Technology and the Production of Islamic Space
The Call to Prayer in Singapore
Tong Soon Lee
Introduction
In almost every Islamic community today, the loudspeaker, radio, and television have become essential in the traditional call to prayer, a remarkable juxtaposition of high media technology and conservative religious practice. The loudspeaker simply extended the purpose of the minaret, that towering section of the mosque where the reciter traditionally stood to perform the call to prayer, his voice reaching the surrounding Islamic community. Until recently, this community in Singapore was still located relatively close to the mosque in a homogeneous context. In the early 1970s, however, as a result of urbanization and resettlement programs that accompanied the process of industrialization in Singapore, the amplified call to prayer became a source of conflict in the emerging reinterpretation of social and acoustic spaces. By focusing on the use of the loudspeaker and radio in the Islamic call to prayer in Singapore, I will explore the intricate, and sometimes stormy, relationship between technology and the spatial organization of social life. I want to argue that media technology is not necessarily closely associated with popular culture but can be inextricably bound to so-called “traditional” forms of expressive cultures, in this case, the religious institution of Islam.1
Adhan—The Islamic Call to Prayer
The Islamic call to prayer, otherwise known as the adhan (or azan), is recited five times a day from every mosque to inform Muslims of the prayer times, namely Subuh (before dawn), Zuhur (noon), Asar (late afternoon), Maghrib (after sunset), and Isyak (evening).2 For Muslims, the adhan is sacred. As a social phenomenon, the adhan unifies and regulates the Islamic community by marking the times for prayer and creating a sacred context that obligates specific religious responses. Upon hearing the adhan, Muslims are obliged to put aside all mundane affairs and respond to the call physically and spiritually. Indeed, the adhan is seen as a microcosm of Islamic beliefs, as it “covers all essentials of the faith” (Fiqh us-Sunnah at-Tahara and as-Salah 1989: 95). Furthermore, the adhan symbolizes the presence and blessings of God when it is recited in celebratory events such as births or during calamities.
While the towering minaret of the mosque serves as a physical landmark that signifies the sacred center of the local Islamic community, the call to prayer is a “soundmark” (Schafer 1994: 10) regulating the daily life of each Muslim. In this way, the Islamic community may be identified along acoustic lines, that is, “the area over which the muezzin’s voice can be heard as he announces the call to prayer from the minaret” (ibid.: 215).3 In broader cultural terms, the call to prayer is iconic of the social identity of Muslims.
In Singapore today, the recitation of the adhan in every mosque is amplified through the use of loudspeakers. In addition, a prerecorded version of the adhan is broadcast over the radio.4 There are two radio stations in Singapore that broadcast programs in Malay, namely Warna 94.2 FM and Ria 89.7 FM. However, the adhan is broadcast only on Warna 94.2 FM, as it caters solely to the Malay/Islamic community.5 Its broadcasting is entirely in Malay, while Ria 89.7 FM mixes both English and Malay and plays mainly popular music in both languages. At the time of this research, there was no television broadcast of the adhan in Singapore, but the Islamic community was able to receive a broadcast over the Malaysian television channels, Malaysia being directly to the north of Singapore.6 The old mosques in Singapore, particularly those built before 1975, had their loudspeakers placed outward, toward the community surrounding the mosque.7 After 1975, however, the loudspeakers in what are called the “new generation mosques” (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura 1991) were redirected toward the interior.8
Negotiating Islamic Space
Since 1959, when Singapore was granted self-government in domestic affairs by the British colonial office, the emphasis of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has been political consolidation, industrialization, economic expansion, and urbanization within a general discourse on nation-building (Chua 1995a). Such political motivations engendered the urbanization and resettlement project, formalized in 1967.9 Since then, “the fate of rural Singapore was sealed,” as there were “massive changes in Singapore’s cultural and physical landscape” (Sequerah 1995: 186). Attention turned to the construction of new “satellite” towns with public, highrise apartments constituting the core residential area, surrounded by industrial estates and served by expressways. As a result, rural settlements were gradually demolished to make way for these developments (Wong and Yen 1985; Chua 1995b; Seet 1995; Sequerah 1995).10
During the post–World War II period, until Singapore’s political independence in 1965, the bulk of the population lived in urban villages and rural kampungs (Chua 1995b: 227).11 The population distribution in the rural areas was largely characterized by ethnic distinctiveness, each forming relatively homogeneous communities.12 The population in Malay kampungs was largely Muslim and predominantly Malay, with Islam regulating “the pulse of kampung life” (Seet 1995: 209).13 Each kampung would usually have a mosque or surau—a sanctified space used for religious gatherings—headed by a religious leader (known as the imam) who led prayer meetings and arbitrated on matters related to the Islamic faith (Seet 1995).
