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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   2215 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 11, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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The 'Adan' (call to prayer) is less grating than the church bells of Europe.

That's the most surprising part for me.

I grew up in a 33-33-33 Hindu-muslim-Catholic neighborhood, so both the Church bells and Adan are familiar sounds. Adans are sung. So they've always sounded more intrusive and distracting to me. The church bells last less than 30 seconds, have no words and ring out with a pleasant decay. The sounds have a generally warm timbre. (for the lack of a better phrase). On the other hand, the throaty and nasal composition of the adan feels sharp.

I wonder if the adan in Iraq is qualitatively different, or I'm just observing some level of internalized bigotry.

In small Swiss towns church bells are very loud and (obviously) very regular. Bells don’t ring every hour but every 15 minutes, all day.

So I can completely see how the Adan might seem less intrusive compared to Swiss church bells (where the person visiting Iraq lived), given it’s only a few times a day.

That makes a lot of sense. Where I lived, the church bells only rang twice a day.

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