Perhaps I should explain about the prayer call. When the Muslims hear the call to pray (the actual call is about 2 minutes long and happens 5 times a day) the devout Muslims immediately stop what they are doing to pray. I don't know very much about the content of the prayers themselves--perhaps that is something that I should find out in Jordan! But they pray on small prayer rugs and they face Mecca (FYI, when Muhammad started this, they faced Jerusalem, but then he changed it to Mecca later...I learned this from being a TA for MESA 250!). The first phrase of the prayer call is (in Arabic) "God is the greatest."
Really, I guess I don't know very much about the prayer call at all. I only know that it woke me up every morning at 4:30 and is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. It echos through the whole city and they have several minarets (towers on which loudspeakers are placed) to broadcast it so everyone can hear--so if you stand in certain parts in the city, you can hear two or three minarets at once--and they are sometimes in slightly different places in the call! I thought it was delightful...but obviously not everyone could handle the caucophony of confusion.
Anyway, this is one thing that I really missed about the Middle East and something I am very excited to return to.
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