In the urbanization process, the removal of burial grounds and places of worship caused anxiety among all ethnic communities (Straits Times, 1 August 1974; Berita Harian, 7 June 1974a, 7 June 1974b, 13 June 1974). Muslim leaders from PAP made numerous public addresses to the Islamic population, urging them to accept and adapt to a modern, urban environment. Muslims in Singapore were urged to “discard some of their age-old ‘adat’ [customs] to make way for progress” (Straits Times, 22 December 1973, 24 December 1973, 11 August 1974, 26 October 1974).14
One of the most important issues highlighted in their speeches was the assurance that the clearing of religious buildings did not apply to the Islamic community alone but also affected Chinese and Indian temples as well as Christian churches. The following observation, extracted from a newspaper article (Berita Harian, 11 June 1974), reveals the sentiments of several Islamic organizations toward this issue, which were expressed during a meeting held on 1 June 1974 (hereafter referred to as “Meeting”), out of which a petition was drawn and sent to the former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew15: “They were of the opinion [that] efforts were already undertaken [by the government] to destroy the freedom of Islam in our Republic.16 Muslim leaders emphasized that the removal of religions sites “has only been resorted to when absolutely necessary and unavoidable. In no way can this be represented as being done only against the Muslim places of worship.” Furthermore, they affirmed that the government, “had already publicly announced … that in the process of urban renewal and development, adequate sites would be [re]served for a temple, a mosque, and a church in each of the new towns.” In addition, the government had provided generous subsidies to the Islamic community for the purchase of sites for the building of mosques in these towns (Straits Times, 18 July 1974a).17
It was pertinent for Muslim leaders to assure the Islamic community of the impartial attitude of the government toward religious and ethnic issues in a country that emphasizes intercultural harmony. Nevertheless, the relocation of religious sites and the subsequent issue involving the use of loudspeakers for adhan recitation evoked larger social issues concerning Malays in Singapore.
Adhan and the Islamic Soundscape
Accompanying the altered landscape, which went from a localized, rural setting marked by ethnic homogeneity to a more urbanized and multiethnic environment, was a transformation in the organization of social space. Muslims found themselves in closer proximity to other ethnic groups and, at the same time, further from one another and from the mosque. Once exclusive to Islamic rural communities, the sacred acoustic environment of the amplified call to prayer was now “inhabited” by non-Muslims. In other words, the urbanization process had brought about the diffusion of close-knit and homogeneous ethnic communities into newly organized, heterogeneous, multi-ethnic communities. Muslims now inhabited highrise apartment complexes, with other ethnic groups and religious followers as close neighbors. These highrise apartments were microcosms of a multicultural environment that the government constructed in the process of building a cohesive nation, with quotas set on the percentage of each ethnic community living in each neighborhood.18
In the new context, sound production from traditional practices was sometimes regarded as “intrusive” by community members not involved in those events. The new, urbanized resettlement, therefore, also resulted in new regulations concerning these practices, one of which was the legislation of the anti–noise pollution campaign in August 1974. This campaign affected not only the Islamic call to prayer but also public and religious activities by other ethnic communities. How, then, did the anti–noise pollution campaign affect the Islamic community?
Between May and July 1974, as part of the noise abatement campaign, the government and Islamic organizations in Singapore decided to redirect the loudspeakers of the mosques inward; they had originally faced the exterior of the mosque. Newspaper reports published during this period showed that this decision infuriated a section of the Islamic population, thereby creating conflicts between the government and members of the Islamic community. This conflict arose because of the popular misconception that the government had planned to ban the use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer, thus threatening the very core of Islamic religious practice. A newspaper report (Straits Times, 10 June 1974) on the Meeting notes,
[i]n the view of the participants of this meeting, efforts were being made by the authorities to suppress Islam, contain its growth, and restrict the freedom of its followers when they came to know that mosques in this country would no longer by allowed to use microphones.
