Muslims’ Prayer Call Inspires Time Outs

OPINION

Somewhere, anywhere, the call to prayer in Turkey is a marvelous, murmured song. Born aloft five times a day, the music of Islam’s call to the faithful, cast from loudspeakers over busy streets of Istanbul or rising with the sun in tiny Anatolian villages, leads me directly into the mystery of Islam. Every mosque has at least one minaret and a balcony where the muezzin cries out ‘Allahhhh …u Akbar,’ God is great, the same Arabic phrase Muslims have used for nearly 1,400 years. Muslims believe that by offering prayers five times a day they are strengthened and enlivened in their beliefs in Allah, and that they are inspired to a higher morality. Perhaps my first visit to a country sculpted by over 600 years of devotion to Islam caused me to focus on the potential for peaceful awareness that these intermittent time-outs allow. While for Muslims, the prayer is one of the five practices required by their faith, imagine the effect upon us all if we were to take 10 minutes out five times a day to make a quiet interruption to our hectic pace. Breathing deeply, stretching, looking up at the flowering trees or listening to the birds’ spring tizzy adds up to almost an hour of rest. Imagine being reminded of the call to prayer on the car radio, much like a civil defense drill. You’d turn off your radio or cell phone and come back to yourself. Islam is very simple. For Westerners, the religion, evangelized by the prophet Mohammed in the 600’s A. D., has grown from mythology to menace. Not immune from the distortions all religions suffer, Islam has served the purposes of craven despots and crazies. But to approach a philosophy at first blush as I have is to see the fundamental strength of the faith. Istanbul, strategically located on the Bosphorus, straddles Europe and Asia, symbolically reflecting its historical prominence as both the center of early Christianity in the Byzantine period, and Islam under Mohammed. The Ottoman Empire reached its zenith in the 16th century, solidifying the conservative influence of Islam. Today, mosques silhouetted against the open sky, dazzle the Western eye. Like Rome, this city is built upon seven hills, each crowned by a mosque with its wide classical dome and towering minarets pointing upward. Much like the churches and steeples that dot a New England landscape, these reverential institutions attest to the ecclesiastical foundation of the city. Turkey is a decidedly secular country, but 98 percent of the population profess to be devout followers of Islam. Not wanting to sound na’ve or doctrinaire, I nevertheless am drawn to the idea that prayer plays an important role in the day and the life of every pious Muslim. No matter how you define ‘prayer,’ taking a breather seems like a healthy retreat.