THE FIFTH SEASON
The colour sticks to my eyes,
Or green, or red, or white and blue,
Until now I didn’t recognize it,
An alien colour – it is life, there is no miracle.
A sense will be born soon,
Neither gladness, nor care, but a stranger feeling
Not a blood in my tendon, rather a wine,
I am the basin neither new nor old.
My ears are slaves for one melody,
Its tunes neither playful nor sad,
My worlds fill with thought -
The muezzin is calling for prayer.
The lightning which lit up my mind,
Preparing the fifth season for me
My feelings are painted… white,
The world which I selected is real.
-- tr. Asror Allayarov, from "THE GATE OPENED BY ANGELS"
A Muezzin Calling from the Top of a Minaret the Faithful to Prayer -- Jean-Leon Gerome
The is chosen for his good character, voice, and skills to serve the mosque, but is not regarded as a cleric. His call is considered an art form. Historically, he would have recited the call to prayer atop a minaret in order to be heard, but now mosques often have loudspeakers and the muezzin uses a microphone or a recording. For a time, it was customary to appoint blind men to the position se he could not see into the inner courtyards of people’s homes. Bilal ibn Rabah, the son of a slave from the Banu Jumah clan and an enslaved Abysinnian princess, was one of the first converts to Islam and became Muhammad’s first treasurer in Medina and then, in 622, the first muezzin, who walked the streets to call the believers to come to prayer. According to the Sunni, Abdullah ibn Ziyad had the adhan (the call to prayer) revealed to him in a dream, and he taught it toM uhammad; the Shia claim that an angel transmitted it directly to Muhammad. The Suuni claim that after the death of the prophet, Bilal joined the military expedition in Syria and never called adhan again; the Shia claim that he refused to recognize Abu Bakr as caliph, even though it was he who had purchased Bilal’s freedom; Abu Bakr exiled him and he migrated to Syria and became an adherent to Ali’s rival claims to the caliphship. His descendants migrated to Africa and established the Keita clan of the Mandinka, who helped create the Mali empire.
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