Call to prayer

Drifting over the rooftops five times every day is the call to prayer. The first is at dawn, the second at noon, the third in the afternoon, the fourth just before dusk and the fifth is later in the evening. The precise times of each prayer therefore depend on the time of year and where in the world you are.

The مؤذن | muʔazzin | person who calls the prayer from each mosque has a different style; some are warming and melodious, others are downright toneless. Entwined together, these different voices rise up and create a concoction of sound that is intended to bring to mind to every believer and non-believer the essence of the Islamic faith.

The recordings below are taken from Al-Minaa Al-Sharqiyya Mosque, a street away from the hotel where I first stayed in Alex, and the particular style of this muezzin will no doubt serve as a memory hook to my first few days here. The mysterious eruption of sound becomes less dizzying as days go by, as I gradually ascertain the indvidual words.

I mentioned in this article that Egypt is a diglossial country, operating in both Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (the interest of this blog) and Modern Standard Arabic. That claim is only two-thirds true. For the majority of the Egyptian population who are practicing Muslims, life is triglossial, for another variant known as Classical Arabic exists, and this is the language in which the Qur'an was written and prayers are recited.

The first call is known as أذان | ʔadān, which announces that it is time for prayer. Muslims then have a few minutes to change into suitable clothes and perform ablutions before a much quicker speedier, known as إقامة | ʔiqāma, is delivered, and that is when prayers actually begin. The text of the two components is very similar:

الله اكبر الله اكبر x 2 أشهد ألا إله إلا الله x 2 أشهد أن محمدا رسول الله x 2 حي على الصلاة x 2 حي على الفلاح x 2 الله اكبر الله اكبر x 1 لا إله إلا الله x 1

2 x aḷḷāhu ʔakbaru_ḷḷāhu ʔakbar 2 x ʔašhadu ʔalla ʔilāha ʔilla_ḷḷāh 2 x ʔašhadu ʔanna muḥammada_rrasūlu_ḷḷāh 2 x ḥayya ʕala_ṣṣalāh 2 x ḥayya ʕala_lfalāḥ 1 x aḷḷāhu ʔakbaru_ḷḷāhu ʔakbar 1 x lā ʔilāha ʔilla_ḷḷāh

2 x God is great, God is great 2 x I bear witness that there is no god but God 2 x I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God 2 x Come to prayer! 2 x Come to success! 1 x God is great, God is great 1 x There is no god by God

الله اكبر الله اكبر x 1 أشهد ألا إله إلا الله x 1 أشهد أن محمدا رسول الله x 1 حي على الصلاة حي على الفلاح x 1 قد قامت الصلاة قد قام الصلاة x 1 الله اكبر الله اكبر x 1 لا إله إلا الله x 1

1 x aḷḷāhu ʔakbaru_ḷḷāhu ʔakbar 1 x ʔašhadu ʔalla ʔilāha ʔilla_ḷḷāh 1 x ʔašhadu ʔanna muḥammada_rrasūlu_ḷḷāh 1 x ḥayya ʕala_ṣṣalāti ḥayya ʕala_lfalāḥ 1 x qad qāmati_ṣṣalāti qad qāmati_ṣṣalāh 1 x aḷḷāhu ʔakbaru_ḷḷāhu ʔakbar 1 x lā ʔilāha ʔilla_ḷḷāh

1 x God is great, God is great 1 x I bear witness that there is no god but God 1 x I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God 1 x Come to prayer! 1 x Come to success! 1 x God is great, God is great 1 x There is no god by God

A short, beautifully lyrical complement is always called after the أذان | ʔadān at this particular mosque, and I haven't heard it elsewhere. I still don't know what's being said. Perhaps there is a Muslim or Arabic speaker out there who understands it:

Addressing people

One of the tensest moments I ever had working in retail was serving a customer during the lunch-time rush. It was particularly busy, as that day this residential street in Central London was throwing a street party for the Queen's Jubilee. I could see quite clearly that this fan of Twixes was a woman - there was no doubt about it - but what slipped out of my mouth as she peered into her purse for change was a cheery "good morning, sir!". I was as shocked as she was, and the proverbial cat had such grip on my tongue that I couldn't even apologise.

