70 Years Above the Minaret.. Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh, The Guardian of the Damascus Choir's Call to Prayer

SadaNews - From the heart of the Umayyad Mosque in Old Damascus, where ancient narrow alleys intersect and layers of cultural history accumulate, a sweet voice flows that transcends the limits of the place to inhabit the hearts of listeners. A voice that rises above the noise of vendors, the hurried footsteps, and the whispers of prayers, settling in the homes of the city's residents as if it were a member of the family.

This is the voice of Sheikh Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh, the oldest muezzin of the Umayyad Mosque and the oldest muezzin in the city, who inherited the profession from his father and has preserved it for 70 years, earning the title "Sheikh of Muezzins".

The Sheikh is considered one of the last actual guardians of a unique religious tradition in Damascus known as "the Choir’s Call to Prayer," a call that no Damascus ear can mistake, as it carries connotations closely tied to the sentiment of this ancient community.

A Child Inheriting the Minaret

In Damascus, the profession of the muezzin is passed down just like ancient heritage homes, from father to son, and from grandfather to grandson. Entire families have carried the title "the muezzin" as a preserved heritage that is cherished just like memory, and passed down as tales and names from generation to generation.

Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh was born in 1932 to a father who spent more than sixty years as the muezzin at the Umayyad Mosque, and to a grandfather who was also a muezzin. The child grew up walking behind his father to the mosque, repeating the call to prayer as if he were reciting a beloved melody he had memorized.

After his father passed away when he was ten years old, his older brother took on the task of training him to perform the call to preserve this legacy. Five years later, illness struck his brother’s body, and he asked the boy to call to prayer for the first time alone at the mosque of the noble companion Suhaib Al-Rumi in the neighborhood of Midan in Damascus. From that moment, the call to prayer was no longer just a family tradition for a child fascinated by this voice, but rather a responsibility that was placed on his shoulders early on.

By 1949, the young man started his regular visits to the Umayyad Mosque, known to the muezzins since he was a boy. A year later, he became an official muezzin at the mosque, alternating with dozens of muezzins in a system called "shifts," where prayers are raised according to three shifts, each consisting of fifteen to twenty muezzins. The bride’s minaret served as the center of the collective call to prayer before loudspeakers became widespread at that time, and the Sheikh worked in a nearby printing press. Whenever it was time for the call to prayer, he would leave the ink and paper and join his minaret.

In 1973, he was formally recognized as a muezzin within the "Sultan" shift attributed to the Damascene Sheikh Selim Sultan, and he began to ascend with 27 other muezzins, their voices uniting in a single call that transcends the walls of Damascus to its gardens and surrounding villages.

The Choir’s Call to Prayer.. A 600-Year-Old Damascene Secret

The Umayyad Mosque is distinguished by this inherited religious tradition since the late 15th century, known as "the Choir's Call to Prayer." Even today, several muezzins stand before the microphone, with one starting the takbir as the others harmonize behind him in a carefully orchestrated tradition that no other city knows.

Every Day Has a Call to Prayer

The Damascene call to prayer is linked to musical maqamat, with a specific maqam designated for each day: Saturday is the maqam of Saba, Sunday is the maqam of Bayati, Monday is the maqam of Nawah, Tuesday is the maqam of Sika, Wednesday is the maqam of Iraq, Thursday is the maqam of Hijaz, and Friday is the maqam of Rast, while the maqamat for the takbirs and announcements change with each prayer based on the day, and differ from the maqam of the call to prayer, except that the noon prayer is always raised on the maqam of Hijaz as an exception.

This variation was not a musical luxury at any point in history but formed an unwritten temporal system before the widespread of modern calendars, as the people of Damascus would distinguish the day from the maqam of the call to prayer, indicating the proximity of iftar during Ramadan from the speed of the Maghrib call, and the approach of dawn from the supplications preceding the call by half an hour.

An Overwhelming Presence

The city’s features and many details of daily life have changed, but the voice of Sheikh Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh has continued for seventy years to echo from the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque to distant neighborhoods that no longer overlook the mosque’s minarets yet can still hear the takbirs of its muezzins.

Even during the exceptional periods when the doors of the Umayyad Mosque were closed to worshippers, the voice of Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh continued to sound from it, preserving his daily presence, and comforting the city that has become accustomed to measuring its day according to the layers of this voice and its maqamat.

For decades, Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh has shaped a reference in the maqamat of the call to prayer, a living memory of the names of muezzins and their traditions, and he has granted new muezzins his knowledge and expertise, contributing to preserving this exceptional Damascene heritage.

When the corridors of the Umayyad Mosque emptied of muezzins, the Sheikh, along with another muezzin, maintained the tradition of the collective call to prayer until a new choir of muezzins was formed.

Sheikh Muhammad Ali Al-Sheikh is considered a model of how sound has transformed into a collective memory for an entire city, and into a daily presence accompanying its residents from the dawn’s first light until noon, and then to evening, within a tradition that distinguishes Damascus from other cities in the Islamic world, preserving its uniqueness for centuries.

Source: Al Jazeera