Some even went so far as to allege that this was an effort to put a stop to the muezzin’s call to prayers.
Reversing the directions of the loudspeakers toward the interior of the mosque under the pretext of the noise abatement campaign was not favorably received. A Muslim journalist (Berita Harian, 24 May 1974) asked, “why should the … loudspeaker … be directed into the mosques—wouldn’t that be diverting from the reason for azan—to call others to prayer? … Can the azan that lasts a minute be considered noise and a disturbance to others?”19 The Islamic community was urged to understand the necessity of reducing noise pollution in the new environment and to support the implementation of the noise abatement campaign (Straits Times, 23 July 1974). More importantly, newspaper reports emphasized that the campaign was not directed solely at the Islamic call to prayer but also applied to various activities of all ethnic communities and social institutions, including “Chinese opera, funeral processions, church bells, Chinese and Indian temples, music during weddings, record shops and places of entertainment … the recitation of pledges in schools and school sports” (Berita Harian, 14 June 1974b).20
The Singapore Muslim Assembly and the Singapore Muslim Action Front were two organizations that filed petitions with the government concerning issues that arose out of the urbanization program, among which was the controversy surrounding the use of loudspeakers in mosques for the call to prayer (Straits Times, 18 July 1974a, 18 July 1974b, and 24 July 1974; Berita Harian, 2 June 1974 and 14 June 1974b). Indeed, the Singapore Muslim Assembly noted that the Meeting was “a direct result of the controversy surrounding the use of loudspeakers by mosques to call the faithful to prayers” (Straits Times, 24 July 1974).
Muslim leaders from the ruling government, however, accused both the Singapore Muslim Assembly and the Singapore Muslim Action Front of “divisive folly” (Straits Times, 18 July 1974b). The two Islamic groups were said to have submitted their petitions on Muslim matters (referring to the issues emerging out of the urbanization program) to the Singapore Government to coincide with the Islamic Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), held during the period from 21 to 25 June 1974. Without waiting for the government’s response, they distributed copies of their petition to the public as well as to the participants at the conference to “discredit Singapore before the foreign delegates” on a “frequently exploited” issue—the “suppression of Malays in Singapore” (Straits Times, 18 July 1974a).21
The issue of the use of loudspeakers for the Islamic call to prayer reflected larger historical and sociopolitical matters pertaining to the Malays in Singapore. In Singapore, where the majority of the Malay population is Muslim, matters pertaining to the Islamic faith are very often bound up with ethnic concerns. In addition, Singapore was part of the Malaysian Federation from 1963 to 1965, and for historical and political reasons its constitution recognizes Malays as the indigenous population and Malay as the national language.22 This historical alliance with Malaysia had “given Singapore’s minority Malay population a sense of its own interests and political significance as a community in the larger regional picture” (Chua 1995a: 18). Furthermore, as a “Chinese enclave in the Malay sea” (ibid.: 108),23 the government was concerned with religious harmony and interethnic relationship, particularly between the Chinese—constituting the majority of the country’s population and its ruling political party—and Malay. In such a context, the Singapore government was circumstantially impartial in handling the problems that emerged from the urbanization program. It is important to note that this conflict indicates the central, but sometimes ambiguous, place of media technology in the Islamic call to prayer in a country that takes pride in ethnic and religious plurality.
After discussions with the government, Islamic organizations agreed to (1) reduce the amplitude of loudspeakers in existing mosques, where they remained facing outward, (2) redirect loudspeakers toward the interior of new mosques to be built in the future, and (3) broadcast the call to prayer five times a day over the radio, which previously only transmitted the sunset calls. The radio played an important role in resolving this conflict resulting from the use of loudspeakers in the new, urbanized context. Compared to the loudspeaker, the radio is a different form of media technology that was well adapted to the new spatial organization.
Mediating the Islamic Community
In the rural context, it was possible to define the Islamic community in Singapore as, borrowing Murray Schafer’s terminology, an “acoustic community” (1994: 214–17). In other words, a community characterized by the acoustic space within which the call to prayer could be heard. In the new, urban environment, however, it became difficult to maintain the Islamic acoustic community, because the environment had become larger and more interspersed with non-Muslims.
