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September 15, 2007
And the Winner Is... Muezzin Isa Aydın
[Originally published in Turkish Daily News]
EDIRNE — The magnificent Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, in Turkey's northwestern end, has hosted millions of prayers since the late 16th century, when the great Ottoman architect Sinan built it. But last Sunday the splendid shrine hosted an usual event: an “ezan contest,” during which 10 competing muezzins (ezan-reciters) performed the Muslim call for prayer with all their artistic skills in order to win the financially modest but spiritually invaluable prize.
The ezan (or Adhan, in Arabic) is the Islamic call for prayer that has been recited in Islamic lands since the time of Prophet Mohammed. The Koran does not speak about this practice, and tradition says early communities of Muslims invented it when discussing how to call fellow believers to the mosque for prayer.
The Message
According to tradition, it was Bilal El-Habashi, or “Bilal the Ethiopian,” one of the first non-Arab Muslims and a close companion of the prophet, who suggested using the human voice and did so by his strong and beautiful tone. He climbed up the first mosque in the first Muslim city, Medina, and recited the Muslim call for prayer.
Since Bilal, the first muezzin, these sentences have been read aloud by muezzins from many nations five times a day every single day. For most Muslims, hearing the ezan is a blessing for the heart.
Even if they don't rush to the mosque, they listen to it respectfully. Some people even stop talking until the end of the call. They might sit up straight if they are lying or leaning. And they will murmur, “God is powerful.”
And since the ezan is so important, Muslim tradition has developed special styles for reciting it in order to make it more musical and impressive. Virtually all Muslim cultures have developed their own style, but, arguably, it is the Ottoman Turks who made ezan reciting an art in itself.
In the Ottoman tradition, the five ezans of the day are recited in five different styles, which actually come from Turkish classical music. For the morning prayer, there is the “Saba” style, for example, and for the evening there is “Segah.” The toning, speed and emphasis are all different. A good muezzin should know about all these details, and, of course, should have a beautiful voice.
The Contest
In Turkey there are more than 80,000 mosques and, of course, not all muezzins are great tenors. Moreover, not all of them can follow the traditional styles of ezan reciting. Hence more and more Turks complain about the low-quality ezans, which not only fail to reflect the beauty of the divine message, but even become an annoyance for refined ears.
The Diyanet, Turkey's state-sponsored official religious directorate that controls all mosques, has decided to bring a solution via promotion. The organization, which is undergoing a silent reform under the directorate of theologian and professor Ali Bardakoğlu, started to arrange ezan contests four years ago.
Since then, every city in Turkey selects the best muezzins it has. These singers are eliminated by a group of experts until the top ten are selected. At the final stage, the top 10 contestants show their skills in front of an experienced jury and hundreds of fellow believers.
That's what happened in the Selimiye Mosque of Edirne last week. Ten muezzins from 10 different Turkish cities recited the ezan in front of a jury of four academic experts and at least 1,000 mosque-goers.
It was an interesting scene, because in Turkey mosques are regarded only as places of worship, not centers of social activity. But here were four serious jury members sitting at a long desk, 10 excited contestants with their huge name tags, and dozens of reporters and cameramen, including a TV team from Austria.
The contest started after the noon prayer. First the muezzins came to the jury's desk and cast lots to figure out the ordering. The jury's head, Dr. İsmail Karagöz, explained that the contestants would be scored by each jury member over a maximum 100 points and each mistake they did would take five points away. It sounded a bit like a Eurovision song contest.
Then the muezzins read the ezan out loud one by one. The audience listened to their strong voices with a deep silence. Some were taken away by the holy words and moved into tears. And after a short break for discussion, the jury announced its decision.
The winner was the participator from Istanbul, muezzin İsa Aydın. A young and smiling character, and definitely a great soloist, Aydın was also humble. The other muezzins were also very good, he insisted, and he was lucky.
“They traveled from far cities to Edirne,” he said, “that might have badly influenced their voice.”
When asked about the meaning of the prize he won — which included a few coins of gold, suits and shirts — he said the most important award was spiritual. “You cannot measure the value of ezan,” he said. “We do this for the sake of God.”
From 1932 to 2007
All of this corresponds to a very interesting phenomenon, because it tells us a lot about Turkey's complex ways of modernization. Contests are modern things. They promote individuals, not communities, and thus contribute to individualization in a society.
In Turkey, the culture of contest grew as mainly a secular fashion. The daily Cumhuriyet organized the first beauty contest in 1929. In 1932, a young girl named Keriman Halis won the contest and became “Miss Turkey.”
What would make her even more famous was her success in the Miss World contest held in Spa, Belgium, in which she represented Turkey. On July 31, 1932, she was crowned Miss World among competitors from 27 countries. Atatürk celebrated her achievement and declared that it proved “the beauty of the Turkish race.”
