CAIRO: Sheikh Mohammed Badr trained for years at the prestigious Islamic university of Al-Azhar to master the intricate pronunciation and intonation of the Muslim call to prayer.
But his delicate voice is often drowned out by the howls and screeches of some of the other less polished calls coming from the loudspeakers of mosques near his.
The cacophony created by competing calls to prayer (adhan) prompted the government to design a plan for only one voice to be heard throughout the Greater Cairo area, doing away with both the rank amateurs and veteran prayer callers like Sheikh Mohammed.
I m very sad that I won t be announcing the prayer anymore, he said, adding that he will instead do administrative tasks at his Al-Radwan mosque in the middle-class neighborhood of Agouza.
I will miss my routine. There is a certain prestige that comes with announcing the adhan, said the 39-year-old muezzin, who awakes before dawn and, after a cup of tea and a few vocal exercises, summons people to prayer.
Once known as the city of a thousand minarets, Cairo is today home to more than 4,700 government-owned mosques as well as some 2,500 private ones, each with at least one muezzin.
The adhan, portrayed as a melodic voice rising sonorously from the mosques five times a day, often ends up in the metropolis of Cairo as a merciless din.
According to the plan by the Ministry of Endowments, which handles religious affairs, a muezzin will announce the adhan from one of the larger mosques of the city and his voice will be broadcast to others equipped with specially designed receivers.
After more than two years in gestation, the plan is finally moving forward. The equipment has been ordered, and just a few minor technical matters remain to be sorted out before the plan is implemented, the ministry said.
The plan was designed for religious and practical purposes, ministry spokesman Hazem Al-Guindi said.
First of all, it is impossible for all the muezzins to time their prayer at exactly the same instant, and with the increase in mosques over the years, this has created too much noise, he said.
From a spiritual angle, one performs a good deed by privately reciting the adhan along with the muezzin, but it is impossible to do that when there are so many voices at the same time, he said.
The project, which has cost LE 680,000 ($119,000), will only apply to the government-owned mosques in the Greater Cairo area. That will leave some 2,500 freelance muezzins to challenge the one voice for the whole city scheme.
The receivers, which were designed and built by a local company, cost LE 170 (less than $30) each.
Forty muezzins were chosen from among hundreds in a national competition for the most melodic and strongest voices. Muezzins need to have talent, solid knowledge of the Koran and the appropriate training. Not everyone has this, Al-Guindi said.
Those who were picked are very lucky, said Sheikh Mohammed, with a hint of regret.
Initially, the call of the new muezzins was to be broadcast through the state s very popular Holy Koran Service, but after a 20-day testing period, people complained of missing their old recorded favorites of famous sheikhs.
It was then decided to broadcast the single adhan from another state channel and it is the process of setting this up that has delayed the implementation of the plan.
For Ismail Hassan, head of the Cairo municipal council religious committee, that delay cannot last long enough as he vehemently rejects the new policy.
I am completely against this, he said. There are religious texts that prove that banning someone from announcing the adhan is forbidden. However, government officials maintain that the state mufti, the highest religious official in the land, has signed off on the project. His only condition was that the adhan be broadcast live.
Hassan, though, is also worried about the fate of the thousands of muezzins he fears might lose their job.
The ministry insists that no muezzin will be laid off.
Our laws don t allow us to fire anyone. The muezzins who will no longer call the prayer, will use their skills in other ways. They can teach the Koran, they can carry out administrative tasks at their mosques, said Al-Guindi.
Gharib Gamal, a 40-year-old fruit vendor who spends eight hours a day on the crammed streets of downtown Cairo, said personally I m very happy about the plan.
The way the adhan is now, it doesn t make you want to pray, he says describing his distaste for the noise coming from the microphones.
But then I realize it is the call to prayer and feel guilty for having felt that way, he said.