In the modern, multi-ethnic context of Singapore, the concept of the Islamic community had suddenly become a matter of fluid boundaries and contested public space. Roger Friedland and Deirdre Boden (1994: 33) emphasize that, “individuals, organizations, and societies construct space and time in the way they do because of the meanings they impart to them” (emphasize in original). In this way, we might understand all sounds as cultural phenomena with socially imbued meaning. The sacredness of the call to prayer is an Islamic cultural construct, yet, at the same time, it can be a noise hazard to the majority of non-Muslims in Singapore, just as Chinese street operas might be to the non-Chinese population.
Nevertheless, creating a sacred acoustic space to define community is crucial to an Islamic people struggling to affirm their cultural viability and maintain the social borders distinguishing their community in relation to the larger, non-Islamic environment. In urbanized societies, such borders are fluid, ambiguous, and usually tenuous. Electronic mediation of the call to prayer in the transformed environment provides the means to reclaim the acoustic space that once identified the Islamic community in its rural past. Paraphrasing Arjun Appadurai (1990: 17), who is himself paraphrasing Walter Benjamin, I would call this the work of culture production in an age of electronic mediation.24 In the rural past, the amplified call to prayer defined a physical space through the acoustic phenomenon that, in turn, defined the Islamic sacred and social space. The radio, however, superseded the loudspeaker in the new urban environment, taking over its role as a tool for culture production and also redefining the concept of community.
Presence/Absence of the Community
Regardless of the physical distances that separate Muslims from the mosque and from each other, they remain a community—an imagined community (Anderson 1991) defined in relation to the radio transmission of the call to prayer. Through the use of radio, the extended and separated profiles of Muslims in the urban environment now form an uninterrupted acoustic space and, as a result, a unified social and religious space. It is the radio, rather than the physical proximity of a mosque, that facilitates the cohesion of the Islamic community, and maintains its identity within the larger, urban context of Singapore. Indeed, the radio is sometimes revered as a symbol of God’s presence outside the locale of the mosque.
Friedland and Boden (1994: 23) note that, “the immediacy of presence is extended by humans, first through language, [and] now through technology” (emphasis in original). The far-reaching presence, or absence, created by technology implies the existence of extended spatial relationships between the sound producer and its recipient. The amplified call to prayer creates an immediate Islamic presence for a larger, more dispersed community. However, the reorganization of social space in Singapore had made it necessary for Muslims to reinterpret their tools of culture production and adapt to changes in social space.
At the same time, the media itself brought about new spatial and social relationships (Berland 1992). In retrospect, broadcasting the call to prayer over the radio appeared to ease the conflict. The radio is one form of electronic mediation that was well adapted to individuated users, such as the relocated and dispersed Islamic population: it simultaneously separates and reunites listeners in differentiated and expanded space (ibid.: 46). Electronic mediation creates a dialectical relation between presence and absence: the absence of shared physical space among Muslims in Singapore does not affect their religious and sociocultural identity because of the presence of shared acoustic space created through radio transmission.
Mediating Culture Production
Schafer (1994: 165) notes that, “all acoustic communications systems have a common aim: to push man’s voice farther afield … [and] to improve and elaborate the messages sent over those distances.” But we can see that, in the case of Singapore, the use of media technology has had larger social implications that concern culture production and the easing of intercultural tensions. It is, therefore, not an exaggeration to note that the reorganization of social space in Singapore during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in an increased dependence on technology to maintain cultural identities. The “new” Islamic context—defined by the electronic broadcast of the adhan—facilitates a mediation between technology, space, and social identity, as Islamic identity is “technologically articulated with the changing spatiality of social production” (Berland 1992: 39) in Singapore.
The conflict over the use of loudspeakers in the call to prayer suggests that the technologically aided production of Islamic culture is closely linked to the politics of religious and ethnic expression. The call to prayer does not merely inform Muslims that it is time to pray: it is a statement that says “we are Muslims.” As Arjun Appadurai (1990) notes, the process of culture production in changing spatial contexts has become a matter of identity politics.25 He further suggests that communications technology has relativized spatial dimension in the contemporary world, and in such a context social agents identify and align themselves along different axes.26 The use of electronic mediation is an example of such an axis that constitutes the heart of identity politics, where Muslims seek to maintain their past in the present—their historical construction of religious and cultural expression through the call to prayer in the larger, secularizing environment. The controversy reflects, as it continues to generate, an awareness of the inextricable relationship between technology and Islamic identity.
