in Sunni Islam, many turn to fatwas to understand how to apply traditional teachings to modern life.
“In my opinion, if a koranic verse is playing and you pick up and you interrupt it, that’s haram [forbidden],” says Monier Sami, a bakery cashier. Mr. Sami knows a lot of people who have removed their koranic ringtones since hearing Gomaa’s opinion.
“You interrupt a hadith or the Koran, the word of God, just to talk?” scoffs Mustafa Mohammed Ali at the whole concept.
But others question the fatwa.
“If I want to have the Koran on my cellphone, I think that’s a personal freedom,” says Hanaa Ezeldeen, a veiled shop manager at a sock store. For her, issuing a ruling on ringtones is going a little too far. “It would be haram to play it in the bathroom, but in the end, that’s my right,” she says
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