Ars Longa Vita Brevis

For several decades I lived and worked in the Muslim world, first as a journalist, then as a diplomat. In that world, a leitmotif day and night in public and private spaces -- mosques, shops, taxis, parks or private homes -- is the Muslim call to prayer, or adhaan.

This painting, Adhaan, is a soundless rendering of that pervasive sound. The setting is the sunset prayer. The scene is the southeast corner of the monumental Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, which I visited often while stationed in Syria (1997-2001). The muezzin is the small figure on the balcony of the minaret. He raises both hands to his head to amplify his voice as he recites:

"God is Great! God is Great!
I bear witness that there is no god except God.
I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.
Hasten to prayer. Hasten to salvation.
There is no god but God."

The Sound of Islam

The second and third lines of this are the shahada, or Muslim profession of faith, the first of the five pillars of Islam. The other pillars are prayer (salat), almsgiving (zakat), fasting during Ramadan (sawm), and pilgrimage (hajj). The adhaan rings out at least five times a day -- just before dawn (fajr), at midday (dhuhr), mid-afternoon ('asr), just after sunset (maghrib), and in the evening (isha'a). Some or all of its component phrases may be repeated several times. For the pre-dawn prayer, the muezzin adds the phrase, "Prayer is better than sleep". 

Above, early 8th-century Umayyad fals with 

"Muhammad Rasuul Allah" (Muhammad is

the Messenger of God), part of the shahada,

in the center field. 

The adhaan has many sounds -- from the harsh and unadorned to the artful and melodic, with endless variations imbetween. I recall one deafening rendition, at a small mosque near where I lived in Riyadh in the early 1980s, that was little more than grating, raspy shouting through loudspeakers. This is because some religious conservatives consider any effort to embellish the Word of God profane and wrong. By contrast, one also may also hear profoundly moving and melodic renderings, such as those of the prominent Egyptian reciter Yasir Abdul Basit Abdul Samad, himself the son of a prominent reciter, or qari.

Styles of Qur'anic Recitation -- Murattal and Mujawwad

Traditionally, the muezzin of a mosque would be skilled in Qur'anic reciting, a complex field of study with very specific rules. 

There are two basic styles of recitation -- murattal and mujawwad. Murattal is clear recitation without melodic artistry. Its intent is maximum clarity and conveying the text and its meaning clearly and accurately. It is thus accessible to the Arabic student who wants to study and understand the text of the Qur'an and proper pronunciation. When I was in Kuwait (1988-1991) I acquired a murattal recording of the entire Qur'an by the noted Egyptian Qari Mahmoud Khalil al-Husari (1917-1980). 

The mujawwad style of recitation, by contrast, adds melodic artistry and is used in public recitation. Its intent is to elicit an emotional and religious effect. Public recitations one can find on YouTube of Yasir Abdul Basit Abdul Samad and others are examples of the melodic mujawwad style. So, once the student has studied and learned the meaning of the text in murattal, la mujawwad recitation can be great listening because the artistry of different reciters is quite considerable. Qur'anic recitation contests are commonplace, and skilled reciters become considerable celebrities with large followings. For a deeper dive on the dynamics of Qur'anic recitation, see "The Art of Reciting the Qur'an" (University of Texas Press, Austin, 1985), an excellent book by Arabist and musicologist Kristina Nelson. 

In daily life, of course, all is not artful and melodic. With the march of electronic progress, the muezzin's voice is more often than not amplified by loudspeakers and even supplanted entirely by recordings. In a nod to this reality, in Adhaan I have placed two loudspeakers on the minaret balcony alongside the muezzin.

*****

Reminders:

-- See the Events section in the main menu of my website for a list of current showings in Maine and California -- with links to more information on the various works exhibited. 

-- A small number of signed artists proofs can also be found on the website. These are test prints I made for quality checks. There are only a few of each and they are signed by the artist, so an inexpensive alternative to buying an original painting.

-- In addition, a variety of high-quality fine art prints in different sizes can be found at my Geo Galleries site, priced from $20.