Of course, it's rare to confuse someone's gender. But, as I have been discovering, Egyptian Arabic is has far more cultural landmines when it comes to addressing people than English does. The title you use depends not just on gender, but on other characteristics that in English would be considered a breach of political correctness, such as age, religion and social class.

My first lesson in this came in thanking my taxi driver with the form of address that I've been using daily at university for the past two years: يا استاذ | yā ustāz, which literally translates as professor (c.f. Spanish "usted", the polite second person pronoun). Of course the man wasn't a professor, but as I understood it, it is a polite term that could be used in other situations too. "انا مش استاذ | ana miš ustāz | I'm not a professor," he replied, in such a way that he clearly thought I was being sarcastic.

I learnt later that although the term extends beyond actually professors, it is still only used for middle class people with a formal education. Despite my belief that the knowledge of a taxi driver is probably quite extensive, especially in the realms of local geography and history, social mobility seems so non-existent in Egypt that the term couldn't even come across as a polite gesture of solidarity. People know their places and I must learn to recognise them too.

The second term that got me into trouble is يا حاجة | ya hagga, which literally means pilgrim but is used to address elderly Muslim women who have probably lived long enough to have undertaken the pilgrimage to Mecca. The woman I was sharing a lift with wore a niqab, so I didn't have much to go by, other than that she was clearly a Muslim woman. When I asked which floor she needed, addressing her with this term, she let out a giggle that suggested she was probably no older than me.

Not wanting to reproduce what's already well documented elsewhere on the internet, I will provide this link for a more complete list of the many, and sometimes surprising, forms of address in Egyptian Arabic.

One term that they don't include is يا برنس | ya brins, a corruption of the English word prince, a playful but polite way of addressing young men. Recently, trying to tell an teenager that I didn't want to buy the friendship bracelet he was offering me, I accidentally addressed him as كابتن | kaptin | captain, which is used for younger children, which clearly got on his pubescent nerves. Sometimes offending people is the best way to ensure you won't forget a word again.

Phone etiquette

I have already noticed hundreds of differences in the way people interact with each other here to the culture I'm used to, and none has been more in-your-face than mobile phone etiquette. A simple request for directions from a police officer or chatting to a stranger on a train platform are the sort of instances so far that have led to an exchange of phone numbers. In fact, if I had an Egyptian pound for every briefly-met Mohammed now in my phone, I could probably pay off my hotel.

There is no doubt that the taking of my number and later phoning it is a gesture of hospitality, manifested for example in unwarranted concern that my train has arrived safely at its destination. But it was quite overwhelming at first. Recently, I woke up a few dark hours before the dawn prayer to my mobile shuffling its way across the bedside table, and six missed calls from a number that I barely recognised. I sat bolt upright and answered the phone.

Me: What's wrong?!
Mohammed: Hello my friend! How are you?
Me: I'm fine. What's wrong?!
Mohammed: I'm just fine, thanks be to God! What's your news?

And it didn't even occur, at least to him, that there might be better times to chat than the dead of night. Even at more reasonable hours, incessant phone calls turn out to be nothing more than a series of pleasantries inquiring about your health, your location, and then those of your family. The conversation is brought to end by asking the collocutor whether they need anything, although none of these questions seems to be taken literally. No-one wants to know what your news actually is; rather, they just require a standard answer confirming that everything is fine, thanks be to God.

انت فين؟	inta fēn	where are you?
ايه الاخبار؟	ēh ilaxbār	how are things?
عايز حاجة؟	ʕāyiz ḥāga	do you need anything?

There seems to be no way out of exchanging your number, by the way, unless you're a very elaborate liar. The use of a fake number will be foiled as soon as it's dialled it in your presence. Likewise, having taken someone's number (for subsequent deletion), you will be expected to give someone a missed call. Nevertheless, the whole process has produced some good vocabulary, especially the term for a missed call, which would make the Arabic purists, the defenders against foreign loanwords, shudder with horror.

مكالمة مست	mukalma mist	missed call
اتّصل	ittasal	to get in touch (بـ with)
كلّم	kallam	to phone (هـ s.o.)
ضرب تيليفون	ḍarab tilifūn	to give (لـ s.o.) a call
رنّ	rann	to ring (لـ s.o.)