The Call to Prayer, revised

As of 2010, about 20% of Israel's inhabitants are Arab/Palestinian and most of those Muslim. Yet you will see their mosques and minarets nearly everywhere. So? You say.

But some Israeli Jews say, So their 5-times-daily calls to prayer--from the minarets or, if a mosque has no minaret, from the mosque itself--are loud. And they, the Jews, are getting tired of it. Especially in small towns. Especially the 5:40 a.m. call.

Legislation has been introduced to insist that while Jews recognize the Muslim right to worship, they would like their Muslim neighbors to find a quieter way to call to prayer.

I've been there, as you know, and heard the calls to prayer. They are loud, and, yes, especially in the pre-dawn darkness. I have no solution for this "problem," but I will say that faithful Muslims know when to pray anyway, as I have seen with people who live where there is no call to prayer. And as I saw on the Royal Jordanian Airline flight that took us home. Up near the galley, a faithful Muslim laid his mat on the floor and had his prayers.

What I have written sounds political or biased or something, and it came as a surprise to me. I had intended only to show a picture or two of a minaret.

The Dome of the Rock, a most sacred Muslim place, on Temple Mount in the heart of old Jerusalem. There's more than a small irony here because Temple Mount is also sacred to Jews. Solomon's temple and the Second temple, built by Herod, stood at this place. I am in the picture also.

You can hear the adhan, call to prayer, on You Tube, if you like. You will hear a man's voice chanting in Arabic. We heard it firsthand--or ear--and glad I am of it, because I had never heard the like of it in my life.

At first I wondered if someone went up into the tower to chant, although I thought that unlikely in this age of technology. And it is true. They don't send a guy up to chant. No. The sound is recorded, and I actually saw large loudspeakers sticking out of one small minaret tower in Jordan. Kind of spoiled the beauty, you know. But okay. I suppose the function and purpose is more important than the aesthetics of the place.

Minaret in Jordan near Petra. Notice the dome of a small mosque to which the minaret is attached.

This is at Caesarea in Israel, on the Mediterranean Sea. You can see a minaret in the distance.