Miniaturizing Reception
Performing the call to prayer from the minaret had always assumed the collective, physical proximity of the Islamic community that surrounded the mosque. However, when it is broadcasted over the radio, the call to prayer becomes decentralized: the mosque is no longer the exclusive source from which the call to prayer is recited. In other words, what was previously an inclusive, community-wide tradition has now become decentralized and individualized, reduced to an almost personal, private act of worship.
Compared to the loudspeaker, the radio may be seen as a “miniaturization” (Chow 1993) in the broadcasting of the call to prayer. This altered mode of transmission requires, and is required by, a change in the form of reception and the concept of the “imagined communities.” In the spatially reorganized, urban, and multi-ethnic context, Islamic culture production through the call to prayer is now a matter of choice, of consciously creating newly localized and homogeneous acoustic sites through radio transmission, sites that are linked by commonalities of the Islamic culture. Listening to the call to prayer via the radio reunites each member of the Islamic community and creates an abstract communal Islamic space without the encroachment of non-Islamic social spaces. In this way, the individual listener is the context for electronic mediation and, at the same time, a product and process of the technological articulation of Islamic identity in a new spatial context.
Although the personal and almost private act of listening to the call to prayer separates the individual listener from the larger community, “miniaturizing” the call to prayer, to paraphrase Rey Chow (1993: 398), makes its listeners aware of the presence of Muslims as well as non-Muslims in Singapore. This altered state of reception of the call to prayer through the radio—the increased frequency of its broadcasting, and listening in “miniaturized,” individualized spaces—offers the Islamic community a means of cultural self-production within the collective, non-Islamic context of Singapore. This new form of reception of the call to prayer over the radio suggests that the “collective,” both Muslims and non-Muslims, is not necessarily an “other,” but a mundane and imagined part of the Muslim “self” that can be brought to presence, or relegated to absence, at the switch of a button. The radio provides its listeners with the power and the “ability to control the timing and spacing of human activities and thus the ‘locales’ of action” (Friedland and Boden 1994: 28). In terms of technology, Muslims are thus able to play an active part in their decision to participate in the imagined Islamic community.
While the government organizes, controls, and provides urban places through its resettlement program, the communities of people construct their own spaces through their practices of living (Fiske 1992)—in this case, constructing and maintaining an Islamic space through the use of electronic mediation. In this sense, then, “space is a practiced place” (de Certeau 1984: 117). While media technology may be a facet of the larger corporate and culture industry, usually dismissed as an alienating medium in the West, it is reconfigured as a “fully cultural process” (Ross 1991: 3) within the Islamic community in Singapore. In this way, “technology … is not simply the social and personal intrusions of big science made manifest; it also permeates and informs almost every aspect of human experiences” (Lysloff 1997: 208).
An important aspect of broadcasting the call to prayer (as well as other forms of religious speeches, Qur’an readings, and news of the Islamic community) is the redefinition of the listening context (Berland 1992: 41), which, in turn, enlarges the Islamic community. In Singapore, women do not usually attend prayers in the mosque, while men are obliged to do so. In this case, the radio may be seen as a main (if not the only) vehicle of maintaining the religious and social identity of women (and those unable to go to the mosques) through the broadcasting of the call to prayer. While the mosque serves as a structural space that facilitates group identity largely among men, the radio constructs a larger Islamic community that includes women. In this way, by “drawing new types of listeners” (ibid.), media technology reconfigures the concept of the Islamic community. Technology becomes a tool through which women affirm their status within the Islamic community. In terms of the physical proximity of the mosque, women are generally displaced from the community. However, in an electronically mediated context, women are not only involved in the Islamic community but are positioned equally with men in terms of their reception of the Islamic call to prayer.27
A new technological development has further enhanced the significance of the adhan in redefining the Islamic community beyond geographical boundaries: the concept of the eMuezzin. Based in Preston, U.K., PatelsCornershop.com allows volunteers to become eMuezzin and to deliver the adhan in the form of a text message on mobile phones through the Internet five times a day (www.PatelCornershop.com/muezzin.asp). Until the system can be automated, volunteers are requested to register to become Regional or Mosque eMuezzins, the former responsible for sending prayer messages (as well as other community messages) to a specific region (city, state, or country) and the latter oversees the sending of messages to members of a local mosque or Islamic organization. eMuezzins are allowed access to a special site to initiate the sending of the adhan to their respective locales.
