Starting Points: Call Like An Egyptian

Apr 30, 2012

Call Like An Egyptian

Call Like An Egyptian:
Are Egyptian mosques' call to prayer a role model for Indonesia's?

Giving a speech at a conference of the Indonesian Mosque Council, Indonesia's Vice President, Dr Boediono, made this comment about the call to prayer (a.k.a. adzan) at Indonesian mosques:

I feel, and perhaps other people feel the same thing, that adzan with lower volumes and heard from long distances will touch our hearts more than the hard, loud ones.

The Vice President has a reputation for avoiding controversy, but didn't stop there. Despite the potentially hostile audience, he also suggested that calls to prayer were "too loud", and their volume needed to be limited/regulated.[1]
In discussion of Boediono's speech, Indonesian mosques' calls to prayer were compared to those in Egypt. It is said that Egyptian mosques' calls to prayer have been "centralised", meaning that mosques can no longer broadcast their own call to prayer, only transmit a call to prayer broadcast by a government radio station.[2] This new policy was instituted after a 2004 letter to the Egypt's Ministry of Religious Endowments, complaining that the excessive volume of mosques' calls to prayer ruined its true spiritual significance.[3]
Should Indonesian mosques ~~walk~~ call like an Egyptian mosque?
I asked a friend who has lived in both countries (and currently resides in Cairo) about his experiences in this area:
1. How successfully have Egypt's new regulations on calls to prayer been enforced? Have you noticed any real difference?

They have never centralised the call to prayer.
They planned to, ran some trials, but general lack of enthusiasm and the revolution stopped any actual progress.
There has been no enforcement, no change at all. Everything is as loud as it once was.
The places that do it are Istanbul (Turkey) and Damascus (Syria), but I'm not 100% sure.

2. Where are the mosques louder - Indonesia (Jakarta) or Egypt (Cairo)?

Mosques are very loud in Cairo, but pretty loud in Jakarta, too.
From memory, Jakarta has fewer mosques than Cairo, where they are in every 3rd building or so it seems.

3. In both countries, is there any difference in mosque volume between larger cities and smaller cities, or more/less prosperous parts of Jakarta/Cairo?

Volume of the call to prayer essentially depends on how much money they have for amplifiers and speakers. More mosques in Cairo means louder volume.
Mosques are funded by the government, so they fund them in both poorer and richer areas.