The mosque of the Martyr King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein in Amman, Jordan.
It’s 5am and we are awakened by the muezzin’s recorded call to prayer. It’s being broadcast over a loudspeaker from the mosque adjacent to our hotel in Amman, Jordan. I bury my head under the pillow and drift off to sleep, only to be wakened 10 minutes later by the muezzin’s repeated chant, as persistent as the rooster we encountered at the crack of dawn in Luang Prabang, Laos.
The muezzin is the chosen person at an Islamic mosque who calls the faithful to prayer. He is selected for his good character, voice and service to the mosque. In days of old the muezzin stood at the top of the minaret – a tall spiral that resembles a lighthouse – and in a melodic voice, recited verse from the Koran, beckoning the faithful to pray. Today his voice is amplified over an electronic broadcast system and may be heard across this predominantly Muslim country five times each day: dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and night.
In smaller communities like Wadi Musa, the closest village to the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Petra, there are an estimated 20 mosques. Nestled in a valley, the muezzins prayer calls reverberate off the hillside in a cacophony of sound. I take advantage of these early morning wake-up calls to write, which accounts for the number of blog posts this week.
The prayer calls pique my interest and my request to tour a mosque is granted. I’m apparently not the only curious visitor as the mosque of the Martyr King Abdullah bin Al-Hussein in Amman boasts a souvenir shop and change room where we don a black abayas, a loosely fitting and hooded black robe, over our street clothes.
Much like a Buddhist temple, we remove our shoes at the entrance to the nave. I am astounded to learn this particular nave is capable of housing 3,000 worshipers. An open courtyard including a roofed gallery that leads to the nave accommodates 6,000 worshipers, and another 500 women may worship in a separate room.
The nave is carpeted in an ornamental, recurring pattern that demarcates each person’s allotted prayer space.
Pray facing Mecca
Upon entering the nave, the first thing I notice is the absence of an apse, an organ, pews, books of prayer or other furnishings common in a Christian church. Instead, the nave is unfurnished and is carpeted in an ornamental, recurring pattern that demarcates each person’s allotted prayer space. Congregants pray in rows facing Mecca and that direction may change depending where you are in the world. They either sit with their feet tucked under their buttocks or pray prostrate with the forehead, palms, knees and pads of the toes on the floor. For modesty, our guide explains that women generally pray in the back rows or in a separate prayer room. Where I expect an apse is the paneled wall with a recession that marks the direction of Mecca. The Iman leads the worshipers in prayer from raised minbar or pulpit.
Prayers are incorporated into a Muslim’s daily routine. We’re told that shopkeepers in downtown Amman simply put a chair in doorway of their store, signaling to shoppers that they’re at the mosque and will return in 15 minutes or so. In Jerash, we notice a father standing watch as his family prays at noon in a secluded area among some ancient Roman ruins. I glance quickly at the family and don’t notice whether they have prayer rugs or fabric to keep themselves clean during prostration. Minutes earlier we had heard the muezzin’s call to prayer, followed by the Iman’s sermon which was broadcasted over the minaret’s sound system. It’s Friday, holy day, and there have been protests outside the Egyptian embassy in Amman the last few Fridays. I’m told the Iman is preaching about “politics.”
I wish I understood Arabic.
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