The eMuezzin concept is not merely a new mode of delivering the adhan. Indeed, as with the radio broadcast of the adhan in Singapore, it not only reconfigures the conventional practice of the Islamic call to prayer, but it also significantly transforms and constitutes the habitus traditionally framed by it (Bourdieu 1977). PatelCornershop.com states that “the eMuezzin does not have to be a single individual. A group of people can share the task of an eMuezzin. Women are encouraged to be eMuezzins” (www.PatelCornershop.com/muezzin.asp). Thus, with the emergence of eMuezzin in contemporary technological context, the conventional notion of a muezzin as a male religious leader with good vocal skills no longer holds primacy—any Muslim man or woman can “produce” the adhan in cyberspace. Viewed in this way, web technology democratizes the practice of the adhan. The traditional frameworks that govern the conventional practice of the adhan remain intact. Media technology, however, enhances the propensity of the Islamic community to create new habitus, the “structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures” (Bourdieu 1997: 72). The new habitus generates novel practices of the adhan, transcending not only its conventional structures, but redefining its social contexts, and reconfiguring the meanings of “reciting” and “listening” to the Islamic call to prayer.
Conclusion
Past critics of mass media and technology have argued that these electronic forms are part of a larger culture industry that induces social alienation and passive reception, empties meaning from life, and is controlled by a dominating and oppressive power (Adorno and Horkheimer 1993; Postman 1993; Keil and Feld 1994). In Singapore, however, the use of the radio broadcast in the call to prayer demonstrates how a community actively employs media technology to maintain collectivity in a pluralistic society: media technology here affirms religious and cultural identity and is absolutely important in the work of Islamic culture production. We might say that Muslims are “traditionalizing” media technology and defining its social significance. Broadly speaking, modern media technologies have become part of a social process in contemporary cultures in which new uses are defined by different social groups with different needs and interests. In response to critics of media technology, then, I quote Paul Théberge (1993: 152), who asserts that, “the ultimate significance of any technological development is … neither singular, immediate nor entirely predictable.”
Radio broadcast of the call to prayer creates what Schafer (1994: 90) calls “schizophonia”: “the split between an original sound and its electro-acoustical transmission or reproduction.” Schafer intended the term to be “a nervous word” (ibid.: 91) and indicates his anxiety about the impact of sound technology on the sound environment. However, I have argued that, for the Islamic community in Singapore, the radio has been indispensable in their efforts to maintain their cultural identity.
To my knowledge, recordings of the call to prayer (for purposes other than the radio broadcast) are discouraged in Singapore—perhaps for the same reasons that the Qur’an is not translated into other languages—and live recitation is the accepted norm. What this suggests is the importance placed on the ephemerality of live performance: the act of recitation is as sacred as the text itself.28 Why, then, had it become acceptable for the call to prayer to be broadcast over the radio? Such schizophonic technology seems to run counter to conservative Islamic views of sacred performance. Nevertheless, Islamic leaders in Singapore seemed to be convinced that the benefits of media technology outweighed the costs, whatever they were, and that modernization does not necessarily lead to secularization. It is interesting to note that broadcasting the call to prayer has, for better or worse, produced an aesthetics for “good” versions of adhan recitation. An adhan reciter whose version is chosen by the Islamic Council of Singapore to be broadcast over the radio is revered as a good and skillful reciter whose interpretation is commended or even imitated by other reciters.
Media technology has played an important role in the situation I have just described, making the abstract principles of “space” immediate and tangible, creating an arena that offers possibilities for conscious acts of negotiation among ethnic communities that are divided in cultural and religious experiences. Where one form of media technology had created conflicts, another eased community disputes and created an environment of multicultural tolerance. It is important to remember that discourses about the meaning of space and value of technology are always socially and culturally constructed, and that these issues are among numerous ever-changing constructs that constantly get articulated, modified, and transformed on multiple fronts, including the field of ethnomusicology.