Since then, beauty contests have become a tradition in Turkey not only to celebrate the “Turkish race,” if there really is such a thing, but to proclaim that Turks are a fully Westernized nation.
Turkey's Westernizers, who dominated the state and society in the first decades of the republic and acted as vanguards of the social transformation, expected the whole nation would gradually follow the same path. At some point, they hoped, all cultural ties with Islam would be erased and replaced by “contemporary,” i.e., secular codes.
Yet the Westernizers soon realized that not all Turks were buying into their dream. A considerable part of the society was willing to preserve its Islamic identity and culture. The Westernizers labeled these believers as “reactionary forces” and threatened to “crush” them by force, which they have repeatedly done.
But there was a crucial point that the Westernizers were missing: The Islamic parts of society had started to modernize themselves, too, albeit in a way of their own. They were not taking their headscarves out and putting on bikinis, or abandoning their mosques and rushing to cocktail bars, but they were advancing themselves and their children in education, business, culture and even politics.
In the 1990s, they even started to out-perform the seculars in integration with the global economy and the desire to strengthen Turkish democracy. In the 2000s, they emerged as the champions of the EU bid. Theirs was a type of modernity, too. But unlike the Westernizers' secularist dream, it was a modernity with Islamic values.
Perhaps the long and bumpy road from Keriman Halis, Miss Turkey of 1932, to İsa Aydın, Mr. Muezzin of 2007, should be seen within this perspective. The practicing Muslims are discovering modern means to express and proclaim their traditional faith. This doesn't mean the end of modernization as some secularists fear. It only means that Turkey's story is, and will be, much more complex and colorful than it was imagined in the 1930s.
Posted by Mustafa Akyol at September 15, 2007 11:48 AM
Just a couple of points which emerge from your reference to Sinan and your comment about ‘celebrating the “Turkish race,” if there really is such a thing’.
On Sinan, the Ottoman architect. He is an interesting character. Born a Greek to a Christian family in Anatolia, he was co-opted, aged 23, into the janissaries by the Devshirme or ‘blood tax’ system, in which non-Muslim youths were rounded up, taken from their families, converted to Islam and prepared for a life of servitude and service in the Ottoman administration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devshirme
After a peripatetic military career, where he develops his engineering skills and absorbs all sorts of influences from Europe and the Middle East, he begins to build the mosques, mausoleums, baths and so on, for which he is now renowned.
Now, what Sinan’s biography reveals – apart from the cruelty of the Devshirme system, the darker aspects of Ottoman rule, which are worth remembering when talking about the ‘majesty’ of the Ottoman empire – is the heterogeneous nature not only of the Ottoman empire but also of today’s Turks; and how all these racial theories that abound in Turkey about pure-blooded Turks from Central Asia is a lot of nonsense. (It seems, for a start, that one of the most famous and influential Ottomans of all was not a Turk, but a Greek).
In fact, I’m sure a check into Turkish DNA – if such a thing were desirable or relevant – would reveal all sorts of ancestors – Greek, Armenian, Kurd, Arab, Slav as well as ‘pure blooded’ Turk. Nothing wrong with this. It doesn’t diminish anyone’s right to call himself a Turk or belong to the Turkish nation. Having mixed-up genes applies to every single nation on earth. However, recognising that Turks have a rather complicated DNA/racial profile might just be another step away from asphyxiating Kemalist/Turkish nationalism and make Turkey a country more at ease with itself and its neighbours.
Posted by: alexander at September 16, 2007 12:11 AM
The cruelty of the medieval devshirme system...Taking minorities, putting them into palaces, giving them better education than everyone else, grooming them to attain the highest levels of political influence, and worst of all raising them MUSLIM??? Only those Ottoman barbarians could conceive something that terrible.
Posted by: kartari at September 17, 2007 5:43 PM
If there were a world championships in defending the indefensible, a Turk would win every year.
Forcibly taking away boys and youths from their families, stripping them of their identities and turning them into slaves. How is this not cruel? Maybe we have different conceptions of cruelty. The argument you use – about the good conditions (some of) the devshirme enjoyed – reminds me of the arguments those against the abolition of the slavery in the southern USA used to make: that slavery was positively good for the slave.
See this:
http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/teaching/vclassroom/proslavewsht2.html
Who said the issue had anything to do with Islam? If the devshirme had been forcibly converted to Buddhism, the cruelty would be the same. Admittedly, what we’re talking about is a policy of assimilating conquered peoples, something all empires from the beginning of time have turned their minds to – so that no one is saying it’s only the Ottomans who have indulged in this cruelty – but to deny the cruelty is a little ridiculous, don’t you think?
Admitting that aspects of the Ottoman empire were cruel, corrupt, brutal and so on, shouldn’t cause you any concern or consternation. In the history of the world, which empire was all sweetness and light? Not one; so why do you think it is a slur to suggest that the Ottoman empire had its good and its bad points, just like a hundred other empires.
