From Cairo to Capadoccia, the muezzin has moved me

I am a non-Muslim who wakes before sunrise for the predawn call to prayer. You might think the call wakes me, but this is not so.

Like clockwork each morning, I open my eyes to the palest gloaming, two to five minutes before the muezzin starts his recitation, as if in anticipation.

I might say my cat wakes me, which would be closer to reality. She certainly would if I failed to wake on my own. But in truth, I believe that she, with her fine-tuned circadian sense, simply knows the exact time I will be available for a few quiet cuddling moments. So the cat and I together listen to the muezzein’s cry, and one of us at least is captivated.

This is not the first time a haunting call from a minaret has captured my attention and briefly laid claim to my spirit.

In Istanbul, surveying the tiered city and sun-flecked Bosphorus from a rooftop, the midmorning call seemed as achingly beautiful as the landscape. One afternoon in Cairo the muezzin’s clarion pierced the din of massed humanity, suspending it in momentary stillness.

Most magically in Capadoccia, as I rested by a trail above a canyon filled with fairy-tale rock formations, the evening call commenced from a distant mosque, then from a second and a third, echoing in canonical harmony that surrounded me and swept up my senses.

I would have thought the reverberations unending, but they faded as the low autumn sun bathed the canyon in amber glory.

But this predawn fascination is new for me, and special to Abu Dhabi. In other lands, I have woken with the sun or later, even in the depth of northern winter when the sun rises late. Planned day-trips to the mountains for skiing required a whole series of preset alarms to rouse me from my slumber.

Here in Abu Dhabi, however, I wake in near darkness, awaiting the muezzein’s voice. Soon it begins, clear and sure, gaining in authority and articulation as the call progresses. His words trap my senses in translucent honey, every tonal embellishment a delectable flavour, and I feel my heart growing lighter and starting to soar.

Not only does the voice possess extravagant beauty and purity of tone, but it is also matched by lungs of awesome power whose owner has superb breath-control.

Frequently, since coming here, I have wondered why the call to prayer sounds somehow more polished and satisfying to my ear than it sometimes has in other Muslim countries I have visited. Part of it may be that the Arabic language flows better, with more intrinsic music, when voiced by those for whom it is a native tongue. But the rest comes down to the voice, this particular voice that reaches me each morning in the predawn stillness.

The lady tour guide at Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mosque may have solved the mystery for me. In the UAE, she said, the call to prayer disseminated from the nation’s mosques is transmitted live from the Royal Palace. Knowing the Royal Family’s proclivity for quality, I feel I may be listening to an Arab Pavarotti. Little wonder he grabs my attention!

This still leaves me with unanswered questions: Is my heart moved by a fleeting encounter with the divine, or by a talented human’s brilliant rendition of a timeless masterpiece? Does it matter? Could they be one and the same?

I have been fortunate in my life to have experienced many such delightful surprises: the irresistible polyphonic shifts and soaring melodic lines of a Palestrina motet have left me breathless; the unbridled joy of a swinging gospel choir in the American deep south has swept me off my feet; I have sat for hours absorbed in the ethereal simplicity of a few raked grooves drawn in white gravel around black rocks in the garden of a Japanese shrine; I have lingered gratefully in the spacious alabaster calm of the courtyard of Al Azhar mosque, a world apart from the ceaseless throb of the teeming Cairo streets.

Contemplating such mysteries could take a lifetime. But for the moment, as the voice completes its final flawless flourish before dissipating into the night’s remains, I simply sigh and turn over. The cat, ensconced on my pillow, her warm belly brushing the crown of my head, extends a paw and rumbles her appreciation.

Then we both settle thankfully for two more hours of blessed, untroubled sleep.

tcarlisle@thenational.ae