Notes
1. This essay was first presented at the Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Society for Ethnomusicology, 19–22 October 1995, Los Angeles, California. It is an extension of my master’s thesis, Musical Processes and Their Religious Significance in the Islamic Call to Prayer (University of Pittsburgh, 1995), written under the supervision of Bell Yung and René T. A. Lysloff. Fieldwork for the thesis was conducted in Singapore from May to July of 1994. I am grateful to René T. A. Lysloff with whom ideas for this essay were initially conceived and for his patient guidance, invaluable criticisms, and insights in later revisions. This version is revised and updated from that published in Ethnomusicology 43(1) (1999).
2. The exact prayer times, or Waktu Sembahyang, for each time period differs slightly throughout the year. In Singapore, the prayer times are published in a pamphlet by MUIS (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura), the Islamic Council of Singapore. Prayer times may also be viewed on the website of the Malay television channel, Suria, at http://suria.mediacorptv.com/freebies/prayertime/index.htm.
3. Muezzin (or mu’adhdhin) refers to the adhan reciter, usually a respected male member of a particular Muslim community with good vocal qualities.
4. The broadcast is sometimes used by muezzin in their respective mosques as a cue to begin the call to prayer.
5. The majority of the Malay population in Singapore is Muslim, that is, follow the Islamic faith.
6. In 1994, the two main channels were in English and Mandarin; Malay and Tamil programs were broadcast as part of these channels. Today, the Suria and Vasantham Central channels cater specifically to the Malay and South Asian communities respectively.
7. It is difficult to ascertain when loudspeakers began to be used to amplify the call to prayer in Singapore. Recollections of several elderly Muslims suggest that the use of loudspeakers probably began in the early 1950s. Prior to that, the kentung, a wooden, cylindrical idiophone usually placed in the mosque, was struck to summon Muslims in the community for prayers. In such situations, the adhan would be recited after the congregation arrived.
8. In 1975, a Mosque Building Fund Scheme was established by MUIS. Under this scheme, all Muslims can make monthly contributions towards the building of mosques in the newly developed, urbanized housing estates (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura 1991).
9. The project was known as the Ring Concept plan, with an emphasis on “the progressive urbanisation of Singapore’s landscape” (Sequerah 1995: 186).
10. See Chua 1995b for a critical discussion of how the concept of nostalgia (for the rural past) is appropriated in contemporary Singapore as a form of social critique of the present.
11. “Kampung” (or “kampong”) is a Malay word referring to “village.” “Kampung” and “village” are often used interchangeably; however, as in this case, “kampung” sometimes suggests a more rural setting in contrast to the village, which connotes a more urbanized context.
12. The three largest ethnic communities in Singapore are the Chinese, Malay, and Indian (predominantly Tamil-speaking); two other prominent communities are the Eurasians and Peranakans. Chua (1991) delineates two distinct types of villages in Singapore, namely, Chinese and Malay.
13. It is important to note that not all Malays in Singapore are Muslims, and that the Islamic community comprises members of other ethnic groups, such as Indians and Chinese.
14. “Adat” refers to the traditional or customary cultural practices of the Malays.
15. See Straits Times, 5 June 1974 and 10 June 1974, and Berita Harian, 2 June 1974 and 11 June 1974, and 20 June 1974, for descriptions of the Meeting. These Islamic organizations petitioned against the demolition of religious buildings and burial sites, as well as the noise abatement campaign that regarded the amplified call to prayer as “noise.”
16. Extracted and translated from a newspaper article written by Haji Muda Baru, a participant at the gathering who was expressing his views on the Meeting. He was directing his disappointment at MUIS for their apparent apathy towards the removal of burial grounds and religious sites.
17. Extracted from a speech by then Minister of Social Affairs Othman Wok.
18. See Chua 1995a: 124–46, and Lai 1995: 121–34.
19. Extracted and translated from a newspaper article by Mohd Guntor Sadali.
20. See Berita Harian, 14 June 1974a, for further discussions. See Straits Times, 20 July 1974, 25 July 1974, 26 July 1974, and 6 Aug 1974 for reports on how the noise abatement campaign affected Chinese street opera performance.