In fact, in these democratic times, we’re more prone to condemn than to praise empires, find fault with them rather stress any positive attributes they might have had. Again, why do you think the Ottoman empire should be excluded from this criticism? What are you scared of? I live in Britain, and if someone here were to say that the British empire was a perfect enterprise, which brought peace and prosperity to all who were part of it, that it was the ideal human institution, with no faults or downsides, they’d be laughed at. To be honest, I don’t think anyone – other than a hardline – and very nostalgic – British nationalist, would even dare talk of the ‘majesty’ of the British empire.
Posted by: alexander at September 18, 2007 4:01 AM
"The cruelty of the medieval devshirme system...Taking minorities, putting them into palaces,..."
The great majority of devshirme never saw any palaces. The great majority never received any education. They were used as cannon fodder or slaves on the homes and farms of the Ottoman elite.
Posted by: Nulifer at September 18, 2007 5:19 PM
Folks,
We're talking about medieval ages. The slavery were always there. It is stupid now to accuse these people. Coming today we see how the "civilized people" are behaving slaves in Guantanamo or Ebu Gharep or Palestine. And now we're talking about how cruel was Ottoman empire to slaves. At least they had a little bit of mercy !
Posted by: blue at September 19, 2007 9:37 AM
Oh Alexander,
Where have you been? Those Turks so terrible so violent so uneducated so against humanity. This is getting boring on not only my part by many people who read your tragic articles on this website. I have suggested before in response to some of your articles that your motivation is racial hatred of the Turkish people not justice or to notify a past injustice commited by Turks previously.
All you have done and repeatedly have mentioned in your articles on this website is critisms of Turkish and Ottoman goverment actions. Not once have you made an acknowledgement, not once have you made any positive comment about the Turkish people. I don't intend to go over and over like you do in woffling untrue, unsubstantiated and quite outright absurd comments about the Turkish people and Turkey. Now I'm not at all condoning any injustice or saying that Turks are angels. But I will say this to you. The Turkish people are a very humane people.
If the Ottoman Empire was such a bad and evil empire as you potray all the time why did it last for over 600 years Alexander? Evil regimes don't last long at all go and read your history books. Evil regimes always end up where they rightly deserved to be end up. History.
Why do I say the Turks are a very humane people? I tell you why. The Ottoman Empire occupied what in todays terms equates to over 60 countries. Which of these countries speak Turkish as a first language? How many of these countries adopt the old Ottoman laws? Which of these countries are all its citizens Muslim? I do acknowledge that some countries did choose Islam such as Albania and Bosnia? But a lot of them chose to stay with their own faiths such as Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia, etc. In fact these countries may have Turkish influences but choose to keep them. Which is a far cry from the British who raped and pillaged all of the countries they occupied. Example is India. Before India was occupied by the British, India was actually one of the wealthiest nations in the world. When Britian occupied it, India became a very poor country which it is still sufferring today. Talk about being a great coloniser. In fact India's legal system is made of English law isn't that correct? Again I suggest to you go and read your history books to learn about genocidal actions by the British.
In regards to the 'devsirme', the 'devsirme' was commonly used to give new opportunities to people who were of non-Turkish stock for a better life. Maybe for someone like you, you don't like to see Turks being successful. But this practice which lasted until 1829 was very successful and done in full agreement with the parents of the kids who participated in the devsirme program. Once example was Mimar Sinan who became the best architect in the world.
My advice to you Alexander is give up. Move on and stop with your anti-Turkish tirade on this website. There is more important things to life than just racism which sadly Alexander you need to get rid of. It is getting very tiresome reading you articles which is full of vengeful critism and recylced opinions from racists. Time for you to enjoy life!
Posted by: Goksel Doganay at September 22, 2007 4:19 PM
Goksel. You make me laugh. Thank you.
Posted by: alexander at September 25, 2007 1:43 PM
Thanks Alexander. Laughter is what you need considering some of your arguments are racially based. I would also advise you to respond to my criticisms rather than trying to brush off my comments as 'You make me laugh'. Maybe if you make sound and rational arguments you will be taken more seriously. That is my challenge to you!
Posted by: Goksel at October 3, 2007 4:46 PM
A retired imam from this great mosque of unique architecture befriended me while in Edirne several years ago. He took me to several larger mosques to include the Selimiye and the Health Museum. While at each mosque and the museum, he sang a prayer from the Koran, and it was then I could truly appreciate the ezan. His voice literally stopped everyone in the mosque with the beautiful sound.
While most do not sound as lovely, it gave me new appreciation for the sounds coming from the mosques which sit on every side of my home. Even more, how amazing that a building built with perfect acoustics so long ago cannot be duplicated today.
Posted by: Bea at November 30, 2007 2:01 PM