There is a sad (to me, at least) item in today´s news:

Central broadcasting system for Islamic call to prayer

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Tuba Karahan
Anatolia News Agency-ANKARA

  Recently adopted by the Religious Affairs Directorate, a central broadcasting system for "azhan," the Islamic call to prayer, has satisfied many citizens who used to be disturbed by its non-simultaneous broadcast from minarets.

  The central broadcasting system for azhan had been adopted in 64 provinces and 320 districts all around Turkey, said İzzet Er, deputy director of the directorate. The system had not been adopted in some other provinces or districts simply due to technical reasons or because they do not need it, he said.

  Normally, the azhan is recited by "muezzins" five times a day to summon Muslims to prayer. The central broadcasting system puts an end to non-simultaneous recitations by different muezzins whose voices might also be disturbing for many because they have not been trained about how to recite the azhan or simply because their voices are not good enough.

  �Adhan has its own musical mode. So muezzins should perform it in compliance with it,� said Er. �Because not all muezzins are trained and have nice voices, they simply could not give the call with a harmonic voice five times a day. With the introduction of the central broadcasting system, each minaret has begun broadcasting the same unique version of azhan simultaneously.�

  Citizens have been expressing their satisfaction with the new system, he said. The central broadcasting system for azhan has not only prevented inappropriate performing of azhan by untrained muezzins but also the disharmonious blending of different vocal styles in neighborhoods where the minarets are in close proximity to each other.

  Er also said Islamic sermons conventionally provided by hodjas at mosques have recently begun to be provided through a central broadcasting system in almost all provinces of Turkey. Some citizens want to listen to sermons live from a preacher; they simply do not want to listen recorded sermons, he said.

  �The number of preachers the Religious Affairs Directorate employs is only 1,280. And there are about 80,000 mosques in Turkey. So, we have to provide centrally broadcasted sermons in all mosques,� he said.

http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=113688

I am sorry that this sort of centralization is being carried out. In the town I lived in for over a year there were several cami and, depending on where you were in town, it was common to hear two or even three non-synchronized calls to prayer at once.

I found the effect to be charming. Sure, the voices were different but the message was the same and to me the different voices did not clash or compete but rather mingled and reinforced each other. When I visited in early July and learned that the calls there had been synchronized, I felt a loss.

I very much hope this will not happen in the Sultanahmet neighborhood. There, the calls from the Sultanahmet and Firuz Ağa camilar are (I hope not were) syncronized in a different way. First, the müezzin from Sultanahmet sings one verse of the call, then remains silent while his colleague from Firuz Ağa repeats it. Then the Sultanahmet müezzin sings the next verse, to be repeated in turn by the Firuz Ağa müezzin, and so on. It´s quite an impressive and moving ceremony, because of, not in spite of, its simplicity.

I admit I don´t understand the Turkish need or even desire for rigid conformity in such things. The minor dissonances produced and extra time required for seperate calls to me imply a certain tolerance, an understanding that it is acceptable for people to vary a bit in outward observances as well as inward spirituality.

And the dissonance was lovely.

For what it´s worth, my last visit to Turkey, to the wedding of two of my friends, merited a mention in the local news.

http://www.erzincan.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3795&Itemid=101

Munzur Gözelerini is a wonderful place and well worth a visit but of course my friends´ wedding, as well as being able to see many other friends, made it special to me.

Everyone I encountered was very friendly but it helped a lot that I was traveling with a group of Turkish people, including local Ovacık and Tunceli people. I suspect I would have had some difficulties had I been on my own.

We went through quite a number of checkpoints, albeit with no problems.

I have noticed that something analagous to Grimm's law in German has happened to Turkish.

Unvoiced consonants have tended to become voiced - f has beeb replaced by v or t has been replaced by d in some words. The k (unvoiced) has not generally turned to (regular)g (voiced) but rather to ğ, which is really a glottal stop.

Also the kh sound has turned into h, noticably in foreign words and names. Bach (the composer) is pronounced Bah; Khayyam (the poet) is pronounced Hayyam.

My favorite illustration of all this is the way the city of Tephrike (pronounced Tefriki) has turned into Divriği, with the t turning into d, the f turning into v and the k turning into ğ. I have noted the transformation in numerous other words also.

I don't know when this process occurred and to what it extent, if any, it has happened to other Turkic languages. My guess would be that it occurred after the split between Western and Eastern Turkish (now represented by Azerbaijani).

The tunnel has been designed to handle a major earthquake, mostly by being flexible enough to withstand shaking and at least some displacement. The BART tunnels between San Francisco and Oakland are of the same type and faced the same issues.

There are also automatic flood doors in the tunnel to contain the flooding in case of a breach but these would be small comfort to anyone in a flooded section.

I've talked to men who were in deep mine tunnels during earthquakes and they said the experience was frightening but turned out not to be especially dangerous. As long as a tunnel isn't too stiff, it can handle a lot of flex.

I haven't been so happy the past few days. I quit my job in eastern Turkey and said my farewells over the last week. I made some good friends here and it was difficult for us to part. I'll be out of the country in a few days.

Turkish friends are the best.

There are certainly no publicly funded racially segregated schools in the U.S. Public schools form the great majority of schools in the country.

I know of no privately funded U.S. schools that are racially segregated although a very few may exist.

Lady Montagu is also famous for introducing the practice of inoculation against smallpox to England and the Western world in general. This early form of vaccination had been used for a very long time in China, India and other places but it had not been formally described.

Some Turkish doctors practiced smallpox inoculation and Lady Montagu had her sons inoculated against the disease. When she returned to England, she described and helped to popularize inoculation, including the inoculation of the British Royal Family.

Edward Jenner developed the use of cowpox inoculation many years later. This became the preferred procedure, as it is safer than smallpox inoculation.

Someone might be interested in:

A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich

This is his abridged version of his three volume work. It's interesting and a useful foundation for anyone who wants to learn about Byzantine history but I find it flawed in key respects.

It's very much a history of Constantinople, especially the Emperors and the Imperial court. Page after page is devoted to court politics and hairsplitting religious disputes but there is never a mention of the basic economy of the empire or military organization or the happenings of anywhere outside the capital, unless there was a battle there or someone went into exile. Plagues,invasions, technological innovations, earthquakes and such are dismissed with a brief mention or ignored entirely.

Still this is a good book to start with, if only because there are so few books on the subject in English. The style is a bit academic and very difficult for anyone not fluent in English. Turkish friends who have excellent spoken English had great difficulty with this book.


Another one I've read is:

The Turks in World History by Carter Vaughn Findley

This is a history of all the Turkic people, from the Xiongnu on the Chinese borderlands about 2500 years ago, through the first Türk empire about 1500 years ago in the same area through the Turkic expansion through Central Asia to Anatolia.

The history of Turkey is a significant part of this book but it covers the history of the other Turkic nations, mostly independent now after the fall of the Soviet Union. There is some useful political background for many countries covering the past 100 - 200 years.

There is not a pure history; sociology is freely sprinkled through its pages, sometimes providing insights, sometimes adding to the confusion of events.

Another book that is valuable because it covers such a neglected topic. Much of its coverage is superficial, as it must be in a book covering such an enormous period of time and space.

Roswitha, I really enjoy your posts and very much hope you will continue with them.