21. Extracted from a speech by then Minister of Social Affairs Othman Wok.
22. The lyrics of the National Anthem of Singapore are in Malay.
23. Singapore is situated at the south of peninsular Malaysia and is surrounded by the islands of Indonesia.
24. Appadurai paraphrased Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1969: 217–52) as “The Work of Reproduction in an Age of Mechanical Art.”
25. Appadurai uses the term “-scapes” to describe such spatial fluidity.
26. See also Appadurai 1996.
27. For example, boys are separated from girls in religious teaching classes for children at the Whitechapel Mosque in London’s East End (Wazir 2001).
28. Indeed, Benedict Anderson (1991: 12–19) concedes that the cultural systems of distinct religious communities (such as Islam) were imagined largely through the medium of sacred language and script (such as classical Arabic).
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NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: STRAITS TIMES (SINGAPORE)
“Adat That No Longer Applies.” 22 Dec. 1973: 7.
“Discard ‘Adat’ Call: Malay Groups Agree.” 24 Dec. 1973: 10.
“Muslim Team Appointed to Send Memo to Lee.” 5 Jun. 1974: 23.
“Need for Clarification on Noise Pollution and Call to Prayers: Translation of an Editorial from Berita Harian, Jun 7.” 10 Jun. 1974: 13.
“Politicians Exploiting Religious Issue—Bid to Smear Government: Othman.” 18 Jul. 1974a: 1, 17–18.
“Divisive Folly.” 18 Jul. 1974b: 10.
“Clamp on Noise from Wayangs.” 20 Jul. 1974: 11.
“Let’s Throw Our Weight behind Anti-Noise Move.” 23 Jul. 1974: 8.
“We’re Not So Foolish: Muslim Groups.” 24 Jul. 1974: 11.
“Noise Control: Wayangs Seek Deposit Cut.” 25 Jul. 1974: 5.
“Of Funeral Rites and Noisy Wayangs.” 26 Jul. 1974: 12.
“Muslims Won’t Be Affected by Government Cremation Plan.” 1 Aug. 1974: 5.
“Plea for Cut in Wayang Fees.” 6 Aug. 1974: 5.
“Mattar: Urban Renewal a Must for Progress.” 11 Aug. 1974: 5.
“‘Face Problems Squarely’ Call to Muslims.” 26 Oct. 1974: 13.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: BERITA HARIAN (SINGAPORE)
“Adakah tindakan itu sengaja bertujuan hendak menghina? [Is the Action Intended to Be Disrespectful?]” 24 May 1974: 4.
“Badan 15 orang dibentuk untuk uruskan masaalah Islam [A Body of 15 Formed to Handle Islam’s Woes]” 2 Jun. 1974: 10.
“Rumah2 ibadat yang terjejas [Houses of Worship Jeopardized]” 7 Jun. 1974a: 1, 8. “Pembangunan semula: Penerangan perlu diberi [Redevelopment: An Explanation Must Be Given]” 7 Jun. 1974b: 4.
“Perjumpaan badan2 Islam: Sikap MUIS dikesali [Gathering of Islamic Bodies: MUIS Attitude Regretted]” 11 Jun. 1974: 4.
“Resolusi mengenai ganti tapak mesjid sudah dipinda [Resolution on the Replacement of Mosque Site Has Been Amended]” 13 Jun. 1974: 1.
“Jangan lekas marah sebelum pelajari tiap persoalan sedalam-dalamnya [Do Not Be Quick to Anger before Studying in Detail Every Issue]” 14 Jun. 1974a: 4. “Pertemuan badan2 Islam dan Pemerintah dianjur untuk Pemerintah dianjur untuk atasi masaalah yang mereka hadapi [Meeting of Islamic Bodies and Government to Overcome Problems Confronting Them]” 14 Jun. 1974b: 4.
“Kecewa dengan sikap ‘lepas tangan’ MUIS terhadap soal bersama [Disappointed with the ‘Washing of Hands’ Attitude of MUIS Regarding the Issue of Togetherness]” 20 Jun. 1974: 4.
WEBSITES
Wazir, Burhan. 2001. “Call to Prayer: How Bengali Boys in London’s East End Are Marrying Tradition with Modern Britain,” The Observer, 18 March (http://www.observer.co.uk/britainuncovered/story).